On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, I talk about what it really looks like to show up for yourself and others even when you don’t feel like it.

I share how a “meh” start to my morning turned into both a strength training workout and a new podcast episode!

It was also a reminder of the exponential impact and importance of keeping our word to ourselves and how that decision builds self-trust, self-discipline, and an identity of being “the kind of person who” follows through.

If we can create some consistency and build some momentum - especially on the days when we’d rather be whiny, make excuses, or bail…

It will not only empower and encourage us to keep going - it will also improve our personal and professional relationship with others!

KAREN KENNEY BIO:

Karen Kenney is a writer, speaker, podcaster, certified spiritual mentor, and coach.

She’s known for her dynamic storytelling, her sense of humor, her Boston accent, and her no-bullshit approach to spirituality, self​-development, and transformational work.

Karen helps people to navigate this whole “being human” experience using practical tools, universal principles and stories, and a variety of resources.

KK has been a yoga teacher for 25+ years, has been giving Thai Yoga Massage since 2008, and began teaching it in 2015.

She's also a Gateless Writing Instructor, and host of The Karen Kenney Show podcast.

She coaches clients individually in her 1:1 program THE QUEST and via her HEART-TO-HEART DAYS using Voxer. She also leads a group program and community called THE NEST.

CONNECT WITH KAREN:

Website: http://karenkenney.com/

Podcast: https://www.karenkenney.com/podcast

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karenkenneylive/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karenkenneylive/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KarenKenney

It's the Karen Kenney show. Hey you guys,

welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I was gonna say I'm super

duper excited to be here, but that would kind of be like Liar

liar pants on. I would be a little bit of a lying pants if I

said that. But let me put it into some context, because that

is what this whole episode is about, right? You probably saw

the title. What am I gonna call this thing? Probably something

like, even when you don't feel like it, even if you don't feel

like it. And let's just dive right into this. So this

morning, I woke up, and normally I wake up, and especially if

I've had, you know, a good night's sleep, I kind of get out

of bed and I've already got some, like, positive Mojo, some

good energy rolling, right? I tend to, I tend to be able to

place my mind where I want to put it, in terms of, like,

leaning, leaning a little bit more towards happiness, or, you

know, whatever. So I don't tend to, I don't roll out of bed

cranky and, you know, whatever, and I don't drink coffee or any

of that stuff. So I am just kind of on my own kind of natural

high that kind of like, jump starts my morning. But this

morning, I could just tell there was a little bit of a lingering,

like, I don't know what to call it, like, stickiness or

tackiness or suppression or whatever. And I was just a

little bit, I told myself in my brain, like, right now you got

to decide I talk to myself all the time. Like, right now you

not need to make a decision about what kind of day you're

about to have. Because I could see myself if I really wanted to

linger in my meh, everything's just like, Man, if I wanted to

stay there, I could have and so I got up, talked to my sweetie

for a little bit, and I just said to him, Look, we need to go

downstairs right now and work out. I said, because I don't

feel like it, I am not in the mood right now. And meaning,

like, not that I was cranky, but I just was like, I have no

desire to go pick up heavy things and put them down. So I

said to him, I need to do it right now, you know. So I went

in the bedroom, and I changed my clothes, put on my workout

clothes, and went down to the basement. And we did. We picked

up heavy things and put them down, right? And so I'm going to

tell you two little stories, and I'm going to make my point. Make

my point. So I did it, I got it done. And then once that was

done, I was like, Oh, I got to record a podcast today. And I

said, I kind of don't feel like it using, come on, you can

relate double A many, as if you can relate when you're just

feeling a little bit whiny, a little bit like I don't feel

like it. You guys, think about it. Guys, this is like episode

363 for so it was over 363 weeks, except for that one time

when I took like, a little smidge of time off to see what

that would be like. You know, me, I gotta experiment with

everything. I mean, like, every week, practically, for 363,

weeks I have been doing this. And so there are just days when

you have more, whether it's energy or ideas or inspiration,

a little bit of mojo, a little bit of, you know, movement in

your in

your body and in your brain. And you're like, yes, let's do this.

I'm so jazz, and today, man, I just really didn't kind of feel

like it, but I said to my sweetie, I came upstairs. No

inspiration really struck, you know, and I always keep like, I

have, I have stuff written down about ideas, but I'm not going

to just talk about things. To talk about things. I want to

talk about something because it matters to me, or it's got me

thinking a new way, or whatever, right? So I was like, Okay, I'm

gonna, I'm gonna go back downstairs. So I went back

downstairs, I made some oatmeal, and I said to him, You know

what? And I'm standing at the stove, and this is what it's

like. I kind of asked my spiritual team. I asked, you

know, the writing, the writing gods, I asked the muse, I just

ask any, any divine helper that I can, like, help me, because I

am stuck. And I figured if worse came to worse, I would just go

out and go for a walk. Because when you walk, it totally helps

your brain with problem solving, creativity, ideas, all of that,

for most a lot of people, maybe not everybody, but for me, for

sure. So we're downstairs, and as I'm stirring my oatmeal, and

I say to him, I just don't feel like it. And then I all of a

sudden, my my brain was like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

And I was like, that's what I'm going to talk about. I'm going

to talk about showing up even when you don't feel like it. So

let's go back to the first example, the workout. Okay, that

was simply going to benefit me working out. So this was a

chance for me to keep my word to myself, which is, hey, I

strength train three days a week, right? And we're not

skipping. I have no good reason to skip. I'm not sick. I'm not.

You know, like maimed. I'm not injured. I have all the capacity

to be able to get my ass downstairs and pick up those

dumbbells. You know what I mean? Like, squat it out, row it out,

press it out right, curl it out tricep, dip it out, whatever I'm

doing. It's like I had everything I needed. What I

didn't have was the right fucking attitude. You

it whiny, right? I was like, I don't feel like doing it. But

here's the thing we all know, what a slippery slope it can be

when you start to cut yourself a little too much slack. So let me

say this, before too many people or anybody gets like, their

panties in a bunch, I understand that there are going to be times

in life when you really have to listen to a part of you, if it's

actually exhausted, if rest is what's really actually called

for, I'm not talking about again, bypassing yourself,

jumping over like your physical needs, whatever. They're just

going to be times when you do not have anything in the tank to

give. I'm not talking about that. This is more just like a

preference, a mood, an attitude, you know what I mean? And I was

like, Yeah, but here's the thing, it's such a slippery

slope, because if I let myself create an excuse, right? If my

mind, my mind left unattended, it can come up with any kind of

excuse. I bet yours can too, right? And I have to resist the

temptation of my whiny ass little brain sometimes to be

like, Oh, you don't feel like it, and then you start hearing

words in your head like, deserve, well, you deserve to

take a break. You've been working hard, or you've been

data, data, data, right? Quote, unquote, self care, right?

Resist that. There's a lot in A Course in Miracles that says,

resist the temptation to perceive yourself as unfairly

treated, right? And so I think this sometimes I got to resist

the temptation to perceive myself as somebody who's like, I

don't feel like it's like, Nope. That is not our identity. We are

a person that shows up, and we're going to show up for

ourselves. We are not going to let these lame ass excuses get

in the way and keep you from keeping your word to yourself,

because self integrity is so important, you know, especially

if you're a person who has in the past really just always

gone, I shouldn't say always often, right? Anybody here who

through their own survival? What's the word? I want to call

strategies, your own survival instincts, your own survival,

like things that you did because of your childhood or how you

grew up, or your trauma, or whatever, right? Whether you

became a people pleaser. Whether you became like, I'm gonna do

everything for everybody else but myself, you put yourself

last, and then you got kind of pissy about it. You became a

mother and you were cranky, because you're always going

above and beyond for everybody else, and then nobody does it

for you, whatever, if you're the kind of person who used to make

keeping your word to yourself like it was the last thing,

because you always made yourself available to everybody else.

Didn't have really good boundaries. There is something

so important in creating like these, these things that

sometimes get talked about these days as if they're a negative

thing. But to me, discipline, like so many people are, like,

too much discipline. We need more softness. I'm like, Yes,

but discipline, to me, discipline is often discipline

that is being enforced on you from an external source. But

like self discipline, holding yourself accountable to your own

word and to what you say matters and to what you say that you

want to do like that, to me, is a very powerful thing. So to be

able to build some discipline, to be able to to build self

trust, to be able to get some momentum going right consistency

and habit building, and like keeping your word to yourself,

knowing that you can trust yourself is such a big thing. I

know already said that, and then building an identity of the kind

of person who doesn't make excuses, the kind of person that

keeps their word, the kind of person that shows up. So me

going downstairs into the basement, it might seem like a

tiny little thing, but keeping my word to myself and doing the

work even when I didn't feel like it is not only going to

serve me in that moment of lifting weights, because I have

never, I'm

trying to trace my mind as far as I can remember in this

moment, I have never, unless I got hurt or something like and

you go, maybe I shouldn't have done that. But just in terms of

like normal, like going to the gym or going out for a run or

going out for a walk. Or going to yoga class or moving my body

or whatever, right? I've never regretted doing it. It's just

like kind of busting through that little bit of resistance

and getting to the other side of the thing. Because I know I'm

going to feel better after I did it. I know I'm going to be happy

that I did it once I've done it, but it's in that beginning, like

bumping up against that resistance, and maybe I'll do a

whole thing about resistance at some point. But keeping myself,

keeping my word to myself, even though I wasn't in the mood,

even though I was feeling whiny, even I was feeling a little

tired, it's like, man, it was so important for me to do that.

Because I'll tell you this, the muscle that I'm building in that

moment of keeping my word to myself is also the muscle that

I'm going to need, that inner muscle that I'm going to need

when it comes down to sitting down at my desk and writing my

book and finishing this first draft, right? It's like there's

going to be so much resistance. And we know all about this. Oh,

I moved my books, but like Steven Pressfield talks about

this, right? Stephen Pressfield has written so many fantastic

books, The War of Art, you know, put your put your ass where your

hat is,

put your ass where your hat wants to be. I mean, he's

written, do the work, like going pro, like he's written so many

great books are all behind me in the bookshelf, but about how,

just how brutal and vicious and relentless resistance can be. So

anytime I can, and I don't like to say that thing like slay

dragons, because I love dragons, like Mother of Dragons, and love

them. But this idea of slaying that thing in you, whether you

call it, I call it. It's almost like a whininess or a weakness,

right? That like will come up, that like I don't feel like it

murmur anytime I can overcome that sucker. It is like a win

for me, because I know whether it's with working out, going for

a walk, doing the hard thing, doing the thing you don't feel

like that could be anything from like cleaning your house to

doing your laundry to paying your bills, to getting off your

ass, to showing up at the thing, even though you said you were

like you don't feel like it now, but you gave your word below

that is such a powerful thing, because it will help you across

so many areas of your life. So when I keep my word to myself in

the gym, in the basement, I keep my word to myself more in so

many other ways, including my creative life. So that's me with

me. Then there are going to be times when, like, with this

podcast as I started as this example, I didn't really feel

like recording, hitting record today. I was like, not really in

the mood. There are just times because I am even though maybe

somebody might call me an ambivert, but really, I'm an

introvert. I like alone time. I like being by myself. And there

are just sometimes when I'm a little bit more hermit than

others where I'm really just happy, like putting on my comfy

clothes, and like after working out or whatever, I just like

hunkering down. And I don't want to have to be forward facing. I

don't want to have to be communicating out with there are

just some times when I just prefer to be more insular, more

inside myself. And today was just one of those days, and I'm

like, Yeah, I'm not, like, really feeling the desire to be

super communicative and but I was like, Look, I have given my

word right every Thursday in the morning, I know at least some of

you are expecting that new episode to roll out, and I have

kind of made this commitment until I no longer do a show,

whenever that might be, I don't know, but right now, it's like

the agreement. The unspoken agreement is I'm going to show

up each week, and it's something you can count on that I'm going

to roll out an episode. And so for me, showing up for others

also means a lot. Like, I think about it, imagine if I just

decided, like, oh yeah, I don't want to show up. I don't want to

show up for my yoga class tonight, the one that I'm

teaching with people, all the people coming to take class, and

I was just like me. I just didn't feel like it. You know

what? I mean? It's like, imagine if you're a mother or a parent

or a partner, or you own a business, like, whatever it is

like, you don't really have the luxury of just being like, meh.

Didn't feel like, didn't didn't feel like feeding you today.

Didn't feel like being there for you today. Didn't feel like

picking you up from school. Didn't feel like whatever it's

like, especially when you're self employed, and that's the

thing, right? When you're self employed, you don't really have

the like, you have a little more wiggle room than when, of

course, you have to be at somebody else's business, but

you have to be self motivating. You have to be like, Okay, I'm

going to get my ass in gear and get the shit done that I said I

was going to get done. I'm not going to be able to sit back

here and just like, float right, sit back here eating bonbons and

just putting my feet up and relaxing, right? So we have to

practice keeping our word to ourselves. We have to practice

keeping our words to others. We have to practice and through

this repetition, we start to get stronger. This is how we build

any muscle. And it's the same thing with like a daily spirit.

Practice, right? A meditation practice, whatever people are

doing, it's like, it can be so easy to be like, Oh, I'm tired.

I don't feel like it. I'm feeling run down, and I'm not in

the mood, or I have a cold or and I I'm sometimes I feel like

it's not like,

showing up when you don't feel like it. Sometimes I'm like, You

should show up when you don't feel like it like, especially

when you don't feel like it, so that we can kind of overcome

that, you know, when you just feel like lethargic and you just

feel like unmotivated and uninspired and everything just

feels like extra hard. And the reality of it is, is we're like,

we have this we tell ourselves this story, right? It's gonna be

hard, it's gonna be challenging. It's gonna be there's an

uncertain outcome. Like, I don't know what's gonna happen. It's

uncomfortable. You could just see, if you'd see my face I'm

making, like, all these whiny, all these kind of, like, whiny

vases, like, man, like, I just don't want to right? We tell

ourselves these stories. And the thing is, like, as I said

earlier, it's like, do you remember, like, shoots and

ladders? Do you remember that game? And you would be like,

hop, hop, hop, like, foreign momentum, and then all of a

sudden you would get a ladder. I mean, that you would get a

shoot, and, like, you would slide down, like, all this

thing. And that was fun. That was fun on that game. It's not

fun in real life when you start to create a slippery slope,

because once you start, once you like skip one workout, it's so

much easier to do it the next day. I've seen people do this

with cheating. I've seen people do this with gambling. I've seen

people doing this with spending money, or I just you see it with

drinking. You see it in addiction, like any kind of

tendencies. It's like, oh, it was just one time, and then it

was like, that one time turned into two times, turned into

three times, and then it's like, oh, we are slowly destroying

whatever, this, this dream that you had, or this, this sobriety

that you had, or this whatever, right? So we have to be like,

really vigilant. You got to be vigilant about the quality of

your thoughts, the quality of your words, the quality of your

actions, like you got to keep your and I'm doing like that. I

thing where I pointed my own eyes now I'm pointing at you.

You have got to watch yourself like a hawk. You have got to

notice when you're like, oh, here I am about to slide down

that slippery slope. I'm about to make an excuse, right? I'm

about to, like, give myself a pass. And again, I'm not saying

that there aren't maybe appropriate times when something

really important or big, right, is pulling you out of your

routine or whatever. But man, as soon as you can get yourself

back on track, as soon as you can do it, and whether you have

to write yourself a commitment letter to yourself, like

tomorrow, I'm going to set it up. Or let's say, you skip the

gym one day that that night, the net, that very night, right of

the day you skip, you better set your shit out. You better put

your clothes, your sneakers, your workout gear, get prepare

yourself to get back on track the next day, because it's so

easy. You know, you ever see like, I think about like, when,

if you're like, this is, might be a weird example, but I think

about this, it's like, gut flora, right? Like the gut flora

in your intestines, your belly, all that stuff. It's like, you

give it, like, a little bit of sugar, right? I think about

like, this is how, like, you know, yeast situations happen.

You feed it a little give it a little sugar one time. Not that

big of a deal. But you keep feeding that. You keep feeding

that beast and that thing, that bloom of bacteria, just is like

party, right? It's just like having a wicked time. It's like

because you keep giving it. The thing that actually is you're

making, you're making the possibility of you not keeping

your word to yourself alive and intact. So here's the thing,

there are going to be days. Why should you give a shit about

this, because there's going to be moments in days and times

when you were just not going to be in the mood, and you're not

going to feel like it, and you're going to have such a

great temptation, right? And here I am as like, you know, a

Catholic kid, you know, and I always hear in my head, lead us

not into temptation. What's often leading us into temptation

is our own thinking, you know, and our thinking is like

thoughts. Thoughts. I always say, thoughts become words,

thoughts become actions. Thoughts become over time. If

you keep in that thought loop, they start to become your

behavior, your patterns, your character, your identity, and we

don't want, I don't like to feed, I don't like to feed the

little gremlin that is like, that will just grow stronger,

right? We'll get more power. We'll keep like, on a video

game, you know, it goes, ding, and it grabs the wrong ding, it

grabs the jewel. Ding, it like, gets the weapon, right? I'm

like, I do not want to feed that little monster that. Get

stronger to and keeps me from keeping my word to myself,

right? I want to create and stay with the identity of I'm a

person that keeps my word first and foremost to me and then to

others. So you got to know how you self sabotage. You got to

know, like, keep an eye on notice. Well, it's often after I

do think or feel X, Y and Z that I have these tendencies to not

want to whatever. Sometimes you guys, seriously, it's shit that

you're eating, you're eating too much sugar, you're drinking too

much caffeine, and then you hit that slump, and then all your

energy to like, you know, like, and again, let's, I'll just use

this as an example, because I teach yoga. I teach at six

o'clock at night, right? That's when most people are like, I'm

going home, like, I'm going home from work. So the people who are

successful at showing up to class consistently, right? They

usually like, bring their yoga clothes, they keep their yoga

mat. And so they set themselves up so that they're like, there's

no excuse, like, Oh, I forgot my my my clothes, right? Oh, I

forgot my yoga mat. They set themselves up for success. And

these are the things that we have to do. We have to notice

around this time of day is when I start to get whiny. Oh, it's

when I don't get enough sleep that I don't show up the next

day prepared to blah, blah, blah. Oh, it's when I hang out

with this group of people. I feel worse afterwards, and then

I don't want to go do that thing that's good for me, whatever it

is, really what I'm saying is you got to be paying attention

to your life. You got to be paying attention to yourself,

and you got to be paying attention to the choices that

you're making that are either going to support the outcomes

that you think you want to have, which is, I want to be strong, I

want to stay healthy, I want to stay fit and mobile, right?

Mobile, as I sometimes say, right. So I got to do my

workouts. I got to do my you know, my stretching, my yoga,

whatever you're going to do, right? And also keeping your

word to others.

There's something about when somebody breaks their word to

you. And I understand that life happens. I understand that

whether it's an act of God, an act of nature, something comes

up. I totally get it. But we also know, if we took a look

around it, and whether it's your family or your friends or your

co workers or whatever, there's always somebody that people go,

yeah, they're a flake. They're a flake. They always make, they

always make plans, and they never show up, or they always

cancel, or they always blah, blah, blah. There's always a

reason. And what becomes is you, that person becomes a person who

cannot be relied upon, and they're not responsible. And I

was literally talking to somebody. Was it yesterday?

Yeah, it was yesterday. And we were talking about a particular

kind of business, it doesn't matter who or what. And they

said, This person is so talented, they are so good, but

I would never recommend them. And I was like, why not? And

they're like, they are not consistent, they are not

reliable. I don't know who's going to show up, how they're

going to show up, if they're going to show up. And I was

like, it's such a shame, man, it's such a shame that that is

the reputation that follows you. But we can build a reputation

with ourselves, too. Oh yeah, yeah. You know us talking about

us, that inner critic, oh yeah. She's not going to do it. She's

not reliable. She always does this data. She never does that.

So look, the next time you bump up against, I'm not in the mood,

you're tired, you're feeling whiny. You got to think about

you got to think about how when we practice moving through that

resistance, when we practice moving through the thoughts of,

oh, it's going to be challenging, it's going to be

uncomfortable, it's going to be hard. I'm not feeling like it

does when we start to focus on hey, I'm building discipline,

self discipline. I'm building self trust. I'm building some

forward momentum. I'm building an identity as a person who

takes action and keeps their word. You practice and you

practice and you practice and you build that repetition you

resist, the temptation you resist also the temptation to

distract yourself with nonsense like your phone and scrolling

and social media and shit that doesn't really matter, the drama

getting up in everybody else's business. It's like no man, you

got this one life to live like, let's live it. Let's fully show

up. Let's do the damn thing that we said we were going to do, and

watch your mind, because it's going to come up with 1000 good

reasons, 1000 good excuses as to let yourself off the hook. So

this is just like a little love letter, like from my heart to

yours, because I had to push through it today in two

different areas, and I'm so glad I did it right like I here I am

at the end, and I'm like, Oh, I'm so glad I sat down and did

it. I'm so glad I stopped being so whiny and I showed up to

spend some time with you today. So thank you for listening and

thank you for being here, and maybe you can relate to what I'm

talking about. I hope this landed for you in some way.

Right? My goal, as I always say, is always to either enlighten or

elevate or educate, create an emotional connection, to edify,

you know, to edify my listeners. So I hope that this landed in

some way for you. And I'll just stop there, because I can just,

like, keep going, but I think I said what I needed to say. So

maybe you find yourself in a period of your life or time when

you're at a job and you're like, don't feel like it. It can be so

easy to just half ass things and start to show up a little late

and not giving it your all. And I'm telling you, don't rep

represent yourself the way that you want to be, even if you're

on your way out the door, even if you know that this good job

is not going to be show up, do your job, keep your word like do

the things that are required of you, even when you don't feel

like it. Do it for self respect, too, right? Self integrity, self

respect. It will go a really long way. And I get it sometimes

we don't feel inspired, but this is when we have to buckle up and

buckle down and get the shit done, right? And I'm telling

you, it's going to build something inside of you, that

you're going to start to learn, that you can trust yourself, and

that you have resources and that you can do have things, and that

you can handle it. And it's a very, very, very powerful thing.

Okay, thanks for being here with me. I appreciate you. I love you

guys, and I'm so glad, I'm so glad that you showed up. If you

can still hear my voice and listen. Maybe you didn't feel

like it. Maybe you were like, man, maybe you're listening to

me right now on a walk that you didn't want to go on. And if so,

thank you for being here. Way to go. You. Okay, so wherever you

go, may you leave yourself and the animals and the people and

the places in the planet better than how you found them,

wherever you go. May you leave your being there wherever you

go. May your being there, right, your love, your presence, your

attitude, your energy, may it be a blessing.

Bye, Hey. Thanks so much for listening to the show. I really

love spending some time together. Now, if you dig the

show or know someone that could benefit from this episode,

please share it with them and help me to spread the good word

and the love. And if you want to be in the know about all of my

upcoming shenanigans, head on over to Karen kenney.com/sign up

and join my list. It'll be wicked fun to stay in touch.

Bye. You. A baby.