What Are You Proud of?

Have you been hard on yourself recently? Do you ruminate on your mistakes?  Now, how often do you  reflect on what you’ve done well? In this episode we asked friends what they are proud of. Hear their answers and  be inspired  to reflect on  the many successes in your life!

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Advice Column - Crowd-Sourced Ideas for Living with Intention. 

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):

I am deeply proud of my wife for working tirelessly to achieve her goals.

Speaker 2 (00:06):

I am proud of successfully being able to navigate my first year of marriage with a newborn.

Lisa Liguori (00:20):

Hello, friend. Welcome to Advice Column. I'm Lisa Liguori, and on this channel, we share crowdsourced ideas for living with intention.

(00:29):

How often do you think about things you're upset with yourself about or the ways you've disappointed yourself? Now, how often do you stop and reflect about what you're proud of?

(00:39):

I was recently in a workshop led by my friend Jessica Zempel, and she challenged us to think of 100 things in our lives that we're proud of. I think it's really, really fun and encouraging to reflect on that, and I'm finding that paying attention to the things that I do well and I'm proud of, rather than making me complacent, which is what I would worry about, actually motivates me to continue growing and improving. It actually gives me energy and confidence toward that.

(01:07):

It was also really special to hear what others were proud of, and it's become one of my favorite questions to ask when I'm talking to people, and such an uplifting topic.

(01:16):

In this episode, I ask people, what is one thing they are proud of in the last 12 months? Let's dive right in and hear their answers.

Speaker 4 (01:31):

Pride is defined by confidence and satisfaction in oneself. I'm proud of myself for sticking to my program with eating right and exercising right. Even though a lot of times I don't want to do it, I force myself to do it, and after I do it, I'm proud.

(01:49):

I think the biggest thing for me is that I am proud that the people that I love and care about the most in this world are proud of me.

Speaker 5 (02:04):

Something I'm proud of in the last 12 months is learning how to separate issues from people, and that is in a leadership context in running a company because there's a lot of things that come up, and they're all usually attached to a person in some way, whether it's a vendor that we work with or an employee or a co-founder or something within ourselves. It's very easy and distracting to confuse a topic with the person that it's associated with because those can have very, very different feelings. Learning to separate those out has been really helpful and provided a lot of calmness and clarity.

Speaker 6 (02:48):

I'm very proud of how I handled my inner life this year when I had a very difficult business situation that was very challenging and the person who caused it was working for me. I managed to never have any stress inside myself, treat him with the most integrity, respect, and kindness, and work through the issues without feeling stress inside myself. I'm very proud of this.

Speaker 7 (03:21):

Something that I have been proud of in the past 12 months is being the kind, compassionate, and caring person to my best friend and to her friends after her husband unexpectedly passed away at 44 years of age.

(03:32):

Being a mom myself to two kids at the same age as her kids, and the fact that all of us were the best of friends, really gave me my purpose this year. We took unexpected loss, tragedy, grief, and turmoil and really embraced her and her children. It has been incredibly humbling to be so in deep with my best friend and her kids and to watch how our families have intertwined even more. The healing and rebuilding process for my friend continues each and every day. I believe that God put us all here in this place with this purpose, and I'm proud to witness and play an active part in the love and the support and healing of my friend and her family.

Speaker 8 (04:12):

I am really proud because my entire leadership team is celebrating their seven-year work anniversaries in 2023. It has just been such a wild ride at the company for the last seven years, especially with COVID, and I don't know how I could've managed all of it without them. So I feel very lucky and proud to have an amazing team of women that I've gotten to work with for seven years, and I hope I get to keep working with them til I retire.

Speaker 9 (04:44):

I'm really proud of myself for just getting through this pandemic alone. I know everybody had their challenges, and for me, I think, just being single and not living around my family and continuing to strive for my dreams, even though my industry was one of the hardest hit, and not giving up, that felt like a real success and something that I was genuinely proud of, to set goals, whatever they may be, and to keep going forward,

Speaker 10 (05:21):

I am thankful every day that I get to do something I love. I get to speak to people, individuals, groups of people and make them better.

(05:34):

One thing that I have heard a lot lately is, "I felt seen and heard today." Now, the first time I heard that, I said, "Really, that's the best you can say about me, I have eyes and ears?" But then I thought about it. What does that mean? In general, people are feeling unseen and unheard. What I am grateful for is that I am blessed with eyes and ears that see and hear and can make a difference.

Speaker 11 (06:06):

Something I'm proud of is deciding to become a ballroom dancer in American rhythm styles and be able to compete in six months. In October of 2022, I began my ballroom training with the Fred Astaire Studio, and it is now one month away from competition in April. It has been such a challenging, rewarding, frustrating, exhilarating experience. I'm proud and also very grateful I had the chance to be able to do it. We'll see what the next 12 months brings.

Speaker 12 (06:50):

The thing I'm most proud of this year is having more empathy towards others. One example that comes to mind is the older person who might be driving in front of you and might be doing things much more slower and reacting much more slowly, and just remembering that this person is really trying their best. Beeping at them and trying to get them out of the way really isn't very compassionate, and really you're just causing a higher stress on this person.

(07:22):

Another example that comes to mind is when I come in and I see that a patient's really cranky, and a lot of times I used to be put off by that kind of energy. But instead, I just come in and just ask them, "Oh ... " So I'd be curious and ask them what is causing their anger and things like that. Then you end up having a much deeper connection, and you find out that this person is not trying to be difficult, they just have certain needs that need to be met. But at the same time, you're creating this connection when you have the conversation and you're helping disarm them a bit. So it gives me a better view of the world and actually makes me see things more positively.

Speaker 13 (08:16):

What I'm most proud of over the last 12 months is working with my staff to finish a book about the things that we think are most important to really serve young people who are impacted by foster care. It's called Life Changing Choices, and it's about the seven essential choices that you have to make in order to really have real change happen in the young people's live. I'm so proud of the work that we've done and including the voices of young people to make that book a reality.

Speaker 14 (08:49):

What I'm really proud of just happened a few weeks ago, was Spencer and I took our dream trip to Europe to go ski the Alps. It's something we've been talking about for years, and it really was the trip of a lifetime. I'm so happy that we are blessed to be able to do something like that.

Speaker 15 (09:12):

Something I'm proud of this year, two good friends I introduced seven years ago just got engaged. Seven years ago, they hadn't yet met, and they were both coming out of very difficult relationship situations. I thought it would be wise to fix them up on a blind date. They've been very happy for seven years and are now tying the knot.

Lisa Liguori (09:38):

That was so uplifting to hear. It's not always easy to share things we approve of ourselves about, and I'm grateful to each of the panelists for being vulnerable and allowing us to hear their answers.

(09:50):

My prayer for you with this episode is that it gives you a chance to reflect, maybe even right now, on something you're proud of. Maybe something one of the panelists shared will spark something you wouldn't have even thought of. I hope that doing that gives you joy and reminds you of your strengths.

(10:07):

All right, lots of love to you, and I'll see you in the next episode.