If you’ve hung around this podcast long enough, then you’ve probably heard Kristen mention (on more than one occasion) the parallels between sustainable practices in business and in health. The diet analogy is one of her favorites because of how relatable it is. But even so, it can still be hard to see that the same habits you use to improve your health are the same habits you can use to grow your business.
And that’s why Kristen has brought on her friend and fellow entrepreneur, Robin Long, to talk about the grace and grit it takes to build and grow – not just a healthy lifestyle, but a successful business. Robin is the Founder and CEO of Lindywell, a top-rated Pilates group, and believes in an anti-hustle approach to better fitness and better health.
Jump in to hear these highlights and more:
- Robin’s journey on the path to sustainable healthy habits
- Tips for growing out of that awkward beginner’s stage of owning a business
- The importance of choosing grace over guilt
- The only secret formula needed to succeed is consistency
- Where compassion comes in when creating new habits
The road to success is hard. And it’s going to be full of detours. Allowing yourself grace instead of shame or guilt over setbacks is essential to your growth. Rome wasn’t built in a day. So expecting instant results when just starting to build new habits will only hurt your growth.
If you’d like to stay up to date with Robin and get workout inspiration, you can follow her on Instagram @wearelindy.
And if you’re interested in creating new healthy habits, Robin is starting a new 14-Day Strong Body, Calm Mind Pilates + Breathwork Challenge on March 13th and runs through March 26th. All levels are welcome! You can sign up for the challenge here: www.lindywell.com/freetrial. New members can unlock one month free when they sign up for the challenge by March 13th.
Don’t miss out on the in-person social selling event of the year! Announcing the Rising Leader Summit, April 14-15, 2023, in Denver, CO. The LIVE EVENT that has historically been exclusive to 6-7 figure earners is now AVAILABLE to anyone who is hungry and willing and desires to step into higher levels of leadership. Go to kristenboss.com/rise to register today.
Thanks for listening! Do you have a question about network marketing? Kristen can help! Drop your question here, and she just might answer it live on the podcast: https:/Kristenboss.com/question
Connect with Kristen:
If you’re ready to learn the simple process of running your social selling business online, you have to check out Kristen’s live group coaching program! The Social Selling Academy: www.thesocialsellingacademy.com
Transcript for Episode #153 Grace and Grit with Robin Long:
Kristen Boss (00:03): You are listening to the Kristen Boss Podcast. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. As a bestselling author and performance coach, I’m on a mission to share about sustainable and purposeful approaches to both business and life. Each week I bring relevant topics that I believe are necessary to create a life of purpose, significance and meaning. Entrepreneurship is about so much more than growing your bottom line. It’s about who you are becoming in the process and building a life that is truly extraordinary. Entrepreneurship is really just the beginning.
Kristen Boss (00:57): Hey, bosses. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. I am here with my very talented, wise, good friend Robin. She’s kind of a newer friend. I met her a couple months ago and I’m like, I think we’re soul sisters. So I decided to have Robin on the podcast and friend, I’m so glad you’re here.
Robin Long (01:15): Thank you. I’m so excited to be here. And I agree you’re one of those people where fast friends feels like we’ve known each other much longer than we actually have.
Kristen Boss (01:23): It was instant. I was like, oh, what is it? I’m thinking of Anna Green Gables, where she’s like, Diana Berry is my boso buddy. I was like, my bosom buddy.
Robin Long (01:33): I’m proud to be, proud
Kristen Boss (01:35): Love it. Okay, so my audience, if they haven’t heard of you, you run this amazing company, Lindy. Well, and we’re going to talk more about that, but I really wanted you to just kind of share with my audience, because you’re also a mom of kids. How old are your kids now?
Robin Long (01:52): I have four kids and my oldest is nine. Then we have a seven year old, and then we have four year old twins.
Kristen Boss (02:00): Oh, yeah, you are a business mom. I love it.
Robin Long (02:01): Nine, seven, four, and four. I love it.
Kristen Boss (02:02): Yeah. Okay, perfect. So I really want to ask you about your origin story of you dreaming of your company and how you got there and what made you jump into, I’m going to build this amazing company.
Robin Long (02:19): How long do we have? No, I’m just kidding. I will try to sum it up in what would be actually helpful. But I started, so I’m a Pilates instructor, that’s how I started. And then now Lindy, well is a platform that provides online Pilates workouts as well as breath work and other mind body resources for women specifically. So I’m still doing that. But when I first, if you rewind the clock I was a Pilates instructor teaching in traditional ways. So spending hours at the gym in Pilate Studios, private clients just really trying to figure out how to make money, honestly, as a Pilates instructor, because it’s not easy to do. You get paid by the hour. It’s a lot of hustle trying to figure out how to get new clients. And then when clients move, try to get more clients or keep your schedule full, but not burn yourself out.
Robin Long (03:12): It’s a lot. And I’m sure there’s people in your community who can definitely relate to that. And I know you’re past as a hairstylist, right? Mm-hmm. Similar, kind of very similar, something your clientele always having to work at it and having to be literally hour by hour getting paid and how that could fluctuate month to month, week to week. And then when I would move to a new city, you have to start all over again. So I was doing that, but I loved, loved a lot of it. I loved teaching Pilates. I loved working with my clients. I actually really loved, and this is kind of an important part of the story, I loved what turned out to be the client relationship almost the customer service side of things actually. And that has really influenced how I started my company and how I run my company now, which we could talk about at some point.
Robin Long (04:08): But my husband was in grad school. I didn’t have kids yet working, working. And it didn’t take me long to realize I’ve already hit my ceiling. I love what I do, but I, there are no more hours in the day. So yeah, this is what I’m going to make. And I also recognize this is not sustainable for me. So I can’t work 12 hour days for the next 20 years. And if I want to have a family, I just don’t know how this is going to work. Because I thought Pilate’s instructor would help be that flexible job that would really support that. Well, maybe if I was fully supported by my husband. But that wasn’t the situation at the time. So it was around that time that I thought, I’m going to leave teaching altogether and I’m just going to go get a marketing job or just go that route.
Robin Long (04:58): And I almost did, but I stuck with it just a little bit longer. And I started to think how could I reach more people and utilize the marketing skills that I love so much? Cause I actually really did love marketing. I loved business. Same. So it was like I actually loved that side of the business and I decided to try teaching online classes. So this was 12 years ago, so way before, oh yeah, there were a lot of people doing online fitness. It wasn’t even a thing. I was on Twitter and I was blogging. That’s how I started. I started blogging just to share my unique approach to health and wellness that I felt like it was unique. I felt a little bit like an outcast in the health and fitness space at times, because my message didn’t quite resonate with what I was seeing in the gyms.
Robin Long (05:50): And everyone was there to just lose weight and get a six pack, and it was all aesthetically focused, and that’s not where my heart was at all and not what I was seeing as most important for my clients. That’s the biggest thing. So I started a blog to kind of share some of that as just an outlet for me to build my platform, have a website. I enjoyed writing. And it was over time that that just kind of grew. But honestly, I have to be honest, there were years where I blogged for no one, no comments, talking to myself out in the internets, just saying, who wants to do this no sugar challenge with me? And then no comments. But I still did it. And I just kept doing it. And eventually I said, okay, you know what? I’m going to try to teach Pilates classes online.
Robin Long (06:35): I had clients who were moving and they still wanted to take class from me. So I literally propped up my iPhone in our little tiny guest bedroom of her two super tiny apartment. I put pillows and blankets all over the floor to reduce the echo, and just filmed a workout class for them. And then I thought, you know what? I could turn this into a program. What if once a week they got a new video from me and they got a meal plan? And then I kind of coached them through it via email. So I partnered with a nutritionist, got a meal plan, and just started that way. And my first round, we were just talking about this, actually my first round, I think I had maybe three or four people sign up, two of whom were present clients. One was my mother-in-law and one was my mom.
Robin Long (07:23): So grateful. My first launch was the same eight people. And I’m like, okay, hey, I figured out how to get people to put a credit card in. At the time, there was none of this easy e-commerce stuff. So ran it and it worked pretty well. And then I ran it again, and that time, the next time I had maybe eight people, and then ran it again and just kind of kept reiterating. People started telling their friends. So word of mouth was really helping. So this is a long story, and I can go and as detailed as you want me to, but ultimately, this was before I had children, and it really started to take off, and I really loved it. So as I then entered that season in my life of having kids and wanting to have more flexibility, be able to be home with them, have a little bit more authority over my own time I just kept leaning in and leaning in.
Robin Long (08:21): And literally, it’s been 12 years since that. I am now still doing a lot of the same things. It just looks a little bit different. And it’s been amazing how I have been able to build something while remaining really true to my desire to be connected to my kids home with them. Not all the time, but when it’s important and have juggled that over the seasons. And it’s looked very different from when I started, even to where I am now. So I always think that’s helpful to remember too. It doesn’t have to look throughout all of childhood for your kids.
Kristen Boss (08:58): I love that. I love all of your stories of your humble beginnings, because if someone was to go and find your company’s Instagram, we are Lindy. Well, which is beautiful. I even told you, I’m like, I love your Instagram account so much. And if they were to come there now, they’d be like, oh, this is, it’s, and it’s a big company. You run a multimillion dollar company, and it’s a big thing now. But I think sometimes when people come in, they forget that we all have had humble beginnings where we are blogging into the no man’s land, no likes, no comments, nobody cares. It’s just there with a dream. And feeling embarrassed, Feeling shame.
Robin Long (09:36): That kind of awkward time where you don’t have a platform or a brand or a community yet, and it’s just your friends. And then it’s like, what do they think? That phase that you can’t have to go through. It’s real.
Kristen Boss (09:48): How did you? Okay. That is where so many of my listeners is in that phase where they’re like, I, I’m not this big name, big brand, big following. I’m, I’m this person with 2000 followers on Instagram. Sometimes I don’t even know if my voice matters in the world. So how did you get through that phase where you didn’t have the big brand, but you had the big vision? Maybe it wasn’t a big vision, but how did you hold space for yourself while others maybe didn’t get it?
Robin Long (10:16): Yeah. Well, and I think now it’s so much more understood. So I just want to encourage the people who are in that is, most people understand now that you sell stuff online, whether it’s, its, mm-hmm. There’s so many people who do it. It’s far more normalized now when I was starting out that it wasn’t normal. And so I definitely feel like a lot of people did not know what I was doing. It just felt really self promotional. I don’t know, maybe I felt like, oh, people just think I’m trying to just be famous or I had so much insecurity around that. And I got to tell you, it just was awkward for a little period of time there. And I just leaned into it and just had to be like, you know what?
Robin Long (11:03): I’m trying to help people. I’m passionate about what I’m doing. And people can judge. I mean, they can judge if they want to, but it’s not their life. So I’m the one who needed to figure out how and wanted to figure out how to create a career that I loved and would work for my family and work for my passions. And at the end of the day, I’m the one who has to live my life, not the people who are watching and thinking, why is she posting that workout video right now? And at the same time with that, it was helpful for me eventually, and I don’t remember if when this happened, and it isn’t true for everyone, but I have had times on my journey where it was really helpful for me to compartmentalize actually. So some people, I think you can go both ways on this.
Robin Long (11:48): I don’t think there’s a right and wrong way, and at different points in my journey, done both. But there have been times where for me personally, it was very helpful to have a page for my business or have a account that is focused on my business and then have a more personal account as well. That was more for me of just, I’m an Enneagram three, so it’s probably here, I show up as my persona, and here I am here. <laugh> really the same person in both places, but mentally it had helped me at certain times really lean in on how I wanted to show up for my business versus how I might show up on my personal account where I just post a picture of my baby. You know?
Kristen Boss (12:28): Yes, yes. I’ve been toying with the idea of having a personal account that only a few people know so I can post pictures of my kids. Because right now my business, my Instagram is very business forward. People are like, we never see your kids. I’m like, you’re not supposed to. Yeah. That’s not what it’s for! It’s a business account.
Robin Long (12:45): I know. And some people love to blend it all the way. And I think that works that people too. So just finding what works for you is really helpful. Yes. Because whatever is going to feel comfortable for you is what you’re going to stick with.
Kristen Boss (12:58): Speaking of finding what works for you and something you stick with, you have this really great mantra with how you teach your students and how they get results. And I’m so excited to talk about it because it’s what I teach my students and their business journey. And I have always told people, there are so many parallels to your health journey and growing a business. The mindsets are so similar. And I would consider you a health expert. I am not. So you talk about this mantra in your program that you live by and it’s grace over guilt. And yeah, I would love for you to walk my listeners through why grace over guilt and how you’ve seen that actually serve people and help them get better results because of that mantra.
Robin Long (13:42): Absolutely. And I totally agree with you. The crossover and the alignment between whether you’re talking about your fitness and your health, or whether you’re talking about business, is it’s right there. So we have a great surf deal approach. And really what that means is that we simply choose grace over guilt or shame on our approach to getting healthy, doing our workouts, eating well, whatever changes we might be trying to make in our life. And that stemmed out of, for me a big reason I started Lindy well and started this, was because I had been stuck in a cycle of really hating my body, if I’m honest, and just trying to work out and get healthy because I wanted to change it. And so I would go eat something and then be like, oh, I’m going to have to work out tomorrow, burn that off, and then I’d do that and then, oh, that was a great workout.
Robin Long (14:37): And then go refill myself with some kind of extraordinary treat and then be like, oh, need to work that off again. And there was just, it was just this constant cycle of guilt and shame around feeling bad for what I was eating or feeling bad for skipping a workout and trying to guilt myself into getting healthier. And I think a lot of people live here. I know a lot of people live here because I hear about it with the women in our community all the time. It’s what we’ve been told to be, to believe. Yes. So many fitness programs tell us that like, oh, you better burn off last night’s dinner. Oh, you better. If you want to get ready for your swimsuit, you better start doing this, da da da. And there’s like, we think that’s motivating. It turns out it’s not. It’s actually paralyzing.
Robin Long (15:21): And the more guilt that we feel, or the more shame that we feel, the harder it is to actually take action and stay with anything for a consistent period of time. And we’ve all experienced this. How many of us have started a new workout program or started a new diet plan and then we do pretty good for a week or two, and then we fall off the wagon, so to speak, and then we’re like screw it all <laugh>, right? I’m just going to do nothing. I’m going to go the opposite way. And then maybe a few months later, we get enough motivation or we get disgusted enough with ourselves if I’m just being really honest or frustrated enough with ourselves and how we look or how we feel that we’re like, I’m going to do it again. And there’s actually research that shows that the more often we do that each time, we stick with it for even a shorter period of time.
Robin Long(16:10): So if the first time we did it, maybe we could stick with it for three weeks, then we fall off the wagon, then we just decide to start again that time, maybe it’s two weeks and then we fall off, and then the next time, maybe it’s one week. And the reason for that is we lose confidence in our ability to actually follow through because we have been proving to ourselves, I can’t follow through, I can’t stick with this. So we get stuck in this cycle. So grace over guilt is actually rooted in science and psychology, and it’s essentially the difference of trying to fuel and motivate yourself with guilt versus self-compassion. And when we can actually say, okay, hey, I want to start exercising more. I want to be more consistent with my exercise. When we skip a workout, which we will, you will, I skip ’em all the time when we go.
Robin Long(17:01): Weeks where we haven’t done a workout, which we will, I’ve done it all the time. I still do. Instead of wallowing in that guilt or beating ourselves up, it’s just a little mantra where we can say, you know what? I’m going to choose grace over guilt. Hey, I’ve been sick, or My kids have been sick, or I’ve been traveling a lot like Grace. I can have some self-compassion with myself and say, I’m just going to start again tomorrow. I’m going to start fresh. And if you just keep that consistency, it allows for that ebbs and flow to not be perfect, to embrace more long-term consistency instead of these short-term spurts where we try to be perfect because we know that holds us back. I’m sure you talk about that a lot, right? I have to get it right or I shouldn’t be doing it at all.
Robin Long(17:44): And really just in our business, just in our workouts, what it really comes down to is small habits, small changes over time. And especially with health, we got to do this for our whole life. We have got to move our bodies for our whole life. We’ve got to nourish ourselves for our whole life. And so we’ve got to have a routine and a plan that can actually be, we can be consistent with over time. And so that’s really where grace over guilt comes from. And what I love is we say it all the time when you skip a workout, we have a workout calendar in our app, and sometimes people see the gaps of when they’ve missed their workout, whatever, grace over guilt. Don’t let that stop you from starting again tomorrow or continue getting on your mat today. So that’s really what it is. And it spills over into so many other areas of life as well.
Kristen Boss (18:35): Well. Oh my gosh. It’s an exact parallel to what they do in their business as well. What my listeners do is they tend to get to this place of, with bodies, it’s disgusted. We tend to think disgusted is what we’ll finally compel us to take the action. But I think with business, it’s scarcity. It’s like fear. It’s like, oh, I have to feel like intense financial lack to finally kick my rearing gear. And then they go really intense. They go hard and they burn themselves out, or they are in this all or nothing mentality. And they’ll go hard for a month and then they’ll, they’ll be like, I’m exhausted. I quit because it’s not sustainable. I tell people, hustle culture and diet culture are almost identical. It’s like you have to go hard, you have to be perfect. And if you can’t do a little, might as well not do any at all.
Kristen Boss (19:24): And so I started talking a lot about sustainability and business building sustainable habits that you can have for long periods of time so that your habits can compound. But there is some deconditioning you have to do in your mindset from absolutely from believing that like, oh no, it’s this hard extreme measures that get the results which isn’t true. It just actually, it’s unsustainable and it causes a lot of, and then when you inevitably fall off or burn out, there’s nothing but more guilt, more shame, more despair, and you stay in this vicious cycle. And so I know for me, I had to decondition this idea of the only way to lose weight is to practically starve myself, is to do these intense juice cleanses and detoxes and eliminating all the food groups. And so for me, I had to actually, okay, wait, hold on. Do I actually believe that small habits can create big results down the road?
Kristen Boss (20:23): And at the beginning when you, I would say when you’re anxious for change, so let’s do this example. Yeah. Cause a lot of people are like, I just want to get to the end goal of let’s say a six figure business. Someone’s like, I just want to get a six figure business so bad. And it’s very hard to believe that small efforts made in the beginning can inevitably lead to a six figure business where you’re like, I want the six figure business now. And oh, this month I’ve only made, it’s only made $500 this month. So let’s take this example and swing it over to health and fitness where someone’s like, I want to lose 20 pounds. And this idea of just a little something here and there, it’s just going to feel like, well, it’s now, it’s not happening fast enough. How am I going to get the results? How do you walk your people through that? Because I see that frustration in business, how does that translate over to health?
Robin Long (21:11): Yeah, and it’s very common. So I’ve become known over the years for, or Lindy, well has for 10 minute workouts, 15 minute workouts, and every single time I get a lot of the question, does that really work? Is that really going to work? That’s my, you’re trying to tell me that really works and here’s why. Yes, it works. And again, we see so much out there. This is true for business too. We see so much of what people are doing, and we think I got to do that too. That’s what it looks like. So whether someone’s out there posting their hardcore workout that’s like, oh, it’s killer, got to do this thing, and then you’re like, I want to do that too. But what so many people are doing is they’re going from zero to 500. They’re going from not working out at all, not having a consistent habit that they’ve built in their life and figured out how to fit it in with their routine now.
Robin Long (22:02): And I’m a mom of four little ones. I have had to work really hard to figure out how do I even make time in my life for myself to do anything that is not for a kid or work. And a lot of other people, whether you’re busy or not you don’t have the habit. So it’s setting yourself up for failure. If you think, I don’t even have a habit of working out yet. I don’t even have this built into my life, but I think I can do this. I’m going to do this really hardcore class four times a week now, or I’m going to go all in on this thing. It’s just not sustainable. Most of us can’t do it. It’s too much of a change. And if anyone has read Atomic Habits by James Clear, go read that.
Kristen Boss (22:47): Yes, that’s my favorite book. My favorite book.
Robin Long (22:48): And I love that book because I was like, this supports everything I’ve been saying for years. And I love that. But it’s the same thing. So why does a 10 minute workout work? Because two reasons. It gets you. Well, one, it gets you on your mat. So that’s the most important thing, or whether it’s a 10 minute walk or whatever you decide to do, no matter how busy you are, if someone says, all you have to do is 10 minutes, you’re more likely to say, okay, I can do 10 minutes. Even if you get to the end of your work day, you’re tired, you just want to go to bed, you want to collapse on the couch and scroll Instagram <laugh>, right? Whatever you want to do. And you’re like, okay, it’s only 10 minutes. I can do it. I’m just going to pull up this video 10 minutes, follow along.
Robin Long (23:31): I don’t even have to change clothes. You can do that. If someone says at that point in the day you got to do this 45 minute sweat session, oh, you’re more likely to be like, no, maybe on a good day. But most, you’re just so much more likely to skip. So this idea of small workouts, and you can add, they add up over time. And just once you build the habit, you become, okay, I know when I do this, now I know when it fits into my life, I’ve built the habit and I’ve recognized how much better I feel after I do those 10 minutes, it’s registered in my brain. I’ve built a new neural pathway in my brain to say, oh, this is good. There’s a positive reward here. Makes it much easier to want to keep coming back because you feel successful. This is all studied and research backed, right?
Robin Long (24:16): Yes. You feel successful, you’re much more likely to come back again and do it the next day. Your brain is like, okay, I like this. This is good. And so then over time, you figured out how to build it into your routine. And then from there, how often It happens a lot. You get on your map for 10 minutes, you did that, and you’re like, okay, I’m here. Stay longer. I feel great. Yeah, I’m going to hit play on this next 10 minute workout that’s for the abs or whatever it might be. And then before you know it, you’ve done 20 minutes and you would have skipped if you had said, I want to do a longer workout that day. So it really, people overlook the importance of building the habit and training your brain as a really important step to the whole process of getting healthy and getting stronger, losing weight, whatever it might be. That’s your goal.
Kristen Boss (25:04): I just feel like you’ve reinforced everything. I tell people all the time, and I bring up a topic habits quite a bit, and I think it’s hard. And again, it’s another posture of grace over guilt is like you have to be somebody who celebrates small efforts. So it’s very easy to say like, oh, 15 minutes, that’s not enough. It’s not enough. And judging yourself. So if it’s not the whole idea of go bigger, go home. If it’s not this intense thing, it’s not worth doing. And it’s the same for business. Well, if I can’t put a bunch into it, why do anything? But it’s one of the what law, law, physics, it’s like objects in motion tend to stay in motion. So I’m like, okay, the biggest resistance is just starting. So even in business, it’s the same for working out. It’s the same for business. It’s the goal is for health, getting on the mat in business, it’s sitting down to my computer and getting to the work. It’s just starting that because oftentimes even when people are like, I don’t feel like writing a post, writing an email. And I know for me, my biggest resistance used to be email for a while, and I would just sit down and be like, Kristen, set a 15 minute timer. And yeah, there’s something mental about 15 minutes. That’s so easy to say yes to.
Robin Long (26:18): I do that with my workouts all the time. Just set a timer.
Kristen Boss (26:22): Just set a timer, 15 minutes. And like 80% of the time, I would end up, what would happen is I would find my flow and I would just, okay, now I’m writing the next email. Now I’m writing the next email. And some days it really did stop at 15 minutes. But this idea of, again, you’re becoming somebody who follows through. You’re experiencing, you’re creating that new neuro pathway, you’re registering. I feel this way when I follow through on my word to myself. Because a lot of times I think both with business and with health, what we’re doing is we’re restoring our relationship with ourself. We’re building self-trust and being like, I am becoming somebody who follows through on what I say is important to me. And I’m going to give an example of a small habit that I had to break down into 15 microsteps.
Kristen Boss (27:06): That was very frustrating at the time. And I was like, oh, I’m going to become a morning person. And I was just like somebody who was getting up at between seven and seven 15 every day just, and I was falling out of bed, slugging over to the coffee machine, barely getting two words out to my kids. And I’m just like, okay, I think I want a more energized morning and I want to become, and I told my life coach this. I said, listen, if it takes all year to become this person, it’s going to take all year. So first I understood this might be a process because I’ve been a person my whole life. This is, I’m 37. I’ve ingrained just sleeping in, waking up reactively to my day. So I’m like, I think I want to change my mornings, which means I’m also going to have to change my brain.
Kristen Boss(27:49): And so I was just moving from seven 15 to, I was like, I’m going to be a 6:00 AM person. And my life coach was like, do you want, you want to do this overnight? I was like, yeah, yeah, let’s do it. So what do you know? The first few days, I just hit snooze all the way to 7:00 AM. I was like, dang it, what’s wrong with me? Blah, blah, blah. And she’s like, Kristen, we’re going to start. We’re going to move backwards. We’re going to start with your night routines. And to me, I was frustrated. I was like, I just want to wake up at 6:00 AM How hard is it? Let’s just go. And she’s like, but this is a lifetime of habits that we’re having to reverse engineer here. So the first thing I did was cleaned up my nighttime routine, and I didn’t even get to allowed to touch my alarm until I first cleaned up my bedtime.
Kristen Boss (28:28): And so it was like, okay, we’re moving. We’re working on removing blue light devices an hour and a half before you go to sleep. We’re going to do all these things. So first, and so what’s interesting is the goal was I want to be somebody who wakes up at 6:00 AM and I so badly wanted to just wake up and just willpower through it, but it was just like, Nope. Now we have to break this up into all these little habits where I’m securing the win. And so it was just nighttime, okay, here’s what you’re going to do. So I did a week of perfecting my nighttime routine. That felt really good. And she’s like, okay, now we’re going to start with 6 45. And I noticed in my brain, I’m like, that’s not good enough. That’s not, that’s not impressive enough. And she’s like, Nope, but we’re going to secure the win.
Kristen Boss(29:10): And so it took, I want to say three weeks of breaking down to micro habits of 6 45. Okay, let’s shift back to six 30. Let’s shift back to six 15 and now <laugh> three, actually maybe a month. It took me a month to finally wake up every day at six. It still is a little struggle for me, but I’ve figured out my nighttime routine. I figured out my morning routine. But this one simple thing of I want to be somebody who wakes up at 6:00 AM I had to be willing to have small humble beginnings that I would normally say that’s not good enough, and break this one goal into 20 micro goals. So it’s like, and people have resistance to doing that. And I thought it was really interesting when I was watching my brain throw a tantrum over. Like, no, this is too small.
Robin Long (30:02): Yes, that is such a good example. It’s so true. Yeah. It’s building that foundation and building that habit and breaking it down because you cannot underestimate the value of creating small wins for yourself. So I love that.
Kristen Boss (30:17): It’s so important. And it’s true, because what was happening was every small win I secured, it was reinforcing my relationship with myself and being like, Hey, I said I was going to wake up at 6:45. I did at 6:45. And what’s so funny is I told myself it, if it takes me all year to wake up at six, am I, I’m fine with that because I realize I’m undoing a lifetime of like this habit.
Robin Long (30:40): That’s so right.
Kristen Boss (30:42): I had to realize, and that’s where compassion came in, realizing, oh, hey, this is a lifetime of stories I’ve told myself or habits I’ve secured. So it’s going to take time to change this right? Before it becomes automated in my own brain.
Robin Long (30:57): Absolutely. And that self trusts you’re talking about, it’s the opposite of that story I told in the beginning of what happens when we yo-yo diet or start and stop exercise plans and we just keep breaking that self-trust, right? So that’s why we stick with it less every time as we have less and less. But what you’re sharing is the opposite of how we can rebuild that ability to follow through that belief in ourselves, and then that slow shift of our identity, right? Because I think sometimes, again, we go from, I want to be this person to, I want to be this person that we see on social media or we see doing what we want to do, whether that’s this full on health and fitness person who has been working out for years and we want to get there or has been whatever it might be, or a person with a really successful business that we’ve been watching and we want to emulate and we want to be there. And then we just miss that importance of starting small. That importance of building that does then affirm our new identity as, I am a person who can do this. I am a person who takes care of my health. I am a person who exercises, or I am a person who shows up in my business every day. We can’t go from zero to a hundred with success,
Kristen Boss (32:14): But that’s what our society values. Our society tends to value like, I think I have to tell people this in business. I was like, don’t buy the diet pill solutions of business. Anything that’s promising you quick fix overnight million dollars. First of all, even if you were to build, do this thing and make a million dollars overnight, you haven’t become the person that can sustain that. You don’t have any of the habits to support that income. So it’s just like, same thing. So I did this crazy fad diet three years ago, maybe it was four years ago, and I dropped 25 pounds, so it got me the goal. But what happened was I had none of the habits built to sustain that weight loss I didn’t have because I was eating boxed processed food and I didn’t have to think about my food choices. So I was learning none of the habits.
Kristen Boss (33:07): So once you took away the food or the thing, and suddenly I was at my goal weight, but I had none of the tools or the habits to keep me there. And so what happened? I regressed all, I gained all of it back, all of it back. And so it’s the same thing in business. I’m like, Hey, if you were to suddenly make a million dollars overnight, I’m like, do you have any of the habits in place to become the person who can have a business of that size, secure that business? Do you have the habits in place? Probably not, right? So its just like, foundation. We tend to underestimate the value of building foundational lifetime habits
Robin Long (33:47): Because it’s not glamorous and it’s not sexy, and it doesn’t look that impressive on the outside. But there’s something seriously valuable about showing up for 10 minutes on your mat or setting that timer for 15 minutes on your computer. And we are just used to seeing things that look really sexy and glamorous and awesome, and we think that’s what it’s going to feel like and should be like. And I can say that with my business, I’ve been posting on Instagram, sending Thursday emails for over a decade. Like decade, yes. Little bit at a time. And I mean, it’s consistency there too. Just yeah, saying very similar message, very similar thing over time and trusting the process.
Kristen Boss (34:36): It’s kind of, I think consistency is a lot like building a muscle at the beginning, it’s hard. It feels weird. It’s uncomfortable, totally. But for me, I don’t really have to think twice about staying consistent in my business. It’s just who I am, just washing my face, brushing my teeth. This is who there, eventually our habits become, our identity. It’s no longer what I do, it’s who I am. So I’m sure that happens with fitness too. You eventually become somebody because I, I’ll be honest with you, I’m still in the season of it still is very conscious, very intentional. There’s still a lot of resistance to building that habit where I’m like, I know one day it’s going to be a brushing my teeth habit. I’m not there yet.
Robin Long (35:17): Yeah. I don’t know that I’m there yet either but I’m unique. I’m a unique breed. I am not your typical, and this is important actually because I found who I am, and I think a lot of people in our community can relate to this too, is I’m not a fitness buff. I’m actually not. I don’t go spend hours in the gym. Yeah, I don’t love to talk. I don’t take pre-workouts. I don’t talk about, I exercise, and specifically Pilates is my primary love because of the way I want to feel and because of the way I want it to support my life. I want to feel strong. I want to not have aches and pains. I want to remain flexible. I want to be an energetic mom. I want to help my nervous system, stay regulated.
Kristen Boss (36:10):We talk a lot about nervous system here.
Robin Long (36:12): Yep. I do too. We do too. So with that, again, I don’t have that identity. So I want to encourage people too that you don’t have to have the identity of the person you follow online who’s the fitness buff, who’s just like, I love working out. You may not ever really love working out, and that’s okay, but you can find things. And again, I encourage you to try other things because for a lot of people when they come to Pilates, they recognize, okay, this fits more with my personality. This is the thing that feels good in my body. I still have to still want to sleep in. I still want to sleep through my alarm. I still skip workouts sometimes. And so again, that’s where that grace over guilt comes in. Perfection is not required to make progress. It’s not. Amen. Yes. So coming, knowing that about myself, knowing and finding what it is that makes me feel good when I’m done, it makes me feel proud of who I am and proud of my body.
Robin Long (37:11): And then using that as motivation. That’s that, yes. After feeling that, I say this all the time when I finish a workout, I say, take a moment to just acknowledge how good you feel and how proud you are of yourself that you spent just this little bit of time moving and breathing and building strength and stretching because lock this in. Because when you don’t feel like doing it next time, because we’re humans, we have resistance. You can come back to that feeling and say, okay, me. I don’t feel like doing it, but I do want that feeling. I want that feeling when I’m done. I do want that. Yes, post workout feeling. And so to use that as motivation. So all that to say, it is a part of my identity in the sense of it’s built my business around it. The am a Pilates instructor. It is what I do, but I don’t, it’s never automatic. I have to encourage myself still and remember why I do it, how I want to feel and get myself back in gear just like anybody else.
Kristen Boss (38:11): I really love and appreciate how you talked about anchoring and the feeling of the reason why I do it. And when I didn’t hear you say at all, which is so good, you’re like, I do it to be skinny. I do it to be small. Yeah, I do it. You’re just aches and pains, regulate my nervous system, the feeling of accomplishment afterwards. I want to be healthy and live to a long age. I’m like, oh. And it’s so interesting. That’s why for me, or even starting your business, if you’re looking for, oh, I’m doing this to make money, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t make money for a while. When I ventured into my business, honestly, the first year I started talking about mindset, my Instagram, nobody said anything. Like I was, right. Actually, in fact, I lost 5,000 followers overnight because they’re like, she had this mom account, and all of a sudden she’s talking about mindset. I’m not here for this. So to, and my husband talks about, talks to me about this quite a bit too. He’s like, you have to have a better why than just the reward, because when the rewards not coming fast enough, you’re left with your why. Why am I doing this?
Kristen Boss (39:20): That after feeling is so important because sometimes that’s all you get before the reward shows up. So maybe before they’re noticing a noticeable difference with their body tone and the shape of their bodies and all of those things, okay, well, what’s fueling you until you see the result? And that feeling is so important. It’s like, how do I feel after having done the thing that I had resistance to just a few minutes prior? It’s like again, wow, I’m proud of myself. I’m energized. I’m refreshed. I feel more confidence. It’s just what it does for us mentally is huge. And I’m glad you really kind of nailed that down.
Robin Long (40:04): That’s so it, you nailed it. And to know too, that it is the feeling that it matters, but you also did just do something really good for your health. You did increase your circulation. You did boost your immune system. You did regulate your nervous system by breathing deeply. You are one step closer. So it’s the feeling that keeps you going, but you are making progress. We just look for that big sign of progress. Yes. For you, yes, the money, the certain money amount, or for the weight loss example, you’re looking for the end result, but you actually did do something good for yourself, and you are making progress. It’s just not the kind you can see in the same way. So remembering that is like you can get that win every time, and that keeps you coming back for much more easily than, Ugh, do my thighs look any different? Guilty, right? How many times have you worked out for a week and looked in the mirror to be like, is it working?
Kristen Boss (41:02): Oh, it’s a hundred percent me. I’m not going to deny that that is not me. No, that is totally me.
Robin Long (41:07): Actually everyone.
Kristen Boss (41:09): I’m the person that would literally probably get on the treadmill and then get on the scale right afterwards and be like, it didn’t work.
Robin Long (41:15): And that is everyone, right? Yep. Yep. I mean, or like two good days of eating your meal planning, you’re definitely have to have a new body by now. Let’s check the mirror. Yeah.
Kristen Boss (41:30): Well, you know what? And it happens in business too. It’s like, oh, I was consistent for, so we have this thing in my academy, we call it the 90 day goal getter challenge. And I teach them, especially their first challenge. I’m like, this first 90 days, yes, you can absolutely see incredible results. You can see your paycheck go up, and a lot of people do, but it’s mostly about building trust with yourself and building you, building muscle memory. I’m going to call it mindset, muscle memory, with developing sustainable habits. Really, the first 90 days is you actually embodying what it looks like to be consistent in your business to build these sustainable habits. Because then once you have those habits, then we can actually start compounding the results. And so I tell them, I was like, let go of the results. In your first 90 days, you’re going to see them, but really that’s not what it’s about. And so I think if we were to take that posture to health as well being, what if the first 90 days you let go of any expectation of bodily change, and it was just about the celebration of habits like.
Robin Long (42:36): A thousand percent.
Kristen Boss (42:37): How many more people would stay with it, right? True for me.
Robin Long (42:41): Yes. Exactly. And I think that that’s what we try to talk about Lindywell, is that mindset shift. A hundred percent. Because that is the thing, and it’s so countercultural, it’s so counter to the messages that we see all the time, whether it’s in fitness or whether it’s in business. And like I said, it’s not glamorous, it’s not sexy, but it’s necessary and it is the best way to set yourself up for progress long term.
Kristen Boss (43:08): Well, there you have it. I love this. I was so glad. I’m so excited to have you on the show because I’m like, okay, I’m always drawing parallels between business and health. And so to bring you on, and especially when you embody the same philosophy I do, like I say I’m anti-hustle and sustainability for social selling, and you’re clearly anti-hustle sustainability, the grace over guilt mantra with how you approach health. And I’m like, this is going to be a really great conversation, just so my audience can hear the parallels, because there are some people in my audience that they feel like their health is dialed in. They might be great at it, but translating it over to business, it’s like, okay, how are the same philosophy not translating over here? Or someone could be crushing it in business, and it just helps to see the parallels because they really are mirrored. I feel like it’s exactly the same habits of business, habits of health. It’s almost identical.
Robin Long (44:02): Yep. I agree. Yeah. I love that. This is so great. Thank you.
Kristen Boss (44:06): Yes. You’re so welcome. I’m so glad to have you here. So tell my people where they can find you if they want to check out your Instagram and they can sample some of the moves you show because you do such a great job on your Instagram. I love it.
Robin Long (44:18): Thank you. Yeah, and many of them are 10 minutes. 10 minutes or less. So you can find me lindywell.com. So you can just head over to our website and there you can join on our free trial if you want to check on our app and our community and our membership. Oh, love that. Or I’m over on Instagram at WeAreLindy. Well, and we actually have, speaking of the habit, we have a 14 day Pilates and breath work challenge coming up, so it’s a perfect, again, opportunity to kind of that short workout, short breath work, little bits each day to just build the habit and notice how even just a little bit can impact the way you feel and kind of help you move forward from there.
Kristen Boss (44:58): Oh, I love that. I’m definitely going to be trying them, like I’ve been eyeing it. I’m like, okay, perfect. I’m going to try that.
Robin Long (45:04): We can keep each other accountable. We can text each other. That’ll be good.
Kristen Boss (45:07): Yes. I love it. Ah, friend, it was so good having you today. I’ll be sure to link all your stuff in our show notes so our people can find you. Robin, thanks again.
Robin Long (45:17): Thank you.
Kristen Boss (45:26): That’s a wrap for today’s episode. Listen, if you love what you heard here today, I would love for you to leave a real quick rating and a review. This helps the show get discovered by new people. Be sure to take a screenshot of today’s episode and shout us out on Instagram. We’ll shout you right back out. If you’d like to find additional resources or discover how to work with me, head to kristenboss.com.
