Are your daily habits and influences helping you thrive—or holding you back? In this re-release episode of The Grit Show, host Shawna Rodrigues explores the hidden power of the inputs in your life: everything from playlists and podcasts to friendships and social feeds. Shawna shares her own “input audit” story and offers creative tips for curating what you allow into your world, striking a balance between joy and purpose. She touches on social media, the books you read, and even the TV shows you choose—challenging you to get intentional about your environment. If you’re seeking more positivity, resilience, and authentic connection, this episode’s full of thought-starters and practical takeaways. Discover why your inputs are the seeds you sow for your future. Curious what you might need to shift? Join us and find out.

Other episodes referenced:

Conversation with Justin (61)-

Smash Limiting Belief Systems with These Clear Steps & Conquer Your Fears -61

Conversation with Laurie (54)-

Celebrating Time- The Anniversary of The Grit Show & How to Make/Keep Adult Friendships -54

Conversations with Matt-

Conquer the Stress Cycle & Focus on Your Well-Being- How to Escape Burnout: Part 1 -57

Actionable Solutions, Blissful Rest & Modern Stressors- How to Escape Burnout: Part 2 -58

Shawna Rodrigues has been hosting the The Grit Show, since 2022 and has loved every minute of it. She has an award winning career in the government and non-profit industry, an LCSW, and a passion for making a impact.

She is currently facing her biggest plot twist yet—a breast cancer diagnosis in early 2025—this year is about her fight, victory, and healing. Join her warrior community Being Honest and check out the podcast episode where she shares more.

Connect with her journey:

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When was the last time you put some thought into the different inputs in your world? I know we touched on this in our episode with Justin, episode 61, when we talked about the five people that you have in your world. But there's so much more than the people that we have in our world that add to the different inputs. We're going to talk a little bit more about the different things coming into your world and the seeds that sowing and what you're getting out of that because your joy and well being are important. Stick around. It's just you and me for this conversation and I think you'll get a lot out of it. Welcome to The Grit Show where our focus is growth on purpose. I'm your host, Shawna Rodrigues, and I'm honored to be part of this community as we journey together with our grit intact to learn more about how to thrive on how to get the most out of out of life. It means a lot that you are here today.

As you listen, I encourage you to think of who may appreciate the tidbits of knowledge we are sharing and to take a moment to pass this along to them. Everyone appreciates the friend that thinks of them. And these conversations are meant to be shared and to spark even more connections. We've talked a little bit about the people that you have in your life, Both on episode 54 with Lori, when we talked about adult friendships, and again in episode 60, mom with Justin, when we talked about the five types of people that you should have in your world. So you might have been doing a little bit of auditing already, thinking about who you have in your world and the influences they have. But the influences in our life are more than just the people. There's more inputs that we have on a regular basis. I want us to have a time to kind of look and reflect on the input quality, the things that we have in our life and how they might be sucking out that joy just a little bit.

For me, I remember hearing something and kind of reflecting on that. And lately as I've been going through my list, I have Spotify on my phone and that's how I listen to a lot of music as well as a lot of podcasts. When I was looking at some playlists that I had in the past and I've been taking drives where I don't have constant reception. So I have to download playlists and I quickly downloaded a playlist from a certain year. I do a lot of them by years where that year I'll just download a lot of music and it was from back in about 2018, and that's around right before I started doing this audit about what I was having as regular inputs. And it's so funny because if you know my story of the love of my life, he and I got together in January 2019, and my playlist of 2018, the songs on that playlist, especially around relationships, are so not supportive of finding the relationship that I currently have. And it's so funny because I'd done a lot of other things in my life to align around thinking through the relationship I wanted, about knowing what I wanted in a relationship and focusing on that. But the interesting thing that I did in 2020, late 2018, was I started shifting, and my playlist starting 2019 was actually all the music was hopeful, positive, because I listened to a lot of music and I drove a lot during those times and listened to a lot of music.

It's before I really started diving into podcasts and listening to podcasts and listening to other inputs, but I listened to a ton of music. And at that point in time, I eliminated all of those musics that. That had breakup themes, that had negative relationship themes at all in that music, and shifted it to be all music that was uplifting and positive and connecting to positive relationships and positive connection and having that constant feed into my world about relationships that worked and were positive or were neutral. They weren't about relationships. Right. Because a lot of music that I listened to happened to be related to that. Without giving examples, I can't think of examples right now. But when I put that 2018 playlist happened to be what I downloaded and I listened to it, I was reminded of that shift that I made because of.

I love that music. That music's beautiful to me. I think it's lovely. But it was also so much music that was like, about loss and relationships and hurt in relationships and tragedy in relationships and not being successful in relationships. And that was what was my constant input. So when we do these audits, there's this important thing about the people in your life, but your people account for so much. And I do have a lot of conversations when I'm driving. That is something I enjoy doing.

But I also listen to a lot of music, and now I listen to a ton more podcasts. It's actually hard on the drives that I have when I don't have reception to do podcasts because I. I have to download them in advance to do that. And it's easier to download music less than it is for me, download podcast less. I'm Going to get better at that, I'm sure. But currently, when I was in the city and not driving across areas without reception, I would listen to podcasts. When I would drive is what I would listen to. Mostly in the last couple years since I've had my network, but it's harder to do for me now, so I'm back to listen to more music.

But in times past, that was my biggest input, was music. So what are your biggest inputs? What do you spend your most time around? Is it scrolling through social media? Is it listening to music? Is it spending time with certain people? Is it spending time alone? Is it reading books? Is it reading articles? Is it reading stuff on the news? Like, what are your biggest inputs? And so when you look at what you're putting into your life and what you want out of your life, like, those inputs should connect. And for me, at that point in time, when I wanted this great relationship and it's been all this other work in other places, deciding the relationship I wanted, putting effort into finding that person, I hadn't been paying attention to these contradictory messages that were coming in through the music I was listening to constantly because that was probably the biggest input in my life at that time. I didn't spend as much time on social media. I spent a lot of time in the car at that time. I had a job that I commuted. Each way was 45 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on traffic. So every day that I was in the car, I was in the car for two hours and 15 minutes to three hours a day.

And that's not including going to meetings. And so every day that much input was coming in, and that much input was these messages around relationships, not working around complications in relationships, loss in relationships, nothing uplifting and positive around relationships. And I'm obviously a big fan of podcasts. And you're listening to podcasts, so perhaps what you're listening to is podcasts now, and you don't need to audit your music like I needed to. If you're listening to podcasts, what podcasts podcast are you listening to? Do you listen to podcasts that are about businesses? Because that's a priority in your life? And are they podcasts that are like building up your business and building up what you're doing in business? Are you somebody who is looking for better, strengthened relationships in your life, and so you're making sure the podcast you're listening to are building that up and helping in that area? Are you somebody who looks at a lot of social media, the social media you're looking at makes you feel negative about your life in your world. And the things that are on there are very discouraging and upsetting, and you're doing a lot of comparison. And so maybe under social media, you need to limit your social media time or you need to curate your social media. You need to snooze accounts, unfollow things, get yourself out of certain groups if you're on Facebook or if you're on Instagram.

You need to unfollow the accounts that make you feel overwhelmed and make you feel like you're not good enough or that you're not getting enough done. And you need to follow the accounts that remind you of beautiful trips you want to take, because that's what you want to focus on, that give you uplifting messages about your parenting, because that's important to you right now. So when you're doing this audit, you need to start figuring out what things are your priority right now. Right? And so, as you know, my word of the year is savor. And so I want to savor things. And so those are the type of things that I need to look at what I'm spending my most time on and make sure that I'm spending time on things that help me savor. If my goals are business things. And so for my business, then I need to be listening to podcasts.

I'm driving, so I need to figure out how to better download my podcast when I'm in transit and en route to things so that I'm listening to the podcast or I'm turning off the podcast. I'm doing visualization stuff that's helping me visualize my business and visualize my future and where I want to go. So that you're finding out what your inputs are right now, like what is coming in, what you're taking in, and then making sure that you're putting quality things in that place. So if you're spending a lot of time with people, who are the people you're spending time with and what are you doing during that time? So it might be that you've, like, spent time going, you know, I like the five people that are in my life, you know, the five main people that I spend time with and how are you spending that time? Are you spending that time doing things that align with your goals of wellness and happiness and furthering your business, and you talk to them about business things and focus on your business stuff when you talk to them? Or. Or are you reminiscing about how frustrated you were about the person in front of line that you were totally frustrated with, and that's all you have time to talk about on the phone when you connect with them. And you're not actually inputting the things that you want to be inputting and spending time on the things you want to be spending on when you're using that time. So that's kind of what our focus for today is, to be able to look at what your inputs are. Is it music? Do you listen to music regularly? Is it podcasts? Are you listening to podcasts regularly? Are you reading? What kind of books are you reading? Are you watching TV every night? And what type of TV or movies are you watching? And are they giving you what you need and what you want out of them? Is it the people and who are the people you're spending time with? And are you getting what you want out of that time that you're spending with them? And so all these different ways that you're spending your time to audit your time.

And just think back to the last two days a week. Like, how have you spent your time over the last week? What were all the different inputs? Who were the inputs? What were the inputs? The media you read, the social outlets you used, and what were those inputs? And then to be able to recognize how much that counterplays with the joy that you have with the goals that you're stretching towards and how they're connecting, and how you can be a curator of what your inputs are, what's coming into your life, and what you need to do to better curate that. Whether it is the friendship audit going back to our conversation with Laurie in episode 54, or whether it is the five people you need to have in your life. If you don't have the right people in your life that you need to kind of go back to our episode 61 with Justin and kind of think about who those people are. If you have the right people in your life giving you the right kind of input in your life, and if you're using that time well, or if it's a matter of your social media that you are spending a lot of social media, do you want to limit that? Or you're happy with how much time, but you're not happy with how you feel at your own social media. So maybe you need to get rid of the images of all the people that don't look like you that make you question where you're at or what you're doing. You need to connect more with people with uplifting messages that do connect with where you're at and what you want. And so you can feel better about that, that if it is listening to music that you're listening to songs that actually have messages created, connected to how you want to be and where you want to be in life.

For me, it was. It was connected to relationships. And it was kind of funny that I really love these songs that don't have strong messages about relationships at all. And there's probably, like, 30% of the music I listened to was neutral or have positive relationships, and 70% didn't. So I just had to have a playlist that was curated that got rid of all those messages. And I still enjoyed the songs just as much, but I found the songs, like, you know, rise up from different things that, like, gave me this different feeling and different perspective on my day and my outlook. And so those are the songs that I would listen to that would give me that perspective and give me that feeling, not recognizing I'm singing along, saying these words and inputting all of this into my life all the time when it wasn't what I wanted in my life. And if you listen to podcasts, what podcasts are you listening to? Do they infuriate and frustrate you? Do they encourage and uplift you? Do they make you laugh? Do they make you feel connected? Do they give you good food for thought? Like, what are you inputting in your life? And how much more of that do you want? And so to make sure that you're paying attention to that.

And if you read books and you listen to books on tape, like, what type of books are you listening to and that type of piece, and how much are you evening those things out? And as much as I know true crime is a big thing with podcasts, that maybe you just need to have a little less true crime because it's making you a little more jaded and judgmental about the world and a little bit more of some of the other pieces to help you connect and feel more a part of the world and more excited and feel good about things and that you balance those things, right? Because we don't want to have everything, sunshines and roses, of course, but to kind of see, like, how is that potentially playing into your outlook in your world? And if you're watching TV and listening to stuff, like, how much TV are you watching that makes you feel this way or that way? And we talk about. I know in our episodes with Matt on Burnout, we talk about the importance of watching potentially TV shows that make you cry or whatever else that get you in touch with emotions and let you release those emotions. And there's a need for some of that too. But I also know that I know people that don't watch TV that makes them cry because they need to have that be the input of the positive, the laughter, the good piece. So you decide where you're getting those different inputs from and utilize it. Just be thoughtful and reflective about where you're getting it and to make sure that you do have a place that you're getting the joy and the positive and the other things, so you still have room for that. So that's our plan this week, is to kind of audit where are we getting our inputs and get reflective on it. Because I know that until I'd heard that concept about, you know, your inputs, I never stopped to think about the music I was listening to.

And for me, who knows how much of it's coincidence, but for me, when I did change my playlist and what I was singing and thinking every day, it did change in a very tangible way that I got together the love of my life. Like that was the same timing. So if you're watching shows about negative things always happening and you're watching shows about crime and horror, negative stuff, and that's what you're seeing in your life, then maybe you started watching shows about people who are building businesses and making things happen and listening to those things, that those are things you can make happen in your life. So just a good way to try and think about what you're inputting and how you can possibly bring more joy and positive in your life by what you put into it. Thank you so much for being here. I look forward to seeing you here again next week. Thank you for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed this episode.

Be sure to jump on over to Instagram and follow us @the.grit.show. And if you aren't already following Authentic Connections podcast network @37by27, you should definitely be doing that as well. Don't forget, you are the only one of you that this world has got and that means something. I'll be here next Tuesday. I hope you are too.