Shownotes

Outgrowing yourself rarely happens gracefully — and that’s okay. In part two of the Outgrowing Old Versions series, Lesley Logan walks through the action of letting go, why hindsight breeds shame, and how dreaming a year forward helps you step into who you want to be. A grounded invitation to outgrow what no longer fits.

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In this episode you will learn about:

• How new interests reveal we’re outgrowing old versions of ourselves.
• Why losing touch with people during growth isn’t personal or final.
• Why judging your old self is a sign you need gratitude practice.
• Evaluating what to take with you and what to let go.
• Working backwards from your future self to take action today.

Episode References/Links:

• Ep. 3 with Rob Mack – https://beitpod.com/ep3
• Submit your wins or questions – https://beitpod.com/questions

Transcript

Lesley Logan 0:00
Isn’t that how versions of ourselves start? We get a new interest, and then we kind of go into that thing, and then we learn something, and then we grow into that, and then all of a sudden we don’t necessarily need some of the things that we had, whether they’re coping mechanisms or jobs or relationships. We can outgrow ourselves in so many different ways, and I think we always will.

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Lesley Logan 0:22
Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I’m Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I’ve trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it’s the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It’s a practice, not a perfect. Let’s get started.

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Lesley Logan 1:04
Hello, Be It babe. How are you? Okay, we’re back with part two. So, if you’re new to the Be It Pod, we have some weeks where we do an interview and a recap episode, and we have some weeks where we do a series and we talk about a topic that you guys have written in and said, “I want to have more information,” or “I want to hear more about this,” or “This is how I’m feeling. What do you think?” And so hopefully the personal stories and experiences and anecdotes help you feel not so alone in the topic, right?

Lesley Logan 1:31
So we’re talking about outgrowing yourself, a version of yourself, and so if you haven’t listened to the first episode, I would do that because I actually want to reference some stories from that, and I’m not going to tell them again in such great detail. So, anyways, let’s get into it. Right? Here we go. So okay, last episode we talked about outgrowing old versions of yourselves, and I highlighted, with grace and compassion, not the shame and blame, because it can be really easy to do that.

Lesley Logan 1:57
And so, this week we’re actually going to talk about the actual action of letting go, and then the action steps of being in your new version, right? So the stories that I brought up were inspired because I actually was looking at old photos of myself starting as a Pilates instructor, and then I shared these two instances of when I outgrew the retail version of me to be the Pilates instructor, and then I outgrew being the Pilates studio manager, teacher, trainer, all the things, to just working myself as a Pilates business coach and Pilates instructor. And I really will say there wasn’t this green sign, green light, like, “Hello, Lesley, this is the door,” right? No, I kind of realized I outgrew those roles and that version of me kind of kicking and screaming, getting so frustrated and exhausted because I had taken on so much trying to start this new thing that I was into, as opposed to a hobby, and now it’s a full-time job, but I also have a full-time job, and then, wow, now I can take on Pilates full time, and this job has health insurance and a salary, and room to grow and expand, and I learned so much there, and I was challenged, and I got to be a big fish in a small pond, up to the day that I was about to have a panic attack because I was overworking myself trying to fulfill the agreements that I had made as an employee while trying to explore these new interests I have. And isn’t that how versions of ourselves start? We get a new interest, and then we kind of go into that thing, and then we learn something, and then we grow into that, and then all of a sudden we don’t necessarily need some of the things that we had, whether they’re coping mechanisms or jobs or relationships. We can outgrow ourselves in so many different ways, and I think we always will.

Lesley Logan 3:44
Now, I will say, I don’t feel very confident that either of the changes that I made I did gracefully. I look back and see maybe if I know what I know now about how I could land on my own two feet and be as resourceful as I am, if I had that evidence, I could have had the guts to just quit the first time and not try to have one foot on an island and one foot on a canoe, and stand there, and still, and not lose my balance. And I also will say, the second time I outgrew that version of me, I didn’t necessarily, I thought I could do it all, and I didn’t really want to let go of some of the things because I liked the people I worked with, I liked the people I worked for. There are some things I hated, and that made the job really annoying, but those were detail-oriented things, so of course I didn’t like them. But I really thought I could do both for a long time. But what happened along the way in there, and doing both for a long time, is that there was this part of me that was, “I’m really interested in this impact over here, and I can’t do it as long as I’m doing this.”

Lesley Logan 4:50
And so, I also will say, part of the way that I tend to, I tended, I will say, I’ll put it in the past tense, I tended to become this new version of me is I lost touch with some of those relationships. In fact, when I posted that picture, one of the people who commented is one of the people that I lost touch with, probably within the first year of quitting retail, and I really liked her. And I still, every couple of years I’ll be in Palm Springs, I’ll connect with her because that’s where she moved, and so she reminded me that I taught her in her house, in her apartment. Oh my god, this person helped me out, and I kind of lost touch. But because we do that, right, when your schedule changes, because the new version of you needs this schedule, right? The new version of you needs to be doing these things, or studying these things, or spending time in these areas, it means that we tend to lose people in our lives, and it doesn’t have to be personal, not personal at all.

Lesley Logan 5:48
There was a couple of people I definitely was ready to write off, but the people that I worked with in both of those arenas, the ones I lost touch with, I will say most of the time it just happened because life happens, because we get busy. And back then it wasn’t as easy as it is now, but even now we’re even busier, right? I can proudly say that I’m still dear friends with several of the people that I worked with at the second place, and in outgrowing the version of myself, they didn’t get mad or turn their backs on me. I mean, in fact, they celebrated it because they could say they were part of that. So when you do feel this need to grow, and you’re outgrowing what you once were, you have different worries and different schedules, and different relationships get added in. And because of all these different changes that you’re making, because it’s in alignment with where you want to grow, yeah, you might lose some things, you might lose some people. There’s a coffee shop that I used to go to when we lived in LA every single day. I do wonder where those people are now. I hope they’re not there anymore, but I do wonder, because you lose touch.

Lesley Logan 6:48
And so I just want to say, you don’t ever have to apologize for the growth that you’re making, for getting to know yourself more, and/or for changing your mind. We definitely should be as graceful as we can when we make our exits, and I can say that I think I did as good a job as I could given the circumstances on those exits, but the today version of me would have made those exits completely differently and might have been able to find a way to stay in touch with a few of the people extra. So I will just say we usually do the best we can with what we have, and when we know better, we do better. And so just have some kindness for yourself because, depending on how many times you’ve outgrown a version of yourself, it might be the first time you’re making these changes and making mistakes and learning new things. And so be thoughtful, right? Be thoughtful of yourself, but not just of others, because I think it’s easy to do that.

Lesley Logan 7:41
Okay, so when we look back, and hopefully you did if you listened to Tuesday’s episode, I asked you to look back and look at the signs that were showing up that you were ready to outgrow and make changes and let go of, right? When we do that, we tend to look back at them as simpler times and like, “Oh, I should have just been happy.” I think about when we look at pictures of ourselves when we were five, ten years ago, going, “Oh my god, why didn’t I think I looked good? Why did I think I looked heavy, or whatever?” Like, “Oh my god, I look so good there.” So we tend to do that with these rose-colored glasses, and I will just say life was not simpler back when that was because that version of you didn’t have the skill sets you have today. So when you look back at life and you’re like, “Oh my god, I should have just been happy about that,” no, you have new skill sets, you have new abilities to handle things. And so, when you look back at that life, it seems like it was simple. It wasn’t simple, but you didn’t have the tools that you have now.

Lesley Logan 8:33
And when you were that person, there were needs and desires that were not being met. That is why you got to where you are today, why you have your “be it till you see it” goals, who you want to become, because the life that you have wasn’t satisfying you for some reason, there was something missing that you went searching for, and you grew, and you outgrew. And it doesn’t mean that who you were was silly, stupid, wrong, or dumb; it’s just an old version. I look back, I’m like, “Wow.” I was so anti-transparent, and now I still put sunscreen on, but goodness, a little bit of sun, a little bit of freckle is not a bad thing. But I think of another example of outgrowing a version of yourself, like my first iPhone versus today’s iPhone. When the first iPhone came out, we were like, “Oh my god, what an incredible phone. How lucky am I that I could have this phone?” And now, if we were to use that iPhone, like my dad has an old iPhone, and I’m like, “Oh, such shit, so outdated.” And we would not, we didn’t do that then. You can’t do that to yourself. You can’t take an old version of yourself and go, “Oh my god, what an idiot,” because back in the day, it was pretty unique who you were and what you were doing, and you were this amazing invention and a slice of time that we’ll never have back. So we have to be thoughtful and kind, and know that because our standards change, that doesn’t mean that who we were before wasn’t good enough. They just had different standards, and we know more, we know better, we have new standards, right? We have new needs.

Lesley Logan 10:11
Example, when it comes to you outgrowing, okay, so you’ve outgrown a version of yourself, you’re stepping into your new thing, you’re being it till you see it, and you’re feeling a little exhausted, frustrated, even still getting resentful, like things feel like they’re not moving along. We’ll get more into stuckness later, but you’re trying, you’re doing what I was doing in the last episode where I was like, “I’m gonna hold on to this job and do this job.” And the reality is, once you start growing into this new version, it’s really hard to go back. Once you learn that the Wizard of Oz is just a person behind the curtain and it’s not the Wizard, it’s kind of hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube, so as they say. So, hope this example works. Brad had this weird thing about he keeps our old iPhones, and then every time we get a new iPhone, he gets rid of our oldest iPhones, but we always have older ones lying around, and sometimes he even uses them. And part of it is he’s worried, like, “Oh my gosh, what if I don’t have all that I need that’s on that phone? What if I forgot something’s there?” That was a great phone to me. I really liked how it felt. That’s kind of like us trying to hold on to people who no longer fit where we’re growing, or schedules, maybe you are trying to do your own thing, but you’re holding on to your old life schedules, right? Like when we moved to Vegas, I was trying so hard to do the schedule that I had in LA because I loved that schedule. But not only was I no longer an Angelino, I was a Las Vegan, it was COVID, there was no schedule to keep. I had to change, I had to outgrow that, I had to let it go, right? So I’m not saying you have to get rid of anyone in your life, or the schedule, or the cars, or the clothes when you outgrow yourself, but what I am saying is that to fully step into the new version of yourself, we do have to evaluate what has to change so that I can fully be this person. Is this schedule, the cadence of when I see people in my life, that has to change? Do I need more sleep to be this person? My god, the younger me could just do a lot on no sleep. My goodness. Like, is the life in the version I am right now someone who cannot handle complaining about things from 20 years ago in our life?

Lesley Logan 12:34
So I do think, to fully outgrow a version of yourself, besides space and grace and compassion for who you were and who you’re becoming, it is important to evaluate what are you taking with you and what are you letting go, and that’s the action steps we have to take as we outgrow the version of ourselves. What is no longer serving us? What is taking up space? And, by the way, some of this stuff will just change naturally. When I changed from being in retail to working Pilates, the clothing was pretty easy to change, the job is to wear leg gings, but not all of it is easy; it just takes some time. But the action step you can take is to make sure that the steps you’re taking each day are towards the version you want to be, and not the version that you once were, because you’re just gonna get frustrated. I mean, it’s kind of like I made this example earlier, but I’m gonna say it again because I want you to have a visual. When I was trying to keep the old stuff and the new stuff, it is like having one foot on an island and one foot on a canoe. When we moved to Vegas, we’re like, oh, we’ll go back to LA every month, every four weeks we’ll have our same hairdressers and our same lash technicians and our same blah blah blah, and see our friends. Y’all, we haven’t been back in eight months, right? Because while that story felt really good, the version that we were becoming by living here made it really hard to go back there because those people, by the way, it’s not that they don’t want to see us, it’s not that we don’t see them, but they were in their version of their lives, and we’re coming in every four weeks going, “Hey, hang out with us!” And it’s like they’re like, “Well, this night doesn’t work, I got things to do.” So, sometimes I think we are trying to cobble and hold everything together from all parts of our lives, and the truth is, we just have to take a moment to go,okay, hold on. Who do I want to be? What does she do? What does she eat? Where does she go to work? Where is all this different stuff? So that you can step into that power. And then some things will naturally just go away, and some things, some people will step up so they can stay in. Or you might still keep the old car, even though you’ve changed, because that’s practical, right? Not saying go out and buy the new car because that’s what she would drive. We have to take some actions in making sure that the life that we want to live is actually in alignment with who we’re growing in to be and not who we used to be.

Lesley Logan 14:56
It’s important you’re also not playing the hindsight game. I talked a little about this in the last episode, but I think when I was going back to LA, I would drive around, and I could go, oh, I lived here, and you think about who you were, and the mistakes you made, and that I lived here, and, oh my god, even when I did this, you know more now, so we can’t go into hindsight and go, I would have done this better, or I should have done that sooner or I should have quit that sooner or I should have let that relationship end that time. Oh my gosh, I’m going to tell you a story, but first I just want to close that sentence off with any type of judgment like that is shame, and it’s not helpful. In fact, when you are judging yourself for who you used to be, it is actually a sign you have to have a gratitude practice, and this is something I worked with my therapist about. As I was evolving into the space that I am now, in 2020 she was like, “If you are judging yourself, that means you are not in gratitude.” And so if you get in gratitude, judgment can’t be there. Gratitude and judgment can’t live in the same space at the same time, can’t hold space for both. And so I just would say, if you find yourself getting frustrated or judgmental, take a moment to be like, “I’m grateful that I made this change, I’m grateful that I learned this thing, I’m grateful that I said yes to that thing,” because it will help you realize you did the best you could back then with what you knew. Hey, so the story I wanted to share before I got those things out is, I remember, this is a hindsight game, I remember it was one day, a year before I broke up with my ex, I remember driving on the freeway and going, “Oh my god, I wish he would just break up with me because I don’t know how to break up with him.” And then staying for another year, only to finally have the capacity to blow it all up, and that’s really what I did. That version of me had not spent enough time to really fully figure out who she was going to be, but I did that on my summer couch tour. Sometimes you have to do that, right? Sometimes you have to do that. But I remember thinking, “Oh my god, if I had just done this a year ago,” and it’s like, yeah, that would have been great, and I also would not have had the friends that I had, whose couches I slept on, for sure. Would not have had that. I would not have had the things that happened in that summer that gave me time and space and a schedule that allowed me to really grow into myself, the single version of myself, the woman that I really think, because I did that, is why I’m here today, and it’s definitely why I have the friendships that I have and the business that I have, for sure, the things that happened during that time.

Lesley Logan 17:28
So I just share that with you because, yes, it would have been nice if you made changes sooner or said yes to things sooner, but also you didn’t have those tool sets yet. And so now that you are taking action, having compassion for who you were and gratitude is going to take you a long way, and it’s going to make becoming the next version of yourself fun and a little more possible. Look, part of letting go and shifting is where “be it till you see it” works the best. If you are kind of in that in-between, you have the one foot on the island and one foot on the boat, it is time to sit down and just talk about, okay, it’s a year from now. Who are you? Where do you live? What do you do? What’s your schedule like? When do you get up? When do you go to sleep? When do you have time with your partner? When do you have time with your friends? When do you have time to do this? What are the hobbies that you have? And then you can just dream so big and think, okay, so based on this, how do I work backwards to be this woman? Oh, I’m someone who knows how to knit; I guess I’m going to a knitting class, right? I know I made that really simple, but truly, that is how you become the version of yourself that you want to be. I wanted to be a Pilates business coach and have a studio, and so I would tell people before I left the other gig, and I was still just renting space and doing some coaching, I’ll just tell people, “What do you do?” “Oh, I coach Pilates businesses on how to be more profitable and have the impact they want to make, and I teach privates on the side.” I started telling people that, even though the majority of my time was teaching Pilates. I would tell people that because, in telling people that, I was telling them who I was growing into, who I wanted to become. And then the hours that I wish I was coaching, I would actually be marketing my coaching services because then I spent time being the person I wanted to be. So when you are in this outgrow stage, growing-in stage, the best thing you can do is dream about like you’re on the other side. Who are you? And then work backwards and “be it till you see it” that way.

Lesley Logan 19:36
It’s also important to remember you don’t become someone new overnight; you do become her in moments. And I love looking back at those moments and saying, “Oh, that’s when I was like, oh, that moment and that moment and that moment compounded to here we are right now.” Those moments often happen before you’re even aware that it’s time to make a change, but they will keep adding up and adding up. And it’s important to keep taking steps, the messy action, and continue to do what you can with what you have. We have a great episode, I think it’s episode three, where our guests talked about how you’re never going to see the top of the stairs, but you can see the first step, and so you take that first step. And guess what happens when you take the first step? The next step reveals itself. If you listen to the intro of this podcast, right, we talk about it all the time, action brings clarity, it’s an antidote to fear. And Be It babe, most of the time we’re not stepping into where we want to be; we’re keeping the old version of ourselves because we can’t see the top of the stairs yet. But you can dream about it, and you can take the messy action, and you can have kindness and gratitude for yourself and others along the way. You do the best you can, and what happens is one day you’re the person you want to be, you’re the new version of yourself. And look, here’s the deal, if you are doing these things but you’re stuck, that’s going to be our next series.

Lesley Logan 21:02
So, if you’re feeling stuck, if you’ve been waiting for motivation, if you feel like you know what you want but you’re not doing it, I need you to know it’s not because you’re lazy. You didn’t go into some old version of yourself; things become lazy. It’s probably because you’re still operating the new version of you on the old system. When we use old computers or old phones, how slow they are, right? The spinning wheel of death comes up. Yeah, that’s just because you’re trying to do the new you on the old system. So we’re gonna dive in deeper to that in our next series, but until then, take messy action, be it till you see it. It’s a pretty great thing to shed something that no longer serves you and step into something that does. So, thanks so much, love. I hope this series was fun for you. Let me know what your takeaways are, your favorite parts, or topics you want us to touch on. Share this with a friend who is maybe outgrowing themselves and needs to know that they’re not alone, and they didn’t do anything wrong, and this is a really great thing. And until next time, Be It Till You See It.

Lesley Logan 22:08
That’s all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell
It’s written, filmed and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan
It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell
Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan
Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell
Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.