986 | The One Thing That Will Actually Change You in 90 Days or Less

Summary

The Rachel Hollis Podcast

Host: Rachel Hollis
Episode: 986 | The One Thing That Will Actually Change You in 90 Days or Less
Date: July 20, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this inspiring solo episode, Rachel Hollis dives deep into the real reason so many of us get fired up to change our lives only to fall short of transformation. The central theme is brutal honesty—with yourself, your habits, your environment, and your goals. Rachel guides listeners through five hard-hitting areas for self-assessment, offering tough love, relatable stories, and research-backed advice. The promise: if you embrace honesty in these key areas and make targeted changes, you can fundamentally change your life in 90 days or less.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Brutal Honesty: The Foundation for Change

[01:02]

• Rachel recounts the familiar cycle of getting excited about a vision, announcing big plans, and then failing to follow through.
• “If you keep having new visions and not actually getting a new life from those visions, it's time to change tactics.” – Rachel Hollis (02:50)
• The episode’s strategy: address the gap between inspiration and realization by getting brutally honest about where you are, what you’re doing, and what’s actually holding you back.

Five Areas for Brutal Honesty:

Rachel outlines a five-part framework for honest self-assessment.

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2. Where Are You, Really?

[03:50]

• Most people focus on the finish line, not their starting point.
• Analogy: If you want to get to Disneyland, you need to know your current location to plot a route.
• Rachel cites research: “Most people who believe themselves to be highly self-aware are working off a distorted picture.” (05:33)
• Practical Journal Exercise:
  • List what’s actually working for you right now and where you’re strong.
  • List the stuff you’re ignoring, where you’re falling short, or pretending not to notice.
• Notable Quote:
  "If you skip this part…you are wasting your effort…honesty is crucial. If you can't be honest about where you are, it does not matter how hard you work." – Rachel Hollis (14:32)

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3. How Many Things Are You Trying to Accomplish?

[16:52]

• We have limited bandwidth. Spreading yourself too thin over many goals results in minimal progress.
• Batch working: focus on one big target at a time for faster results.
• Quote:
  "If you are trying to accomplish a million different things in the next 90 days, you're maybe going to make a little bit of traction on a lot of things rather than a lot of traction on one or two things." – Rachel Hollis (18:15)
• Rachel’s personal approach: one major business goal at a time, supported by daily habits for other areas.

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4. Who Are You Surrounding Yourself With?

[22:25]

• Your social circle subtly but powerfully influences your habits, beliefs, and behaviors.
• Rachel references research showing that obesity—and by extension, other life patterns—spread through social networks up to three degrees of separation.
• “If you want to change your life, change your circle.” – Rachel Hollis (20:45)
• Find positive influences, whether in person or through podcasts, books, or online communities.
• Noteworthy Moment: Rachel shares her realization of ingrained unhealthy norms from her family and hometown, only seeing them clearly when she changed environments. (24:55)

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5. Identity vs. Habit

[28:06]

• Lasting change stems from aligning actions with your desired identity, rather than trying to force new habits onto your old self.
• “Most people are trying to pull new habits into their current identity. Instead of building a new identity that makes those habits automatic.” (28:13)
• Action shapes belief more than the reverse.
• Exercise: Imagine the person you want to be (real or fictional). Ask, “What is that person doing today that I’m not?”
• Quote:
  "If you're confused about how to get from where you are to where you want to be, this is your mind messing with you to keep you stuck...almost every freaking goal has a pretty clear step by step process. It's just we don't want to see it because the steps are freaking hard." – Rachel Hollis (31:50)

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6. Are You Taking Credit for Things Not Done?

[34:38]

• Social media and social circles can trick us into feeling accomplished just by talking about plans, rather than doing the work.
• Rachel recommends “working in silence” for 90 days—don’t announce your goal until you’ve achieved it.
• Notable Moment: Rachel uses her marathon training as an example: the anticipation of posting about a new milestone kept her motivated, but only after the work was done. (35:42)
• Quote:
  “If you are getting credit for something you have not done, you are who I am talking to.” (36:41)

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7. What Are You Using to Numb Yourself? (Bonus Insight)

[39:50]

• From wine and scrolling, to shopping and sugar, most people have “numbing” behaviors that keep them from facing honest truths and making change.
• Rachel shares her own struggle with mindless scrolling.
• “If you choose to go without it, even for 90 days, you might feel frustrated, bored, or overwhelmed...but your willingness to get honest…is what separates you from the person you could be.” – Rachel Hollis (41:27)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “You make it complicated…No, this is your brain finding ways to help you procrastinate. Because if you have analysis paralysis, you don’t actually have to do anything.” – Rachel Hollis (32:32)
• “Just do the thing. Let your work be evidence of what you have done.” (36:13)
• “A better life…starts with honesty. And you don’t have to tell anybody else your truths. But can you be honest with yourself about where you are? Because when we have the courage to be honest about where we are, we can get where we want to go.” – Rachel Hollis (46:25)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:02 – Addressing the "vision board syndrome" and the importance of strategy
• 03:50 – Why you have to start with where you are
• 10:25 – Journaling exercise for honesty
• 14:32 – The consequence of skipping honesty
• 16:52 – The myth of chasing multiple goals
• 20:45 – The impact of your inner circle
• 24:55 – Social norms and the influence of your environment
• 28:06 – The difference between identity and habit; practical mental exercise
• 31:50 – Overcomplicating vs. just doing the hard thing
• 34:38 – The trap of announcing plans vs. doing the work
• 39:50 – The ways we numb ourselves and why it's crucial to confront them
• 46:25 – Wrap-up: honesty as the starting point of any meaningful change

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Episode Tone & Style

• Rachel is direct, warm, supportive, and a little sassy.
• She mixes relatable stories, personal confessions, research, and actionable steps.
• The tone balances motivational tough love (“Come on”) with affirming belief in the listener’s potential.

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Takeaway

Transformation in 90 days isn’t about giant leaps – it’s about brutally honest self-assessment, focus, incremental behavior changes, environmental upgrades, and a willingness to get uncomfortable and do the boring work. Don’t announce it. Just do it, then celebrate out loud.

“You have all the courage and all the strength and everything that you need to make change already. You can be a completely different person 90 days from now.” – Rachel Hollis (46:45)

Transcript

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[Rachel Hollis]

Okay, tell me if this sounds like you have you ever made a vision board? Whether it was with magazines and a poster board or Pinterest boards, you made this whole beautiful vision. You were so excited about exactly what you were going to do and exactly where you were going to go, and it's still sitting in a drawer somewhere. Or have you ever texted your group chat or your best friend or your sister or your mama with your plan? Right? I'm starting again on Monday. I just signed up for the half marathon. You felt so pumped when you sent that note out into the world and then you didn't do the thing that you told them you were going to do. All right, this episode is for you. If you ever posted New Year, New Me, New Month, New Me, New Monday, New Me. But you didn't actually become the new version of yourself you were hoping for. If you are nodding along right now, you are not alone. Number one, I have been there. So have so many people who are listening to this episode. But if you're nodding along, it means you have the first part of the equation, guys. You have the spark, you have the idea, you have the finish line in mind. You have the North Star guiding you in a direction. You've got more than most people, which is some sort of plan for where you want to head. You just need the other part to help get you there. And the fact that you're not there yet, that's not something that you have to feel embarrassed about. And it's also not something that you should ignore. Because if you keep getting excited and then the excitement fizzles out, it means you need some strategies. Not just some good ideas, not just some vision, but some actual like, how am I getting from here to there? And that is what this episode is about, because sometimes the spark shows up way before you actually have the means to figure out how to get there. And that spark and that energy and that excitement, it feels so good that it sort of convinces our brain that we already did the thing. But if you keep having new visions and not actually getting a new life from those visions, it's time to change tactics. And that is what I want to do today. The way that we're going to get there is honesty. Not just honesty, brutal honesty. We are going to be brutally honest with ourselves about five different areas of this dream, five different areas of this goal. And based on the answers that you are willing to give, you can actually find a way through. So what I'd love to do is lay these out for you today and have you contemplate how they fit into the way that you are looking at your vision. And let's see if we can't help you make some progress against your goal. All right. The first thing that you've got to get brutally honest about is where you actually are. Where you actually are. People who like to get motivated, people who like to have vision and dream and think about the future, we like to focus on the finish line. We like to focus on what life is going to look like when we get where we are going. What we are not always great about doing is figuring out where we are. But think of it like this. If you wanted to drive to Disneyland right now, depending on where you are in the world, where you are in the US if you're in the US if you're in California and you're going to go in Anaheim, if you're in Florida, Florida, and you're going all the way down. If you're in Paris and you're going to drive, like, just based on where you are, let's say you want to go to Disney. That is your destination. And it's a beautiful destination. It's going to be awesome. And you know where it is oriented within the state of the world. And you're like, yeah, I can figure out exactly how to get my family to Disney. We're going to get in the car and we're going to drive there. You can only do that if you know where you are. If I pick up you and your family, I scoop you all up in the minivan and I drop you on a random road in the middle of nowhere, and you don't have GPS and you don't have a map, how are you going to get there? You have no idea where you are. Are you in the Middle of Florida? Are you in the middle of Ohio? Depending on your answer, the map's gonna change. So you must know where you are and you must be willing to look at it from an honest place. So this is like not where you wish you were. This is not the version of your life that you tell a stranger that you just met at a dinner party. Right? This is not the highlight reel and this is not something that anybody else in the world needs to know, but you must know where you actually are right now, today. Okay, here is a piece of data that might totally trip you out. So there's an organizational psychologist who ran this massive years long research program on self awareness and it was in the Harvard Business Review. But one of her core findings was that most people who believe themselves to be highly self aware are working off a distorted picture. And this is not just me, like preaching to you. This is actually something that freaks me out as well. Because I know that you and I, we can get to any goal that we have in our hearts and minds if we are willing to work. If we stay focused, we can get there. But not if we have a warped perception of who we are and, and where we are. We are generally not great judges of our own blind spots. And the people who are closest to us, the people who love us most or maybe know us best, are also not great judges. Because they are not just looking at where we are now. They're looking at the entire time that they've known us. And this can be for better or for worse. If you were a screw up when you were a teenager and in your early 20s and now you're really getting your life on track, you're making smart choices, but your entire family only knows you as that other version. How much belief do you think they're going to have in who you are and where you think you can go? Now the flip side is true. What if your whole life you've been a high achiever, you got straight A's, you did the thing, but in the last five, 10 years, if you're being really honest with yourself, you, you've fallen off track, you haven't been putting the effort in, you kind of been letting yourself go, but your mama loves you more than anyone in the world and she just remembers that girl who got straight A's and was, you know, captain of the swim team and had all the friends. So she sees you through that perception. We are not great at seeing ourselves and the people closest to us aren't either. So what this means is that we will resist what is actually true and what is actually happening right now. And it might be why you keep working so hard, but you are not really making traction. It goes back to this idea of the equation. So I've talked about this a ton in the premium community. This idea of the North Star goal and how we can get to any goal is by creating an equation that works so for our life. Specifically, inside of that equation, we're trying constants, which are the things that will always be true for the goal we are trying to achieve. For example, if you wanted to run a marathon, the constants in running a marathon are always going to involve you training to run a certain amount of miles, right? That is never going to change. If you want to run a marathon, you are going to figure out how to run a certain amount of miles. Those are the constants. But for every single person, there are variables. The variables change based on who it is and what they're working with. So how I train to run a marathon is very different than how you train to run a marathon, or how the Paralympian trains to run a marathon, or how someone in their 80s trains to run a marathon. The variables change based on who we are. If you are trying to put together an equation to get you to your ideal life, but you don't actually see yourself clearly, the equation will never work no matter how hard you are working. So the first step is that you've got to actually know where you are, who you are, what your resources are today. So here's how you can actually practice this. Grab a journal. You know, I love suggesting journaling. And I want you to make some lists. So the first list I want you to make is, here is what is actually working, and here is where I am actually really strong. So these are the things that I bring to the table. I'm really strong at these things. For this list. This is not the time to be Modest Mouse, all right? This, no one's going to see this. We don't want to over embellish, but we do want to acknowledge what we're good at, what we bring to the table, what our skills are, what we've got going for us, the actual effort we have put in in the last six months. That's list number one. Okay? List number two. And this one's going to actually take some guts because again, we're brutally honest. Here, here's where I'm pretending not to know something. Okay? Here's where I'm ignoring the fact that I've gained 20 pounds, right? Here's where I'm ignoring the fact that my business is going down instead of up. Or here's where I'm ignoring the fact that my business has flatlined, which means eventually it's going to start going down. Here's where I'm ignoring right here's where I'm telling myself, oh, it's a slow season. Oh, it's the market. Here's where I've stopped showing up for myself. Here's where I've stopped showing up for my family. Here's where I'm falling short as a mama. Here's where I'm being really freaking honest about what is going on in my life. That second list takes courage. But what I want you to give yourself credit for is that both of those lists can be true at the same time. We can have things in our lives that we know need to be improved and things in our lives that we're proud of, that we do well, that we're crushing. You don't want to over embellish in one direction. You don't want to ignore areas of your life, but you want to be honest about what's really going on. Here's the last thing that I'm going to add to this part of the show. If you skip this part. If you are unwilling to look at what is true, it does not matter how hard you work, you are wasting your effort. The title of this episode is this will change your life in the next 90 days. We are talking about what you could do in the next three months that will fundamentally change the direction of your life. Honesty is crucial and if you can't be honest about where you are, it does not matter how hard you work, you're not gonna get where you wanna go. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I am a recovering people pleaser. I spent most of my childhood learning that in order to be loved, I needed to make sure everybody liked me. And for some of us who have childhoods rooted in trauma, it goes way deeper than just being nice or just being kind or just being a good girl. And it becomes about this feel of safety. That is something I really had to learn to unlearn. And I can't imagine navigating my adult life, especially in the last 15 years, without the help of a therapist to guide me through that process. I remember going to therapy probably 10 or 15 years ago and thinking I was there to talk about stress or anxiety. But when we really uncovered the root cause of the stress and anxiety, it was about feeling like my in laws didn't like me. Sounds sort of frivolous and ridiculous, but for a lot of people, that kind of thing can destroy our days. So I had to learn. And I really am so grateful for my therapist for guiding me through that process. If you have never considered all of the different ways that a therapist can help you navigate these sort of stigmas in your life, these things that you struggle with and don't really know a resolution for, you should check out BetterHelp. There is a reason that I have been partnered with them here on the show for years. BetterHelp is the number one online therapy. It's the world's largest therapy platform and you can find space to slow down and talk to someone who is just there for you. They have no idea or context about all the other people in your life. They're just helping you work through your stuff. You take a short questionnaire and it helps you to identify a therapist at BetterHelp that would work really well for you. And the great thing is if for some reason you try that therapist out and you don't totally dig them, that's cool. You can find another one really easily. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with better help. Sign up and get 10% [e-mail] Rach that's betterhelp.com Rach those precious magical memories

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[Rachel Hollis]

The second thing that we have got to be super honest about is how many things you are currently trying to accomplish at one time. You have a fixed amount of energy and a fixed amount of focus. And if you are currently dividing those things up in 20 different ways, that may be why you are not making traction the way you want to. So the research backs this up again and again and again. Every single time you ask your brain to move from one goal to a completely different one, there is a lag. Like your brain has to drop all the information that it just took in doing that first step task, and now it's got to go through a whole different system of rules before it can do the next task. Well, y' all have heard me talk about this idea of batch work. I have done this for years and years. Today is a podcast day. I am recording podcasts today. I'm not writing today. I'm not editing today. I'm not putting together the Sunday email. Those are different things for different days. Because it is so much more effective for our brains to be able to focus in on one task. If you are trying to accomplish a million different things in the next 90 days, you're maybe going to make a little bit of traction on a lot of things rather than a lot of traction on one or two things, which would be way more effective for your life. So if you're trying to work on your health and your. Your marriage and your finances, and you're trying to apply for a new job, it is not your lack of discipline that is keeping you in the same spot. It is a system that is set up to fail because it's just too much for you to take on. And I know that I have been giving you the same advice for years and years, which is to pick one goal. And you've heard me say it a thousand times, but it's because it's true. If you were super high capacity, able to accomplish 20 different goals at one time, you would not be listening to this episode about how to fix your life in 90 days. I am not saying that with Shade. I am making the kind of episode that I would want to listen to. I do not chase 50 goals at once. I focus on two or three. And even inside of that, there's like one major business goal, because that takes so much of my brain. And then I'll have, you know, daily habits and rituals that support my health goals and the kind of mama I want to be. But I really am only taking on big stuff one at a time. If there is a way to accomplish it all as a single person, I have not figured it out. I think oftentimes the people who are telling you to chase everything have massive teams. If you have a massive team and you're incredible at delegating to that team, chase it all. But I'm assuming that most of you are like me and you're trying to do these things with a small but mighty team or as a solo entrepreneur. So stop making it harder on yourself. That begins with your honesty about whether or not you're chasing too much. The third thing that you've got to be brutally honest about is who you surround yourself with. If you want to change your life, change your circle. If you want to change your life, change your circle. I actually just replayed an episode that we did that was so popular. On Fridays, we do something called Friday faves, which is playing old episodes from years ago that were just some of our biggest hitters that people really loved. If you want to go back and listen, episode 977 is called the four friends you should seek out and how to manifest them. So if you want to elevate your circle and you're not really sure how, and you want some ideas or different perspectives, episode 977. But we have all heard that old saying that you are the combination of the people you spend the most time with. If you are hanging out with people who have bad habits, who drink too much, smoke too much, party too much, don't really care about their futures, not really working on their careers, not great parents, like, whatever your version of, like, gross behavior is. But you're hanging out with those people. It is impossible for you not to absorb that. Unfortunately, they are more likely to rub off on you than for your positive energy to rub off on them. And I am not saying that you abandon your family. I'm not saying that you never see your friends from high school again. But you have got to be really conscious about who is in your circle and how they affect the quality of your life and your ability to elevate in the way that you want to. There's this crazy research that I find wild because I always think about the people who are closest to us, right? Like those five people that you surround yourself with. But there's this crazy research on obesity, and it's decades and decades of data that found that obesity spreads through social networks. Let me explain this, because it's crazy. The researchers found the. The studies called the Framingham Heart Study. The researchers found that through three degrees of separation, meaning like your friends, friends, friend. So someone you have never met can shape your habits. And it sort of makes sense, though I'd never really considered it before, because we absorb what is normal in our community. So the more that people around us are doing a thing, the more normal that thing becomes to us. And I. So get this. I grew up in a community that was very unhealthy. And I'm not saying, like, my whole town, but my immediate family on both sides, all the. There was so much disease. There was so much ill health. There was so much. There was so much obesity. But it wasn't odd, it wasn't unusual. It was so accepted. It was so normalized. It was so not something that anybody questioned. And then when family members got older, and then they would all get sick of the same things and they would have heart attacks and all of these things would happen. It was so accepted that it wasn't until I moved to a different community. I went from the town that I grew up in to la, which is very health conscious, sometimes in a very negative, in the opposite direction. But once you're removed from that environment, you realize how odd the normalized behavior was in your old community. Norms travel. What would be constituted as normal? Like what you would order? If we were all going out to dinner, we're going to go to the Chili's. In the town that I grew up in, you're with a group of people. The food we would order, the drinks we would order, is very different health choices than what would happen in a different place. It's not just the people that are closest to you. It is like, who do they hang out with and who do they hang out with? And maybe this is too much. Like, maybe we're. I get geeky about my research and nobody cares as much as I do. But I want you to look honestly about the people that you spend the most time with and see if you can recognize that that behavior for them is normalized because of the five people they spend the most time with. Like, if your best friend has a bunch of friends and family members that are influencing her in a downward direction, they're also influencing you. Just something, just something to think about. I know I'm going too deep down a rabbit hole that nobody cares about but me. But it matters who is in your life. And I just want to re emphasize this, that if you don't have positive role models, if you don't have positive influences in your life, seek them out in other ways. I mean, you're listening to this podcast. I hope that's, you know, because you feel like I motivate you or I'm a good influence in your life. You can find influences in other ways and be conscious of who you surround yourself with so that if you are going to go to your cousin's baby shower and you know, you're going to be around all your family and you know that they're going to bring up some stuff in you and maybe encourage some negative behaviors. You can go into that, you can pray before you go into that experience. You can raise your vibrational state. You can, you know, change the energy you show up in the room with so you're not taking on their behaviors.

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[Rachel Hollis]

If you want to change your life in the next 90 days, the thing that you have got to be honest about is identity versus habit. Let me explain. Most people are trying to pull new habits into their current identity. Instead of building a new identity that makes those habits automatic. So we don't actually act based on who we believe we are. We infer who we are through our behavior. I actually just did a whole episode on this last week about how to change your mindset in a week. Episode 984, if you want to check that out. The whole episode was around this idea that our actions shape our beliefs. We think it's the opposite. We think that if we believe ourselves to be someone, we will take aligned action. But what really happens is that we take action that reinforces that self belief. But if you understand how identity works, if you understand that you need to change the identity of who you are, you can figure out the actions to take that are aligned with the identity. It's not then, oh, I want to be someone who wakes up early. It's okay. My future best self is this, this, this and this. Okay, if she has those things, what must be true in order for her to have those things? Okay, well she's got to be healthy and she's got to do this. She's got. Okay, let's back up a step further. She's got to be healthy. What does that mean? She works out every day. Okay, well based on my actual schedule, the only way that I'm going to be able to work out every day is if I work out before I go to the office. Ergo, I gotta start getting up at 6:00am okay, so now my actions that I take, my behavior that I enact is based on the identity. It's not the habit of getting up first thing in the morning. It's I am the person who wakes up at 6am because I do this, this, this and this. So here's just a fast way to Figure this out. If I am confusing you, pick a person. This can be a real person that you know, or maybe it's sort of this combination of a few people that you admire who already embodies the kind of person that you want to be. They already have the identity that you would love to build for yourself. You do not actually have to know them. This could be like, who you make them up to be. You're like, I love the Rock. I want to be more like the Rock. And I think that he does this, this, this, and this. And in this scenario, you obviously have no idea what their actual real life is like or their actual real schedule is like. This is you just sort of pinning the vision of what you think that person does. Then this simple but brutal question. What is that person doing today that I am currently not doing?

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Who?

[Rachel Hollis]

Sit with it for a second. What is that person that I admire that I think is closer to who I want to be? What did they do today that I didn't do today? The answer is almost always going to be not fun, not glamorous. Right? If it's an author you admire, it's that they wrote, they look like a troll, and they sat at their desk with their hair in a bun and they wrote for nine hours and nobody helped them and it wasn't fun and it was a total slog. And that's what they did. If it was the Rock, you know, he probably worked out for like nine hours or something and ate a side of beef. If it was an entrepreneur that you admire, maybe they had to get up at 4am because they're on the west coast, but they needed to be up on east coast time. It's unglamorous. It's the little things that those people are doing that they're not showing on Instagram, that they're not making reels about. It's boring. But it's actual work that you need to be doing if you want to have that identity. See, guys, it's not confusing. If you're confused about how to get from where you are to where you want to be, this is your mind messing with you to keep you stuck. I believe that almost every freaking goal has a pretty clear step by step process. It's just we don't want to see it because the steps are freaking hard. It's not complicated. It's just difficult. They're very different things. You make it complicated. Should it be this, this, this, this? Oh, I'm overwhelmed. What I should go over here, I should do. No, this is Your brain finding ways to help you procrastinate. Because if you have analysis paralysis, you don't actually have to do anything. And you can stay here for the next three years unsure and uncertain about how to make a move. I saw someone in the premium community had commented. I wrote her back, but she had commented on something, and she was like, oh, thank you for this. For this episode. Reminder. I keep thinking about wanting to change careers, and there was a job opportunity that she could apply for, but in applying for it, you know, she wasn't sure. Could she handle it? Could she do the thing? But she had this opportunity to apply, but she wasn't sure if she should apply. Basically, the way she wrote out the question, my answer was like, I. I literally, in all caps, I was like, girl, apply. Apply for the job. Why are you sitting here trying to make a decision that you don't even have yet? The decision is not, should I apply? The decision is, I got the job offer. Should I take it? That's a decision. That's an empowered decision from right now, should I apply? You're what? You're making a decision about whether or not you should throw your hat in the ring. You're trying to debate whether or not you should just stay here doing the same thing or at least try for something new. That's not a decision. That's your brain keeping you small. If you apply, get the job, then you go, oh, wow, I've got this opportunity. Do I want to take it? Yes or no? You don't have to do anything. You could get a job opportunity and say, thank you so much. I'm going to stay right where I am. But at least then you're making an empowered decision to stay here or take a step forward. Come on. Can we always be the people that at least try for the thing? But ultimately just. Just keep it in mind. If it feels complicated, it is your brain messing with you. Your dream is not complicated. It might be difficult, but that is very different than, oh, it's so confusing. I don't really know. Yeah, you do know. Take the next step. The next step is unglamorous. The next step doesn't feel good. The next step is hard. It's challenging. It's the thing you don't want to do. It's the hard conversation. It's the thing you don't want to face. And that is how you get where you want to go. Have the courage to get real about whether or not your habits align with the identity that you want to have. My last piece of brutal honesty that you are going to need if you want to change your life in the next 90 days. I hesitate because this sounds harsh, but it will help you. You have got to stop giving yourself credit for things you have not done. Okay, let me explain this because it sounds super mean. And in a world where most people do not give themselves credit, this might confuse you. There is this common practice that has happened since the invention of social media where people will announce that they are doing a thing and then get celebrated by their community, and then they don't even realize this. They get the dopamine rush of that celebration, and on some level, they believe they've done it. If you've ever posted on social media that you signed up for the half marathon or that you're finally going to write that book, or that you're going to sign up for school, or you're considering this or you're doing that, if you've ever posted something but then not actually done the work to back it up, you are who I am talking to. If that is something that you have struggled with, the greatest hack, the greatest carrot, I am telling you this will work, is that you do not talk about the thing that you want to achieve and you use the announcement of achieving it as the carrot that you dangle for yourself to get yourself to go. So when I trained for my first marathon, this was a long time ago. This was back when I used to post everything on social. This was when we used to post, like. Remember when you'd be like having a cookie and that was your social media post. That's what you'd put on Facebook, like, delicious chips. We didn't know what we were doing. These were kinder days. These were easier days. But back then, I was training for my first marathon, and this maybe makes me sound so ridiculous, but I would use my big mileage. So let's say I had only ever run three miles, and then my next goal was six miles. I would use the vision of the post that I was going to put on Facebook of, like, made it past six miles. I would use that to keep myself running. That sounds so vapid and so embarrassing. But I used that vision of like, I am going to post a picture of myself looking sweaty and red and saying that I just ran six miles. That is how I kept myself running. And then later I'd be like, okay, nine miles. And I would keep myself going. When I wanted to quit, I'd be like, no, Think how amazing you get to post that you ran nine miles. But I Never posted before I accomplish the goal. If you post before you do the thing, you're not going to get yourself to do the thing. Okay? If you tell your friends you're doing the thing and they celebrate you, but you didn't actually do anything, you're messing with your head. If you are getting credit for something you have not done, you are who I'm talking to. There is a really simple practice that actually would probably be helpful for a lot more people in this world, which is to work in silence. And I'm not asking you to do this forever, but I am challenging you. For the next 90 days, stop announcing it. Stop quote, showing your work on social. Stop looking for the cheer section. Stop trying to convince other people to see the vision. Just do the thing. Let your work be evidence of what you have done. And if you need to use that, if you want the vision of like, oh, my gosh, 90 days from now, I'm going to be able to post and tell people that I did this, this, and this. That's awesome, because then you have a reason to celebrate. I know that most people are never going to give themselves credit for the things that they have done. I know that it is important to celebrate your wins, even small ones. I know it's important to build things inside of a community. I am specifically speaking to those of you who know, like, if I'm. You're like, oh, girl, you're talking to me. I'm the one who posts about things or talks about things or tells people about things I haven't actually done. If that is you, this one change can change everything. Okay, before we wrap up for today, I know we talked about five different areas that we wanted to be honest about, but I have one more that I feel like is really important to add into this mix. All these things that we talked about, all these truths that we're not looking at. I want you to be honest about what you are using to avoid seeing all these things and feeling all these things. If you are willing to be honest in this session today, if you're listening to this podcast and maybe you have been more honest with yourself than you have in a long time, then it's important to ask, how come you haven't been this honest before? How come you haven't felt this before? How come you didn't notice? I think that almost everyone I know has their own version of numbing out. These are the things that we reach for so that we do not have to feel our feelings. So maybe it's some wine, Maybe it's scrolling for hours, you know, so you don't have to think. Maybe it's online shopping. Maybe it's sugar. Maybe it's pot. Maybe it's cigarettes. Maybe it's alcohol. Whatever it is, this thing that you use so that you don't have to think about all the things you don't want to think about, it's what's keeping you from who you're going to be, babe. This thing that you reach for is keeping you from being a better version of yourself. And if you choose to go without it, even for 90 days, you might feel frustrated without it. You might feel bored out of your skull. You might feel overwhelmed at times. But your willingness to look at that thing honestly and be real about how much that separates you from the person you could be takes a courage that most people will never find in themselves. You know, the thing, right when I'm. When I'm naming the list, you know the thing when I get overwhelmed, my thing is that I scroll. And if I want to be the woman of my dreams, it means that I just can't. I can't have apps on my phone because it's just, like. It's mindless, right? And it's. I tell myself it's not a big deal. I'm like, oh, I'm watching sourdough bread recipes or, like, gardening or whatever. But the scroll, it's just so easy. And I look up and I've lost a few hours. And look at that point, like kids are in bed. You know, this is my time. I could be doing. But the woman that I want to be, I'd rather be reading a book. I'd rather be writing a book. I'd rather be sitting outside in the backyard staring at the stars. There's. There's a million things I'd rather be doing with my life that get me closer to the person I want to be than scrolling YouTube shorts. So if I have the courage to admit that to myself, it means that I need to face that, and it means that I need to take actions to get that out of my own way. You know, there's a lot of different questions that I've asked you to be honest about today. And I know that not all of them are easy to face, but a better life for you, for the people that you love and for the things you want to do. It starts with honesty. And you don't have to tell anybody else your truths. You don't have to tell anybody else what you're afraid of. You don't have to tell anybody else what you're struggling with. Oh, my gosh. I, you know, went crazy on someone's Amazon shop and bought 20 pairs of shoes I didn't need. Like, you don't have to go tell everybody, but can you be honest with yourself about where you are? Because when we have the courage to be honest about where we are, we can get where we want to go. So that's it. Those are my ideas for today. Five different areas that you can be honest and one question about how you're numbing. It looks like being honest about where you are, honest about how much you're actually chasing. Are you taking on too much? Honest about who's around you and the influence that they have on your life. Honest about your habits and whether or not they align with the person that you want to become. And honest about whether or not you're actually doing the work or if you're getting, you know, applause for things you haven't done yet. And if you need to sort of change how you're showing up so that you can achieve the things that you want to achieve. And I hope that, you know, it's felt like coaching today. I hope that you've gotten some insights. But you don't need a coach to change your life. I want to remind you of that. I love being here for you and I love coaching you and I love those of you who are in community inside of premium with us. But I also want to be the first person to tell you that you have all the courage and all the strength and everything that you need to make change you already have, that you can change your life today and you can be a completely different person 90 days from now. 90 days from now can be just another day on your calendar or it can be the day that you get to celebrate all of your wins. You get to celebrate all of the work that you've been doing. I hope you'll choose a path that makes you feel the most proud. I'll be back soon with more conversations just like this one. Until then, as always, I love you and I'm rooting for you. The rachel hollis podcast is produced by by me, rachel hollis. It's edited by andrew weller and jack noble.

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