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This podcast is where your inner work begins. Each season, we skip the small talk and get straight into: nuanced conversations about self-care and inner work where you’ll feel understood instead of overlooked, practices you can try as soon as the episode ends, and reflective prompts that connect you and your experience to the conversation.
Taylor Elyse Morrison:
You're listening to Inner Warmup. I'm your host, Taylor Elyse Morrison, founder and author of Inner Workout, ICF certified coach, and fellow journeyer. In 2017, I set out to build a life that didn't burn me out, and I found my life's work in the process. On Inner Warmup, we talk about how self-care and inner work show up in your relationships, your career, your schedule, and then the conversations you have with yourself. We get practical, we get nuanced, and we're not afraid to challenge wellness as usual. So take a deep breath and get curious. This is where your inner work begins. Hey, y'all.
I'm just sitting here trying to figure out how is it already time for another season finale. There's so much heart that goes into the planning of each season, from deciding on the theme, to handpicking each of the guests, to choosing the questions that we explore in each conversation. And from what I've heard from y'all, this monu(mental) season has hit really close to home. We've spent the past couple of months looking at how life changes impact our mental well-being. And we covered so many topics. Leaving social media, choosing not to become a parent, layoffs, going back to school, getting cancer, moving across the country, and more. If you haven't listened to the full season, I encourage you to go back and press play on any episodes you missed. Even if it doesn't seem like it's immediately relatable to your situation, I know that for me, I gained so much even if I wasn't personally going through that change.
Like I'm not moving across the country right now, or I haven't been diagnosed with cancer. And yet there were lessons from those episodes that I am definitely carrying over into my life. Each guest shared their story. They shared some advice. They shared what they learned. And my hope is that they shifted your perspective. Maybe they even shifted some of your actions the same way they did for me. But if you've been here for a while, you know that I love to end the season with just some nuts and bolts advice for you.
So for this season, I wanted to introduce a concept called change agility. If you remember the episode with Marché, she talked about the change curve and how there's this dip in the curve. The dip might represent how we're feeling about the change or it might represent how we're able to get things done through the change. We might have a dip in our mood or it's just like everything feels slower with this new process or working with different people in this environment that feels unfamiliar to me. So what change agility does is it doesn't get rid of the dip altogether. That's just part of the change process. But I think of it as adding some cushion so the dip doesn't get so low and it hurts a little bit less. If you did any kind of sports growing up, you probably remember doing agility drills.
Running in and out of that plastic ladder on the ground. I know I did this in gym class. It was also something that we did when I ran track. And what it did is you trained your body how to move in an artificial environment so that you were ready. For me, it meant that I was more ready when I was sprinting or doing hurdles. Maybe for you, it meant that you were faster on the basketball court or in the soccer field. You do the agility drills before the change happens so that you're always prepared. As people say, you stay ready so you don't have to get ready.
So what I'm going to do here is share four change agility "drills" that you can do to prepare yourself for change. You ready? So the first one is to embrace discomfort. I mentioned a couple seasons ago that this is something I'm working on as I start taking dance again. I can't believe it's been almost a year of me dancing multiple times a week. And when I'm doing ballet class in particular, we'll balance at the end of an exercise. So we'll have done whatever we're meant to do, whether it's pliés or rond de jambes, and then we'll come up to balance on one leg. And by that point, I'm tired, I feel wobbly. I wanna come down because it feels hard.
I'm uncomfortable in the wobbliness of balancing on one leg. But what's happening there, every time I choose to sit in the balance a little longer than I want to, I'm building change agility. So that later on in the class, when I'm having to balance on one leg and I don't have a bar to me to hold on to, I'm better equipped to do the balance there. And let's be honest, I'm no, like, fabulous dancer. I do it because it feels good and fun for me. So I still wobble. I still fall down. But because I got used to adjusting my body and the wobbles on the bar, I can better do it when I'm in the middle of the floor.
And the same is true for any type of change that we might experience. When you choose to sit with discomfort a little longer, you're building change agility too. It doesn't just happen in ballet class. And that makes the change easier. So maybe your discomfort is with having uncomfortable conversations. Maybe you're having to give feedback or to share your needs. Maybe your discomfort is continuing to work on that skill that feels a little bit shaky. It could be public speaking.
It could be something you're doing in your personal life. Maybe you're trying to bake bread and it's a little bit fancier of a bread than sourdough. All of that sitting with discomfort, it adds up. And I have to add a major disclaimer here that discomfort does not equal physical or emotional pain. You really gotta trust yourself here. I trust and I know that you know the difference between something hurting you and when you just rather not because it's uncomfortable. So check-in with yourself. Am I tapping out because this hurts and I'm going to injure myself physically, mentally, emotionally if I push for a few seconds longer, a few minutes longer? or is this something that just doesn't feel good because it's unfamiliar, because I'm not immediately good at it, because I have to work through some emotions that I'd rather ignore? Start asking yourself that question and having honest conversations with yourself, and you will find these ways to lean into discomfort.
And if you're listening and you're like, Taylor, I don't know where to find discomfort, the quickest shortcut is to learn something new. I started playing piano again recently, and I'm also learning French. I don't know if I've ever mentioned this. I double majored in Spanish. The pronunciation for French just doesn't really make sense in my brain, and I am so uncomfortable. You should see me when I'm looking at my little Duolingo app trying to form the sounds and being like, my mouth does not know how to make sounds in that way. So if you're looking to build that skill to do a change agility drill of discomfort, start learning something new. Learn a skill at work, start learning a different language, pick up a different hobby, and just sit in that discomfort of, Oh yeah, This is new.
I'm starting from the bottom here. That's good for you. So that's our first one, embracing discomfort. The second skill is called practiced varying. And the idea behind this drill is that you are intentionally switching things up. Sometimes, you're switching up your actions that might look like reading a book in a different genre. You're reading fiction instead of non-fiction, or you're reading fantasy instead of more realistic fiction. It could be going to a different kind of event to make new friends.
You take a break from social media. Those are all ways to switch up your actions. Other times, it's simply a matter of switching up your thinking. So you start seeking out different perspectives, whether that's in real life or online. And one of the things that I love to do when I'm trying to switch up my thinking is to practice thinking really, really big. So at a scale beyond what is normal or comfortable for me. And then sometimes practicing thinking really small as well. So I'll say for example, as we've worked on the Inner Workout app, there are apps that have 1,000,000 and tens of millions of users, and I've just had to expose myself.
I'll Google, like how many users does this app have? And realize, oh, man, there's a scale that I can't even imagine at this point. So practice thinking big, practice thinking small. And to get more specific around that one, it might be, how would I approach this if my monthly budget all of a sudden doubled? How would that change the way I spent my money? What would happen if I had to cut my budget in half? How would that impact the way I spend my money? Another thing that you could do is ask yourself "what if?" questions and really try and make this fun. This is not about catastrophizing what if, this is playful. So if I had to change careers, what would I do? If I had to move to any other city in the country or the world, what would that look like? It could be as simple as a little journaling prompt or a conversation starter you have with yourself or with your friends. Or if you're a Virgo rising like me, you might map it out for real. I have done things. I've spent little afternoons where I have looked up the cost of living.
I've looked up real estate, places I could live, the whole 9 yards. And it was really fun to see what's possible. The whole idea behind practice varying is to remind yourself that there are any number of directions your life can take and to know that you can handle whatever comes your way. So it just gets you in again, this is about change agility. It gets you used to shifting perspectives. So when that change comes at you, you're not like, oh my gosh. This is the only way it can be. The way my life is is the right way.
And if I have to change it, then everything's gonna blow up. When you do practice varying regularly, as you've heard, it can be really fun and playful and light. Then a change comes, you still can have emotions about it. And you're like, okay. Well, I already had thought about what would happen if I change careers or if I had to go to a different company, or if I wanted to expand my friend group. So I know that I can handle this. Let's move to number 3, regularly connecting to your mission, vision, and values. I am a big fan of mission, vision, values.
I see them as forming part of our inner compass mission, vision, values, and metrics or definitions of success. There's actually your whole journey, that's what we call mini courses, in the Inner Workout app about Building your Inner Compass. When you have these things and you connect with them regularly, you can more easily make decisions and find a direction to turn when things feel like they've been flipped upside down. So you might just make this a weekly practice or it could be monthly or quarterly, but a practice that you do where you have something to grab onto. You're like, okay, where am I at with my mission, my vision, my values, and my definition of success? And even as you are considering options, you get to use those. That's why we call it an inner compass to say, okay, all of these options look good. Or if we're being pessimistic, all of these options look absolutely terrible. But based on what I know about myself and what I value, which option makes the most sense for me? So you've essentially created a framework for yourself before you need it that allows you to handle change and to sift through options within a change.
The last practice that I'll share is simply looking back. So this is what you do after you've moved through a change. And it's just taking a moment to document your learnings. If you've been around the tech space, they call this a retro or it's short for a retrospective. And again, it just really means looking back. So I'm gonna share a few formats that you can use to do this process of looking back. One really simple one is 'did well, do differently.' So when I see this change that happened, when I'm looking at the career change I made, when I'm looking at the move, when I'm looking at changing some relationship, What do I think went really well about how I handled it? What would I do again? And if I was faced with this situation again, how would I change my approach? So that's great.
It's two questions. It's really easy. The next one is start, stop, continue. So when you've moved through a change, you can say, okay, based on everything that's happened, what do I wanna start doing now? Maybe I want to more regularly ask myself this question. Maybe I wanna make sure that I am always in some type of external group that gives me community and accountability. What do I wanna stop doing? Maybe I want to stop spending my money or my time in this way. I wanna stop second guessing myself. I want to stop spending so long in analysis paralysis because I see how that just gets me worked up, and then it makes the change even harder for myself.
And what do I want to continue doing? Maybe you did a great job asking what you need. And so, you know, okay, next time I'm going through that, I do wanna make sure I let my friends know that I'm having surgery and give them the opportunity to bring meals over. I want to make sure that I'm working with a therapist or a coach. I want to pencil time on my calendar to make sure that there is me time in the midst of the change. I'm just throwing out examples here, but start, stop, continue gives you a chance to celebrate what worked and what is working while also giving you a chance to pivot where you need to. This next one is called mad, sad, glad. It's a way to check-in about your feelings through the change. So what made you feel frustrated, angry, annoyed? Remember, it doesn't have to be the biggest version of this feeling, but where were these twinges of oh, I'm rolling my eyes here.
I'm gritting my teeth a little bit. Doesn't have to be like you yelled at your partner or something, but where were those twinges of anger? What made you sad? Again, this doesn't have to be a full blown depressive state where you can't get out of bed, but there could have been something as simple as wistfulness, nostalgia, where you realized, oh, things aren't the way that they were anymore. I have a really good friend who's moving out of state soon, and I'm feeling some of that sadness in the midst of a change because she just lived right down the block and felt so close and accessible. And now she's not gonna be. She's gonna be on the other side of the country. And then what were you glad about? This is celebratory. This is gratitude. This is appreciation.
The other thing I like about mad, sad, glad is that it shows you how all emotions can coexist in a situation. It's rare that we're just feeling one thing. And this invites you to say, yeah, how did all of these feelings show up? And then the last one is called 4 L. What did you like? What did you learn? What did you lack? And what did you long for? So liked and learned are pretty straightforward. It's like, yeah, this felt good. This is what I learned along the way. These are the lessons that I gleaned, lacked and longed for, I'm just gonna spend a moment on each of them. So when we look at what you lacked, a lot of times this is resource.
I didn't feel like I had enough time. I didn't feel like I had enough support. I didn't feel like I had enough money. I didn't feel like I had enough knowledge. These are can be the things, the resources we didn't have access to throughout a change. And I'm sure there are more, but those are some starters for you. And then what did you long for? Like, what was this desire that you had? Did you wish that you had a space to express how you were feeling? Did you wish that the change moved faster or slower? Almost think of this as like you if you had a magic wand to fulfill some of the desires that were underlying this change, what are the wishes that you would grant yourself? So that's 4 L, liked, learned, lacked, longed for. I tried to provide a variety of formats for retrospectives because each of us has different ways of looking back that resonate more with us.
Some of us are like, oh, yes. Mad, sad, glad. Let's get into the feelings of it. For other people more, did well, do differently. The straightforwardness of that feels better. So you've got some options. Play with it. But I do really encourage you, and this is an encouragement to myself as well.
It is so easy for us to want to skip this. Because once you are done with the change, you just want a break. But this does not have to take long. And this isn't just a change agility practice, these retrospectives, these look backs. It's also a way to integrate the experience. So instead of the change just being something that happened to you, you ensure that it is something that you've learned from. And especially when you have changes where you don't feel a lot of agency, this is a way to take some of your power back and say, yeah, I didn't choose that the company was gonna restructure. I didn't choose that someone in my life was going to get sick and that would change where I had to live or how I had to spend my time.
But I can choose to spend some time reflecting on the experience and allow it to shape how I move forward. So we have these 4 drills I just covered. Embracing discomfort, practiced varying, building your inner compass, and looking back. Which one of these 4 are you committed to trying? Really think about that for yourself. For me, I've really taken to heart what I just shared around looking back. And as much as I preach these things, I still am just as guilty of wanting to rush forward. And I'm in the midst of a lot of change. Really the past couple of years have just been filled with change after change, some which have been self-imposed, some which have just happened.
And I don't think I've done the best job at looking back. And so I'm committed to taking the time to do at least one of these retrospective practices. And with that, we are at the end of season 6, our monu(mental) season. If you are new here, we take breaks in between the seasons to try and practice what we preach, to give you space to integrate, to give the team a chance to breathe and to prepare for the coming season. So we'll be back in a few months for season 7. I'm biased, but I am so excited about the topic. We've got the topics for the next 2 seasons ready to go, and I can't wait to share the conversations with you. So until then, please take this time to integrate and the best place to stay connected is by being on our email list.
We will continue to be in touch with you every week there. And of course, if you want support doing this integration, make sure that you've got the Inner Workout app. It is designed to help you fit these practices into your days so that you are learning, you are integrating, and you are finding more time for self-care with the time that you have. Well, I am going to leave you there. Thank you for being on this journey with us for this season, and take care. Inner Warmup is a collaborative effort. It's hosted by me, Taylor Elyse Morrison, Danielle Spaulding provides production support, and it's edited by Carolina Duque. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend.
And if you're looking to continue your inner work, our free Take Care assessment is a great place to start. On that note, take care.