266: Untethering Yourself from Your Past

Extraordinary is a choice. Take that in, soak it up because of the hustle grind, repeat mantra that society has been touting for decades. It had it all wrong. I’m Tanya Dalton. I’m a seven figure entrepreneur bestselling author speaker, mom, and rule-breaker I’m here to help you live to your fullest potential. That’s what this podcast is all about. The Intentional Advantage is doing live on our own terms, defying the status quo and seeing ourselves outside of the tidy definition. Society’s name for us. It’s intentionally choosing to step back away from the chaotic rush of your every day and choosing, choosing to see that it’s your world and it’s filled with opportunities. Let’s challenge the bedrock beliefs that so many have wholeheartedly trusted because we were told they were truths. Let’s have a healthy disregard for the impossible.

 

Let’s choose to be extraordinary. Hello, Hello everyone. Welcome to the Intentional Advantage podcast. I’m your host, Tanya Dalton. This is episode 266. It also happens to be the final episode in our season where we have been talking about reclaiming your power. Oh, it’s been such a great season. I have. Well, first of all, I’ve loved moving to this bi-weekly format.

 

I can’t tell you just how freeing that is. It has been revolutionary for lack of a better term. It really has. I think for someone like me who is caught up or who has been caught up, let’s go ahead and reframe that as something I’ve done in the past or who has been caught up in overachieving over perfecting over all of everything, right?

 

It was really difficult to make that decision to move to every other week. I worried about if I was letting people down, if there was this expectation and that’s really been very freeing for me, it’s been really freeing to let go of obligation and expectation, and that’s given me room to step into my own power. And it’s funny because y’all have reacted so supportively so incredibly to this shift I’ve made.

 

And I think it’s because I feel like with having this breathing room, this space in between the episodes, I’m able to really be even more intentional with it. I’m able to really a thousand percent show up for you for myself and really for what I feel like my purpose is in this world. So thank you all so much for being so supportive. And I have to tell you,

 

I feel like each time we do a brand new season, it is a reflection of what I’m going through and the growth that I am experiencing and watching what you guys are doing and listening to you. I love, love, love getting your emails. I can’t tell you how much that lights me up, how excited I am to hear from so many of you and to really understand how a lot of these conversations we’ve been having are resonating with you,

 

whether it was talking about letting go of the identities that we had, or talking about boundaries, the conversations that we had about the patriarchy and, you know, really opening ourselves up to pleasure. And we obviously have to talk about the first episode we’ve ever done on sex, which turned into a fabulous, Intentional Advantage live, where we answered questions about sex.

 

We’ve talked about financial freedom this season, and it’s really been an amazing journey. So thank you all so much for allowing me to do this. It really is. It’s just something I love getting to connect with you. And so when I was thinking about this closing episode on how I really wanted to tie a nice bow on the season, you know,

 

as you know, if you listened to me on the podcast before, you know, I map out a season at the beginning, but I give it a lot of grace. I give it a lot of fluidity so that it can go where it needs to go much like writing a book. I feel like, you know, when I wrote on purpose,

 

I had this very clear cut idea. I had it all outlined. I had it all mapped out. I had a writing plan, everything was in place and that was in February of 2020. And then the pandemic happened and all those writing plans went out the window. The outline kind of went out the window and I let the book really move in the direction it needed to go based off of what I was seeing and hearing from.

 

So many of you and the podcast is very much the same way, where I have an idea of where I am at the beginning and where we are on our journey and where we want to go. And I map it out, but it really has been incredible to allow the season just to flourish the way that it has. So thank you all so much for that.

 

You know, as we’re talking about reclaiming your power, I don’t think we can have this conversation without really diving into reinvention because part of reclaiming your power is stepping into who you want to be, which a lot of times can involve reinvention, which I’ve taken a little ways to get here as we’ve gone into this intro, but that’s what we’ve done on this podcast.

 

You’ve been watching that in real time, the reinvention of what I had been doing in the past and shifting that into what we have now, right? So let’s talk about this idea of reinvention because I think reinvention can be frightening. It can be scary. I think so often we think of it as this closing the slamming of a door and opening of a new one.

 

And instead I want you to think of it as a metamorphosis, as a shifting of who you are. And here’s the thing. When a butterfly goes into metamorphosis, when it, the caterpillar goes, it builds its own cocoon, right? If we were to go and open up that cocoon right afterwards and try to free the caterpillar, it wouldn’t have the wings wouldn’t have developed.

 

They need to build the strength of beating against the cocoon in order for the butterfly to flutter away, as soon as it’s ready to emerge. And it’s no different for us, there’s going to be a little bit of a struggle. There’s going to be a little bit of beating our wings and sometimes beating them in frustration. But ultimately all that’s doing is strengthening us for the journey ahead.

 

So that’s what I want you to think about. As we talked about reclaiming our power, some of the conversations we’ve had may have made you uncomfortable. And I think that’s a good thing. I think anytime that I am uncomfortable, it’s a sure sign that I’m like, Ugh, I need to spend some time thinking of this. Or maybe I need to lean into this a little bit more because I know comfort staying in my sweat pants and Netflix mode.

 

That’s really easy, but no growth is happening. I’m not evolving. I’m not shifting, I’m not stepping into my potential. And ultimately discomfort can be this little alarm bell that it’s like, this is the right way for us. Sometimes it’s an alarm bell that it’s like, no, not for you. And that’s okay too. But if there been conversations we’ve had that,

 

you’re like, Ooh, I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s right for me. That’s okay. Not everything I talk about is going to be right for you, but it might also be a chance for you to stop and pause and think about this is this really discomfort because this is the next step in your journey. And it’s really daunting when we don’t know exactly where all those steps are going.

 

I want you to think about getting yourself in that right mindset of really thinking about who you want to be. I think mindset is, is everything. And it is really starting to ask yourself some questions about what it is you want in life. I was just interviewed on a podcast the other day. And I said to people, I said to the podcast listeners,

 

I want you to set a timer for 15 minutes, give yourself 15 minutes today and ask yourself, what is it you want? What is it you desire without worrying about that loud mouth voice in your head, which is your ego, right? Or what anybody else thinks or what anybody else would say. If they saw the list, just give yourself time to just dream and see how that feels.

 

I would love for you to do that for yourself today. In fact, if you don’t mind, go ahead, pause the podcast really quickly. And I want you to block into your calendar 15 minutes today, not tomorrow, not next week, but block it in today. 15 minutes of just dreaming about where you want to go, what might look like,

 

what that could be like, what it might feel like 15 minutes is not a lot of your time. Am I right? You have 168 hours. Every single week, 15 minutes is just a drop in the bucket. So I want you to think about that. And I’m going to get you thinking about this by asking a question that my friend at Chris Blackie was talking to me about the other day.

 

She and I had a call and she said she was going through an exercise that I thought was really powerful. She said, what would you believe if you woke up tomorrow with no memory of the past? That’s what I want you to think about. When you take your 15 minutes today, what would you believe if you woke up tomorrow with no memory of the past,

 

if your past didn’t matter, if none of it had anything to do with who you are, what would you want? What would you desire? Where would you want to go? I mean, this is the thing is this is PO you might be thinking right now, like, okay, that all sounds good in theory, but I do have a past you’re right.

 

You do. But people reinvent themselves all the time. I mean, let’s talk about how people do it in negative ways. The re-inventing Ana documentary that was not really a documentary. It’s kind of a mockumentary. That’s on Netflix. That was really popular earlier this year, where she completely created her own past. She didn’t do it for good, but clearly it’s possible.

 

Right? We have to stop thinking that we cannot do things simply because our past tells us that we allow our past to disqualify us from our future. I want you to think about that. How have you allowed your past to disqualify you from the future you dream about? Because the truth is your past is just part of the stepping stones. You you’ve heard me talk about this idea of your backpack,

 

how we all have this backpack that we wear, where we put in our lessons learned and the trauma we’ve gone through and all the different things that we have moved through in life. And the backpack gets really, really heavy. Sometimes the backpacks filled with a lot of bad things, but also a lot of good things, but we can take the backpack off the backpack.

 

Doesn’t define us. You’ve heard me say before, and I say this in the book and on purpose, stop saying fake it till you make it. You need to believe it until you become it. And that’s what I want for you to do. I want you to believe in you no matter what anybody else believes, because anything is truly possible when you believe in you.

 

And yes, we’re talking here about reclaiming your power about really stepping into who you want to be. And I know that idea and that concept feels very, maybe theorial or feels very abstract, but it’s really about choosing you. Believe it until you become it, believe in you until it actually comes to fruition. And it might mean that you have to have difficult conversations from time to time.

 

I mean, I feel like one of the biggest questions I get asked is what do I do? If people around me don’t buy in on my dream, this is reclaiming your power. You buying it on you. You don’t need everybody’s buy-in and you definitely don’t need permission. I want to encourage you to speak your truth, even if your voice feels hoarse,

 

because it’s been too long, be authentically who you want to be and stand true to that. I know that reclaiming your power, that really standing in confidence with who you are, is never easy. And I know this from my own experience, you know, I think sometimes people will assume or think that I’ve got it all figured out or things are easy for me.

 

I hear that from time to time and it’s not, it’s really not. In fact, I’d love to share with you a little bit, really quickly of a story of something, things that happened recently. You know, my latest book, well, both, both of the books were, I mean, it was an exercise in reclaiming my power throughout the entire process with a giant corporation,

 

with a big entity that’s publishing the book, you know, in the process, I was told things like women don’t like the word productivity. I was told not to use the word productivity on the back cover of my book because women don’t like that word. I was also told people want to know they can achieve their goals. They don’t want to know how don’t,

 

don’t give them any of the, how to do these things. Just give them well, I’ll say it, just give them the fluff, give them the raw. You can do it kind of thing. The cheerleading, which I love cheerleading. I love rallying people up, getting them fired up, but I’m not going to do that without giving you some how to,

 

I’m not going to do it without giving you strategies and actionable exercises and things you can actually implement. I had to fight tooth and nail to make things happen. Even when you get a great book deal. Even when you think that you’ve gotten some sort of platform or you think that you have a voice. One of the things I was told was that they wanted to change my wording in the books.

 

They wanted to change how I said things. They said, this isn’t your voice. We don’t think this is your voice. Can you imagine that said to a woman in 2021, that I don’t know my own voice, but I knew that if I was going to write a book for you guys, and I was going to tell you to stand true to who you were,

 

that sometimes you got to go against the status quo. Sometimes you got to have the difficult conversations I knew. I couldn’t just lie down and take it. I knew I had to draw a line in the sand and say,<inaudible>, I am not crossing that. And that’s what I did. And it’s hard. I’m not going to lie. That was not easy.

 

People have already been asking, when are you writing the next book? And I’m like, I need some space. I need some breathing room to really step into that again, because it is a difficult process with other people thinking that they’re going to tell you how you’re going to present yourself to the world. And I’m not here for that. I’m not going to allow that to happen.

 

Not if I’m asking you to step out of your comfort zone. It means I have to step out of mine as well. And that meant sometimes pissing people off. And I did. There’s lots of things that I can tell you behind the scenes. I can’t quite tell you just yet, but they will come. That will shock you. That would surprise you.

 

And those stories will come eventually, but not today. Not right now. I’m not quite ready. It’s it’s been a, it’s been a long road, but I think that’s the thing is so often we look at others and we think they’ve got to figure it out, or it’s easy for them, or they’ve got these things in place. So it must be,

 

you know, easy and it’s not reclaiming your power means continually reclaiming that power, reminding yourself of who you are and what you’re capable of. And that’s what I want you to do. I want you to remind yourself of what is possible of what you dreamed about in the past, what you dream about today. That’s what the 15 minutes is about. So let me give you a couple of just really quick and easy strategies,

 

some things I want you to think about as we plan for this 15 minutes for you. First thing is I want you to change the story you tell yourself, I want you to change the story that you use to describe yourself, your identity. We went into that earlier the season, talking about how we identify ourselves, right? And I want you to really think about how are you showing up in the world?

 

You know, in the book we talk about how important it is to identify yourself the way that you want others to receive you, whether you are somebody who has a business. And so it’s part of your website or how you’re showing up on social media, whether it’s your personal social media or a business, social media, how you’re showing up at parties,

 

how you’re showing up in your community, how you describe what it is you do. I want you to feel when you talk about yourself, like you can roll your shoulders back. You can hold your chin up high and you can tell people how amazing you are without feeling like you have to cram yourself into a small box, just to make everybody else comfortable.

 

Because the truth is, is when you don’t cram yourself in that little box, when you are your great, amazing shining self people are amazed by that and they’re inspired and they want to do it too. And will there be people who question you? I mean, you just heard about how I got questioned, right? Yes. There will be. There’s always one or two or 10 or a hundred.

 

Who wants you just to get back in with the herd with everybody else, right? It’s okay to blaze your own trail rejection or someone not understanding your special brand of magic doesn’t mean a thing. And it’s not a reflection of you. So I want you to think about the story that you use to describe yourself. Maybe it is the story of your past of the things that have happened to you of the bad things,

 

the terrible things, the failures. How can we shift that on its head? I can tell you I’ve got lots of trauma, lots of failure, lots of, lots of failure, lots of bad things in my past. And you’ll hear me talk about it from time to time, but they don’t define me. They have shifted me and molded me into who I am today.

 

They strengthened me in so many different ways. And I want you to think about the story that you want to tell about you. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is I want to remind you, you don’t need an exact plan. I know that ideally, you would love for me to like, be able to map this out for you and say,

 

here you are today. Here it is. You want to go? Let’s draw that perfect line. That’s one of the things that we work on in the extraordinary life blueprint, the course that I have is we create that action roadmap, but it’s never going to be exact because life shifts and changes. We talk about that in that course, because it’s so important to really allow yourself that grace for life to happen,

 

right? You don’t need an exact plan. And there’s a little process that I talk about called the three A’s that I think are so important to just really allow yourself to let the plans unfold as they tend to do. So, first one is to acknowledge, where are you? What is life like? What’s happening right now in your world, right?

 

Just acknowledge. Don’t beat yourself up. This is not an opportunity for you to tell yourself you’re the worst or you can’t do things. Just acknowledge where you are right now. And then the second aim is to assess, okay, here’s where I am. Do I like it? Am I happy? Does it bring me joy? Am I excited to get up each morning?

 

Am I not? And that’s okay if you’re not, it’s okay. If you are it’s okay. If you’re not, because you’re never stuck, you’re never stuck. So let’s assess if we like where we are. So acknowledge, assess, and then our third day is to adjust. All right. You like where you are. Let’s push yourself a little bit out of that comfort zone and keep moving forward,

 

right? What are the next things you need to do? What are the next things that you think are on that path to that cathedral? If you don’t like where you are. Okay, what do I need to adjust? What do I need to change? Do I, do I want to shift some things? Don’t just shift everything at one time,

 

either just making some small tweaks and adjustments, maybe changing some daily habits, throwing out some old goals. Yeah. That can happen too. And that can be a really good thing. Talk about an energetic haircut that can feel amazing to let go of all dreams. Sometimes we have to let the old dreams die so that new ones can take hold. And I think we forget that.

 

We think that we have to hold on to every old dream we’ve ever had, but use those three days in that 15 minutes today, acknowledge, assess, and adjust. And the third thing I want to remind you of is what have we shifted to a laboratory mentality? What if we use that term that we talked about earlier this season, if just for today,

 

what would it be like if just for today I allowed myself to dream. What would it be like just for today? If I gave myself 30 minutes to go and work on something that’s really important to me or that I’m passionate about? What if just for today, what would you say there? What would it be like if we allowed ourselves to fail,

 

to fail positively? I mean, that’s what a laboratory mentality is. Experimentation is all about testing and trying and failing. It is not about succeeding every single time. It’s about knowing that failure is possible and not just knowing it and acknowledging it, but embracing that possibility, right? Embracing the possibility that failure can happen. And it’s okay. Truly, most times decisions are like walking through a door.

 

You can always go back if you don’t like a decision. Yes. Some decisions are irreversible, but there’s not really that many. I think we tend to confuse the two and we mistake that all decisions are, you know, mission critical and that once we’ve made that decision, it’s moved on and there’s no going back. I want you to shift how you look at making your decisions as you know,

 

what this may work. And it may not. The truth is I tell the story about how we closed up my first company and what without income for months and months. Right. Because John and I worked together and that was our sole income. When I made the decision to open up inkwell press years and years ago, we were without income and we were pension,

 

all those pennies, every penny we had, we were pinching. And I looked at John probably two days or so before our launch, before we opened up the storefront to be able to sell, I looked at him and I said, this is either going to be amazing, or we’re going to be living in our car under a bridge. And I wasn’t sure which I had a pretty good feeling that it was going to be amazing,

 

but there was risk involved. There was a lot of belief I had to have, not just in inkwell press, but in myself that this was possible that I could make it happen. I had to shift how I looked at myself. Right. But if that failure had happened, we wouldn’t really have been living in a car under a bridge. That was a slightly melodramatic.

 

Although John will tell you, I have a tendency to be melodramatic from time to time, but it wouldn’t have been catastrophic. At the end of the day. I had that whole filled with lots of other things. I know how to do lots of other skills, lots of other ideas. And I would have simply taken off my backpack and try it again.

 

And thank God though. So happy, equal breast productivity go worked out because I love it. And that’s what led me here to this podcast. And what’s led me to my books and everything else. We’re constantly going through metamorphosis right now. I am going through a whole metamorphosis behind the scenes. I’m learning to repaste myself, which is a brand new concept to me,

 

something that I think we’re really going to dive into with our next season. You know, I’m, I’m shifting some of where I’m focusing. I’m, I’m spending a lot more time doing speaking, which is a marriage of two things that I love, which is speaking on stages. I’ve been on stages since I was six months old, but I’ve been performing and doing TV and all kinds of things since I was,

 

oh my gosh, and kindergarten, and taking that in the teaching. And it’s such a beautiful combination. It’s this metamorphosis of a lot of things in my backpack. So I’m shifting some of this and doing more speaking. I’m stepping into doing a lot of those three A’s myself. My own road has had lots of twists and turns. I’m discovering new things about myself every single day.

 

And what purposeful productivity means. Purposeful productivity is a big part of this metamorphosis. It’s a brand new term that I’ve coined a new website coming soon. And I’m excited about this. And I’m excited about your metamorphosis too, which is why I want you to give yourself that 15 minutes today to really dive into those questions, to give yourself time, to do the three A’s to ask yourself that question that I started off with,

 

what would you believe if you woke up tomorrow with no memory of the past, what would you dream about? What would you do? You know, this idea of growth, this idea of evolution, this idea of metamorphosis, we’re going to be exploring this in our next season. We are definitely going to be diving into this. I have some fun ideas about how we’re going to do that.

 

And I have some amazing women and guests that I’m going to be bringing on to the show. But before we dive into that whole season, I’m giving myself a little bit of a breather, not going away, not leaving anything like that. Just take in a quick little summer break, thinking about taking the month of July off, but you know what I think I’m going to do.

 

I think I’m gonna do something fun because we have 266 episodes we have recorded. There are some pretty amazing episodes. I’m going to be sharing some of my favorite throwback episodes while I’m taking a little bit of a step away in July, maybe turn into July and August, but don’t worry. I’m going to be around. I’m not leaving. I’m just giving myself a little room for my wings to bat against the cocoon so I can keep growing.

 

I’m excited about it. You’re going to be hearing about it too. If you get my emails because you know, I share a ton of what’s happening behind the scenes. If you are not signed up for my emails, just go to Tanya dalton.com/email. I send out an email every Tuesday. And basically if you enjoy my books, it’s kind of like getting a little tiny snippet out of one of my books.

 

I tell stories. I talk about behind the scenes. I share strategies and tips and things that I’m figuring out for myself. So Tanya dalton.com/email is the best way to stay connected with me. I’m excited about going into my archives. It’s crazy to say that I have archives, but it’s true. 266 episodes. We got a lot of archives. So I’m going to pull some really good episodes that I think are going to resonate with you.

 

I’m excited about that. I think that’s going to be a lot of fun to do. And in the meantime, I really want you to commit to that 15 minutes. I want you to pop that into your planner, into your calendar, whatever it is you need to do. I want you to gift yourself and I use that term gift very intentionally your gift to yourself,

 

15 minutes today, to really dive into where you are, how you feel about it, where you want to go dream big, my friend that is reclaiming your power. And ultimately that is why I do what I do, because I want you to feel amazing and feel incredible about your days. Just like I feel about mine, because truly when you step into your power,

 

when you really fully wholly and completely claim who you are and stop cramming yourself into that tiny little box, that’s when you’ve got the Intentional Advantage. Thanks so much for joining me today. Quick question though, before you go, do you like prizes? When you leave a rating and review of the Intentional Advantage podcast, you’ll be entered to win my life changing course,

 

multiplying your time. Simply leave the review and then send me an email@helloatTanyadalton.com with a screenshot. I choose one winner at the end of every month. So go ahead. Do it right now. Just a quick comment with what you loved about this episode or the show in general and a rating and send it our way. Not going to lie by stars is my favorite,

 

but I’d love to hear what you think of the show. And if that’s not enough of an incentive for you to win the multiplying your time course, I have to tell you the reviews are the number one thing that supports this podcast. And me, it’s the best way to spread the word and get business tips and strategies to all those other women out there who need it.

 

So there you go. Two great reasons for you to go and leave a review right now. So go ahead and do it, send that screenshot my way, because I want to give you a free course. And thanks again for listening today. I’ll be back next Tuesday and I’ll plan to see you then.

 

**This transcript was created using AI.

Tanya is a productivity expert; she is considered one of the best female keynote speakers on the topics of time management, finding balance, habits and goal setting. As a woman she is able to be equally motivational and inspirational for the women in your audience.