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"A LOT with Audra" is the podcast for women juggling big dreams and full lives. Each episode, host, Audra Dinell, Midwestern wife, mom and neurodivergent multi-six figure entrepreneur encourages women to embrace their many roles holistically by living a values-based life with confidence and joy. Through candid discussions, practical strategies and inspiring stories, this podcast is your guide to designing and achieving success without losing yourself in the process.
Ep79
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Fresh Start Effect
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[00:00:00]
Audra Dinell: [00:01:00] Have you heard of the fresh start effect? What it is is a real researched psychological term that basically means people feel more motivated to pursue goals after some sort of meaningful date or transition. It's like our brain saying, "One chapter is closed. What happens next?"
This is why New Year's, birthdays, Mondays, new school years tend to be times where we feel more motivated to make a change.
This can help us because it gives us psychological distance. A fresh start means a little breathing room from the version of us who dropped the habit or missed the goal or lost momentum. It also gives us sort of a mental clean slate. It can help us [00:02:00] restore confidence in ourselves because we're not just staring at evidence of what didn't work.
We're having a blank page and imagining what could work. Lastly, it gives us this renewed sense of agency. It reminds us that we don't have to just react to our life. We get to participate. We get to choose. We get to author the next page. A fresh start isn't magic, but it is a mental doorway, and sometimes walking through that doorway changes how we see ourselves.
Midyear Reset Setup
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Audra Dinell: So in light of the first Monday in July, the second half of 2026, I wanted to share this concept that I came across, and I wanted to share three things that I am bringing in to the second half of the year[00:03:00]
So this episode is gonna be for anyone who could really use that midyear reset, who is ready to walk into the second half of the year differently maybe than they experienced the first.
Work Starts Within
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Audra Dinell: The first thing I'm bringing in to the second half of 2026 is this lesson that no matter what the goal is, the work starts internally This is something I have hugely learned in my life over the past handful of years, but it's really been honed in the beginning of this year.
And here's the thing, you know goalposts always move, and I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Many times we can look at it as we're always moving the goalpost, that's a negative thing, but I just think it's a human thing. We hit a [00:04:00] goal, we set another one. The goalposts in our life tend to move. I think when we're thinking about this, contentment is so important to basically hold hands with our ambition so that we don't just check the box and move on to the next thing.
We can really, like, be in our life and feel gratitude for what we have and what we've accomplished and who we are, while also looking forward to the future and thinking about what's next. So the reason I say the lesson is that the work is always internal is because if it's external, if it's a goal, if we believe that when this happens, when I get a new job, or when I'm in a relationship that fulfills me, or, you know, when I make this type of money, when I own my own business, when I have kids, if we're always thinking about the external goalpost, that's always gonna be moving, and [00:05:00] our just true purpose and meaning and joy is gonna be out there and moving with it.
It's gonna feel unsteady. So for me, I am just learning that it doesn't matter what my goal is, the work always starts internally. And what do I mean by, like, the work, right? My husband and I were talking about this, and it just feels so vague and woo woo. But for me, this is what the work looks like.
Tools For Inner Work
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Audra Dinell: For me, the work looks like therapy, learning to uncover patterns from my family of origin or my past.
It means looking into the way that I'm thinking, thinking about my thinking, and catching stories that I'm telling myself. It looks like meditation. It looks like journaling. It looks like having major self-compassion and really practicing [00:06:00] trying to love myself the best I can every single day. I think this also looks like visualization, visualizing the success and the outcomes we want, and I don't even just mean, like, in a big way.
I recently went to a lecture from a psychologist on ADHD, and she was talking about how important it is for our kids who have ADHD to visualize day-by-day success. What that means is, you know, knocking out their morning routine and, you know, going to school or camp and, you know, interacting with other humans in an appropriate and meaningful way while still being themselves.
Coming home, maybe relaxing after the day, and not just jumping straight into homework. So the point is visualization, even, like, of that day or, like, that call or that gathering you're [00:07:00] going to or the relationship that you're in, just visualizing what's the best case scenario here? I think the work also looks like making agreements with ourselves and sticking to them, kind of building our confidence through action in that way.
So for me, lesson one that I'm gonna continue to weave into the second part of 2026 is the remembering that the work is always internal. The external goals and situations will change But the real work starts with me. Now, I listed off things that I have done that have worked for me, but it might be different for you.
I think everyone's work, you know, can be different. It is unique. I used to be someone who journaling felt forced for, but now when I am uncovering stories and patterns, journaling has been a really big way that has [00:08:00] helped me do that. So I just wanna remember, no matter what I'm aiming at, the work starts internal.
Be Honest Now
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Audra Dinell: Okay, second lesson I am bringing into 2026 is getting really honest with who I am and what I want now. And what I mean by that is I, probably like many other humans, tend to let my past desires or my past selves or past situations I've been in kind of stay sticky in who I am now a little bit too long.
There may have been something that has worked for me in the past. Let's take working for, from home, for example. Working from home has been a gift in my life for a long time. I've been working from home for over a decade, far before COVID, far before it was popular, and that has been really helpful [00:09:00] in some seasons of my life.
However, when I look at who I am right now, I am finding that working from home all the time is something that might be keeping me stuck. It might be keeping me in some ruts and patterns that aren't allowing me to do my most important work, my most needle-moving work. So just embracing the fact that as a human, we evolve, but we need to get really honest with ourselves and ask ourselves, "Do these structures, do these relationships, do these patterns, do these thoughts match up with who I actually am right now in this season?"
Life Happens For You
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Audra Dinell: Okay, third and final lesson I want to remember as I walk into the second half of 2026, it's this phrase that life doesn't [00:10:00] happen to you, it happens for you. My team and I did a fun little sleepover for my birthday, and we rented this great little Airbnb in our town. It was super cute with wallpaper and, like, very girly, and we rented it for one night, and we just had a total slumber party.
We talked, and we ate pizza, and we drank wine, and we ended up making bracelets. And the words I chose for my bracelet- are for you. Because I think so often when we're in a situation and we're just looking around and we're sort of feeling a little victim-y in our situation, like if we're being really honest with ourselves, there's a lot of victim mentalities going on I want to remember that life happens for me, that I have agency, that I get to [00:11:00] choose.
Breaking Overwhelm
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Audra Dinell: For me, I got to this point where I just got so tired of feeling overwhelmed. I think a lot of it is, you know, late ADHD diagnosis, running a business, maintaining a family and a home, supporting others in my life who are neurodivergent and learning how to care for them in a way that's effective Life is just a lot sometimes, right?
Like, my podcast is called A Lot with Audra because life feels a lot sometimes. And I just woke up one day and realized how much I was thinking, "I'm so overwhelmed. I'm so overwhelmed." And feeling overwhelmed, actually, like, being in overwhelm is a real thing, but I think it had become such a pattern for me that it had became, [00:12:00] like, a thought process, and that was keeping me stuck.
So just one day I decided, you know what? No more with the overwhelm. Like, if we're in real overwhelm, that's one thing, but we don't have to look at every day as overwhelm. And so I thought about that phrase, life is happening for me, not to me. It helped me reframe the way I look at the things that I might typically find to be overwhelming.
It helped me see who I needed to be in certain situations, what I needed to let go of. It helped me see what I need as a human and how I could choose a different, more helpful story. I think most of all, remembering this lesson that life is happening for me, not to me, just helps me let go of some negative patterns that keep me stuck in places I don't wanna be.
Three Lessons Recap
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Audra Dinell: [00:13:00] So the three lessons, to recap, that I'm planning on taking in the second half of the year, and you are so welcome to steal them. That is why I recorded this podcast because I thought, you know, if I'm In this space, someone else surely is too. The three lessons are, number one, the work always starts with me.
It always starts internally. Does not matter what the goal is. Number two, I need to look at where I actually am now and what is working for me, what is not. Disregard six months ago Audra. Disregard 10 years ago Audra. What do I actually need structurally, habit-wise, relationship-wise now? And number three, just the remembering that life is happening for us, not to us, and that we have agency over how we think.
We have agency over the way we see situations. We definitely have agency over our actions and [00:14:00] our attitude.
Wrap Up And Share
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Audra Dinell: All right, y'all. I hope this episode was helpful. If it was, I would love so much if you would share it with a friend who might also need to hear this at the second half of the year. I would love for you to like and subscribe, as my kids would say, to this podcast.
It helps our ratings. If you could leave a review, that would be awesome, and of course, share it on social media. Anything you can do to help spread the work that I'm doing is so helpful to me, and I just really appreciate it. Okay, let's go get it. Let's go get the rest of the year