Kris Carr: So I want to talk about—before we kick off, how to create, habit challenge for yourself—I want to talk about the idea of parenting yourself. Okay. Many of you are parents, or you remember having parents. You know what I mean? We all have parents. And one of the most important things that I think a parent can do for us when we’re children is to help establish loving boundaries. So like a loving container. And that container is something that we can continue to grow in.

For example, let’s say a loving boundary would be to teach your children sleep training habits, right? So putting them to sleep at a regular time, making sure they’re getting enough rest, making sure that they have enough energy. Because we all know what happens when we’re exhausted. And it’s even more difficult when you’re a child, like they’re just not stress hearty, they have no idea how to contain how crappy they feel because they need the sleep, right? So as parents, we have this opportunity to create these loving guardrails, to create a container, to create consistency, to create boundaries.

Another thing we would do as parents is to make sure that our children are nourished, that they have healthy foods. So that they’re not just running on sugar all the time and feeling really hyper or frazzled or, you know, all the things that we feel when we’re jacked up on sugar that are even worse when we’re children. Okay.

So why do I bring that up? Because we all have this opportunity to parent ourselves at any time. And I don’t know about you, but I feel like once I became an adult and I was out of the home, out of that loving container where there were strong, loving boundaries, where there was discipline, where there was structure, it was a little bit of a free for all. Like, oh my gosh, I’m an adult. I can do anything I want now, which was really exciting, right? There’s nobody around to tell me that I can’t do something—if I want to stay up late, if I want to have tons of sugar, I want to drink too much wine—I can do that because I’m an adult!

Yes, and. Yes, and we still need to lovingly parent ourselves. We still need containers. We still need structure. We still need healthy boundaries. We still need some discipline. So when we think about recommitting to ourselves, I also want you to think about it through the lens of parenting yourself with a whole lot of love. Because you and I both know that we thrive when we feel good. We thrive when we have some structure. We thrive when we’re taking care of ourselves. It doesn’t have to be all-encompassing. It doesn’t have to be onerous. It doesn’t have to make us feel like we’re deprived, and these rules stink! None of that. But it does have to come from that place of, look, I love you and that’s why I’m going to make sure that you are set up for success so that you can feel your best.

Okay, so we forget this, and life is all about forgetting and remembering and forgetting and remembering. But one of the things that can happen when we forget—we forget our power, we forget how to care for ourselves, maybe we forget how to set ourselves up for success so that we thrive—is we get really hard on ourselves, right? We’re hard on ourselves because we didn’t reach the goal. We’re hard on ourselves because we’re not, at the weight we want to be at, so forth and so on. You know, the example in your own life and you probably, if you’re like me, know what it feels like to start to beat yourself up. I set this goal. I didn’t get there. Cue the beating. We’re going to be good parents. We’re not doing any of that shit to the little you and the little me. Okay? So we’re hard on ourselves because we didn’t meet the expectations, the goal, whatever it was. And we focus so much on that goal, we focus on the outcome. But you and I both know the outcome is not as important as the process.

The outcome is not as important as the systems that you have in place to actually reach that outcome. Systems, meaning the habits you have in place to reach that outcome. It’s great to have these wonderful lofty goals. Maybe they’re financial goals, maybe they’re health goals, the maybe they’re relationship goals. Great, I love goals! But goals fall apart without structure, without a framework, without a simple system that’s put in place so that you can take one little turtle step at a time. Without those little turtle steps, the goal is a pipe dream. Whoa! Let me say it again. Without turtle steps, the goal is a pipe dream. So set the goals—great! But today, I want to help you focus on the process, the framework, the systems that will help you get to that goal. So that is you design your own challenge, you can be successful. Does that sound good?