Stuck in a loop of "I need to do better," "I need to be more organized," "I need to stop procrastinating"? In this episode, we flip the question. Instead of asking what you need to fix, ask who you actually want to be — and why that one shift changes everything about how you make decisions. Leslie breaks down a simple 4-step framework plus two action steps you can start today to discover who you want to be.

[00:00] Why "I need to do better" is the wrong question

[02:21] Your daily choices are building your identity

[03:39] Step 1: Know Yourself

[05:09] Quick mention: The Freshman Formula

[06:01] Step 2: Trust Yourself

[07:27] Step 3: Choose Yourself

[08:53] Step 4: Lead Yourself

[09:51] Coming back to the question: who do you want to be?

[10:42] Your 2-step action plan for this week

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As a high schooler or college student, you may

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find that people are asking you what you're going to do with your life,

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you're likely cut yourself thinking of one of these things.

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need to get my life together. I need to be more organized. I need to stop procrastinating. I need to make better decisions. I need to be more confident.

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I need to take better care of myself. Maybe you've even made a list of all the things that you want to change, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. But today I want to give you a different question to think about

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another question that's even more important, and that might actually help make a significant difference for how you think and feel about yourself.

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Rather than asking yourself, what do I need to do better?

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Instead, ask yourself, who do I want to be? Because those two questions can take completely different directions. What can I do better? Starts out as a negative. Like you're not good enough. You're not doing enough. You need to do better.

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Who do I want to be? Is completely different.

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Whether you're in high school or planning your next move or you're already in college, this is a question we're spending more time on because college,

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or if you decide to work and live on your own, gives you something you've probably wanted for a long time. More freedom. You get to make more decisions on your own. You decide when to get up, when to eat,

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Who to spend your time with, how you spend your weekends, when you study, when you sleep, when you ask for help, and what you do when things don't go according to plan. That's exciting, but it can also be a little overwhelming because suddenly nobody is standing over your shoulder telling you what you should

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shouldn't do.

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And

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that's exactly why knowing who you want to be matters.

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What's up, parenting teams? It's me, Leslie, and welcome to the Healthy Teen Life podcast, where we cover teen and college AGM adult health and wellness topics. I'm so excited to be spending this time with you. And if you're new to the podcast, then thank you and welcome to The Healthy Teen Life. It's always really great to have new friends join us.

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I know you have a lot going on in your life, so I think it's really cool that you're taking your time to listen and learn something new that I hope will help you live healthier and happier, even if it's just a tiny bit that I've done my job. So get comfortable and let's dive in.

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Your choices are building something. So think about this every day. You're making

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dozens of little choices. Most of them don't feel particularly important. In fact, they seem routine. Do I get out of bed now or snooze?

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Do I start the assignment or scroll for another 20 minutes? Do I tell my friend how I actually feel? Do I go to sleep or stay up?

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Do I ask a professor for help? Do I go along with what everyone else is doing? Do I speak up? Do I take care of myself? One decision probably isn't going to define your life, let's be honest. But the choices you make do define your tomorrow. Over time, your decisions

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Shape the person you become. It's like compound interest. Each decision adds to the other. That's why I don't want you to think about personal growth as simply becoming better.

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Instead, think about becoming more intentional about

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who you're becoming. Because when you know the kind of person you want to be, your choices start to have somewhere to come from.

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Instead of, what am I supposed to do? You can then ask, what would the person I want to become do next? That's totally different and it gives you greater purpose.

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a question that probably comes to your mind is how do I do this.

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the first place to start is knowing yourself. You can't make decisions that are right for you if you don't know exactly what is right for you.

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What does that mean?

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And

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I'm not talking about having your entire feature figure it out. That's not necessary. You don't need to know your exact career where you're going with it.

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You don't need to know exactly where you'll be living. You don't even need to know exactly who you're going to become. It's actually better to stay in the present for the moment to do this part. Okay. Knowing yourself is about paying attention to you, who you are, what matters to you, what makes you feel like yourself, what gives you energy?

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What drains you?

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What kind of people bring out the best in you? And what happens when you're stressed? What do you need when you're overwhelmed? What are you actually really good at? Where do you tend to get stuck?

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These are all indicators. They tell you something.

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They give you an idea of who you are. And here's something important.

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You learn a lot about yourself by actually living your life. You try things. You make choices. You discover what works. You discover what doesn't. You change your mind. You grow. You don't think of knowing yourself as something that you have to figure out once and then you're done.

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It's something that you practice and it evolves over time.

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Hey, before we continue, if you're in college and feeling like your life on campus is not going as planned, whether it's roommates, friendships, and finding your people, or managing balance between academics and your personal needs like sleep, eating, and relaxation time,

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would love to share with you my freshman formula.

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It's a self led, five day video series that gives

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the tools, strategies and information that you need to build a better campus life, social connections and roommate relationships. Managing stress and sleep, navigating the dining hall and feeling yourself self-advocacy and getting support. It's all in there, and it helps you reach for your goals and become the person you want to be.

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The link with details and access are in the show notes, so go get it. All right, back to the episode.

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once you start paying attention to yourself,

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the next step is learning to trust yourself. And trust does not mean believing

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that you're always going to make the perfect decision. You're not. Nobody is. It's just

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possible. I mean, life is not that easy.

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Self trust is where it comes in. It means believing that you can make a decision, learn from it, and handle what comes next. Maybe you make a choice that doesn't work out.

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That doesn't mean I can't trust myself. It might mean okay, I learned something. Maybe you choose the wrong class. Maybe you realize a friendship isn't healthy for you.

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Maybe you procrastinate and make your week harder than it needed to be. Maybe you say yes when you really wanted to say no. Those experiences can actually become part of building self trust because instead of beating yourself up, you can ask,

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what did I learn about myself?

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That's good information. That's not bad.

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What did I learn about myself?

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How did I handle this? How could I do it differently next time? That's a very different response. When you do that, it's easier to ask,

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can I do differently next time, right? What's a good solution for this? That's when you begin to trust yourself more. You become someone who knows I can figure things out and that can feel really good.

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That's where the trust comes in.

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Now

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next thing is

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and leads to this next step is choose yourself. This doesn't mean putting yourself above everyone else. It means learning to make decisions based on what you know about yourself, what matters to you, and what you believe is best for you. And this can get surprisingly difficult when you're surrounded by other people and all that noise.

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Because sometimes what's best for you isn't what your friends are doing.

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And that's important to realize and start to separate from that.

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Maybe everyone else is staying out late and you're exhausted. Maybe everyone else is skipping class and you know you need to go. Maybe you're in a friendship that doesn't feel good anymore. Relationship.

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Maybe someone is pressuring you to do something that you're uncomfortable with.

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Maybe you're saying yes because you're worried about what someone will think.

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This is where you get to pause. You hit that pause button and you ask, is this actually what I want? Is this good for me? Is this the person I want to be?

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And sometimes choosing yourself means choosing the harder option. And that can feel hard sometimes.

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But you know what?

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also can feel really good once you make that decision and you recognize like, yes, that was a good choice for me.

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that's part of becoming your own person.

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If you've done the work of trusting yourself, then choosing yourself becomes much easier with greater confidence.

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here's the GC part.

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Eventually, all of this comes together in one bigger idea. Lead yourself because now you don't need someone else to constantly tell you what to do, right? You don't need your parents to tell you what to do all the time. Or other people like your friends. Someone you're in a relationship with. You can learn to take ownership of your choices.

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You can notice when something isn't working. You can make adjustments and not feel bad about it. You can ask for help. You can make a plan. You can change your mind. You can take responsibility without beating yourself up,

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That's what leading yourself looks like. And honestly, I think this is one of the most exciting parts of growing up because you get to start discovering I can actually create a life that feels like mine. Not your parents life, not your friends life,

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not the life social media tells you you're supposed to want yours.

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And that is beautiful.

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Now let's go back to that original question. Who do you want to be?

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Not. What do you want to accomplish? Not. What do you want other people to think about? You. Not what do you think you're supposed to become? Who do you want to be? Maybe you want to be someone who's confident. Maybe someone who follows through. Someone who makes healthy decisions. Someone who speaks up. Someone who is a good friend.

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Someone who doesn't let one bad day ruin everything. Someone who takes care of herself. Someone who can handle hard things. Someone who trusts herself. There's no right answer, and your answer

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can change. As I said, it can evolve over time, right?

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Let's go back to my earlier question that I really want you to think about,

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if that's who you want to be, what would that person do next?

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That's where this becomes practical.

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This is where the answers start to happen because you don't become that person someday. You start practicing it today and keep doing it every day. Remember compound interest. It adds up over time. You become wealthier personally, internally, intrinsically. And that's the beauty of this. So your action step for this week I want to leave you with two simple things that you can do today.

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The first thing is choose your who. Take five minutes and finish the sentence. I want to be someone who and then write down three things. For example, I want to be someone who takes care of herself. I want to be someone who speaks up when something isn't right. I want to be someone who follows through on things that matter to me.

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Don't overthink it as just who do you want to be, right?

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Just choose three qualities that genuinely matter to you, to your values, what's important to you. And then pick just one. And that's where your focus for the next few weeks or months you choose should be

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Okay, now the next part of this is ask yourself

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if I were already that person, what would I do next?

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and make one small choice that matches. If you want to be someone who takes care of yourself, maybe you give yourself the sleep that you actually need tonight.

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you want to be someone who follows through, maybe you spend 15 minutes

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starting the thing that you've been putting off, right?

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It's that one small step.

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If you want to be someone who speaks up, maybe you have a conversation that you've been avoiding.

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If you want to be someone who chooses healthy relationships, maybe you pay attention to how you actually feel around the people that you're spending time with, and you shift that.

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It

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doesn't have to be dramatic. In fact, it probably shouldn't be one choice, one step.

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You repeat it consistently as you can, as much as you can, because every time you make a choice that aligns with that person that you want to become,

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you're giving yourself evidence. This is who I am becoming. Remember, it's not about perfection. It's about practice. It's about gradually working towards that future you so be kind to yourself, have fun with it,

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And be proud.

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You're doing something hard

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and that is something to be proud of.

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All right, one last thought. Growing up isn't about suddenly having everything figured out.

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It's about becoming more capable of figuring things out for yourself.

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And

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that takes practice. Practice noticing what you need. Practice listening to yourself. Practice

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making decisions.

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Practice learning from your mistakes. Practice choosing what's right for you

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practice taking the lead in your own life. So the next time you catch yourself saying, I need to do better. Pause. Then ask, who do I want to be? And then ask, what would that future version of me do next?

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Know yourself. Trust yourself. Choose yourself. Lead yourself. That's all it takes. You don't have to become that person all at once. You just have to start making choices that move you in that direction.

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And you can start with your very next one right now.

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All right, go do it, my friend.

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Your life is busy and sometimes having shortcuts to make it easier is the way to go. So follow the show right now for quick, easy access to every new episode. Know someone else who would like this information? Don't be selfish. Share it with them. And hey parents! Follow me on Instagram at Leslie Rose coaching for more health and wellness information to support your teen or college student and get news about my upcoming master classes and programs.

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Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you. Same place, same time next Wednesday so you can live your healthy teen life.