RealPositiveGirl - Weekly Encouragement & Mental Health

Struggling isn't failing because by not giving up on your struggle & not allowing it to hold you captive you are actually succeeding. I have 4 reasons why struggling isn't failing.
Show Notes:
Do you ever feel like you aren’t succeeding the same way others are? Or maybe you’ve been going through so much crap & problems lately that it feels like all you’re doing is struggling. When we are feeling like we aren’t succeeding and others are getting further ahead in life it can cause us to question how well we are doing. That darn comparison obsession.

When you’re going through struggles it can feel like you’re failing. It can feel like you’re never given enough time to recover. It can feel like you’re the only one going through this experience, too. Struggles can feel so isolating. You’re dealing with feeling overwhelmed, trying to come up with the best problem-solving solution & keep everything else in your life together. It’s just a lot.

Meanwhile, people are out here telling you that the other side of your struggle is the place you want to be and to keep going. Which sounds nice, but isn’t always the most helpful thing you can hear in these moments. To be honest, there really isn’t too much that can be said while you are knee-deep in the struggle that will make it magically better. Motivational phrases here and there, genuine people coming to the rescue when you need support and having the ability to take mental and physical breaks can be great helps, but it’s still just all up to you.

And I do need to mention that failing is not a terrible thing. It can feel terrible in the moment because what you wanted to happen didn’t happen and this means more time spent and effort put out in the long run, which isn’t fun. But failing isn’t the end of the world because there is so much you learn while failing. There is so much opportunity for growth and change and shifting your perspective. And if you continue to avoid failure in your life, you’ll never discover new things about who you are and what you are capable of doing because you aren’t pushing yourself beyond your perceived means. It’s worth it if you’re willing to fall down a bit.

Today I want to talk to you about how going through struggles doesn’t mean you’re failing. It can certainly feel like you’re failing because what you’re going through isn’t getting any better and sometimes more problems end up piling on top of what you’re already dealing with and again, it’s just too much.

But you’re not failing. If anything, you’re succeeding to the most because you’ve decided that not giving up isn’t an option. You’ve decided that you need to keep going and not let your struggles control you and dictate your future. But persevering and making that mental shift from “this is too hard” to “this isn’t too hard for me to get through,” is the key.

Here are 4 reasons why struggling isn’t failing:

1. You’re Actually Trying
2. It’s Just Taking Longer for Your Results
3. Success Doesn’t Come Without Setbacks (luck is short-lived)
4. You’re Growing Through this Struggle

Thank you again for listening & I hope this episode was helpful.

Come visit me on my Instagram page @sabrinajoyperozzo.

Have any questions, comments or feedback? Send me an email at [email protected] or check out my website, www.sabrinajoy.com where y

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Being in a healthy relationship is not the responsibility of one person, but both people involved. It's important that the vanity metrics aren't what's going to keep you together during hard times, it's the established groundwork & desire to work as a team that will continue to create a healthy relationship.
I have been married for over 15 years now. And my relationship with my husband is really great, but it isn’t perfect. I don’t believe anyone’s relationships are perfect. It might feel perfect because it flows pretty easily, but there are still disagreements & miscommunications to deal with, which can cause hurt feelings. We had to take the time to learn how to communicate with each other better to get through issues we were experiencing because it would end in each of us being really upset or me (being my people-pleaser self) just agreeing with whatever he said & wanted to get the argument to end as soon as possible. There were many years when some things weren’t healthy or as strong as it could of been. But we made the decision to get couple’s counseling to strengthen our communication skills, which we knew would strengthen our marriage

Relationships are a ton of work. It feels easy in the beginning, which is great. Those experiences provide hope that it could be that way a good portion of the time you’re together. But there will come times when you need to agree to disagree, compromise or do something else to move past any conflict, problems & misunderstandings. And no one is perfect, so mistakes will be made, which can sometimes compromise a ton of feelings at once & cause even more trouble.

But even beyond communication issues, we might not consider how important other aspects of a relationship can be to us if we don’t know the makings of a healthy relationship.

Falling for someone because they contribute to your happiness, have the same interests, treat you nice, is all well & good, but not really the framework needed to decide if the relationship is going to survive any issues, known or unknown. I think we can be so insecure about ourselves that we latch onto the first person that shows tons of interest when we need to take the time to consider so much more.

Today I want to share with you 7 makings of a healthy relationship:

1. Communication (be honest & open, having the ability to express emotions, being assertive in your needs)
2. Trust (accepting each other at their word)
3. Appreciation (expressing gratitude for one another, share what they mean to you)
4. Individuality (being supportive in your partners growth, it’s ok to be your own person, continue respect for not being the same)
5. Accountability (accept responsibility, keep your word, minimize making excuses)
6. Support (be empathetic, practice good listening skills, have an open mind to their perspective)
7. Respect (willing to compromise, create solutions by working together, no unknown expectations, no demands, limiting judgment of the other)

Thank you again for listening & I hope this episode was helpful.

Come visit me on my Instagram page @sabrinajoyperozzo.

Have any questions, comments or feedback? Send me an email at [email protected] or check out my website, www.sabrinajoy.com where you can listen to all my episodes, send me messages & sign up for my weekly newsle

Support the show

Watch the Video Version of RPG: https://www.youtube.com/@realpositivegirl/podcasts
Buy the Planner on AMAZON!: https://amzn.to/3WwthT2
Visit me on Instagram or TikTok: @sabrinajoyperozzo
Email Me: [email protected]

Not all relationships last forever. Some for a season, fewer for a lifetime.
Sometimes you have to take a break to come back stronger or just end it for your better health.
Show Notes:
I didn’t really understand until I was a young adult in college that relationships, platonic or romantic, didn’t have to last forever. Even family ones.

Honestly, this was really good for me to discover because while I was in college, I needed to put some space between my father & me. There are times in our lives when we can just become overwhelmed with the differences of opinions, hurt feelings, miscommunications, all the things. And rather than continue to verbally abuse each other or sometimes physically (hopefully not), taking a break can be a better option.

However, I do want to mention that there might be times when you have already tried to take breaks from one another, maybe several times, but nothing changes. This might mean that you need to end the relationship. Sometimes you're no longer willing to pay the cost to be in that relationship.

Many relationships have an expiration date. Some are only meant to last for a season & others can last a lifetime. Relationships take work from both sides. There will not be perfect balance all the time or even often, but it needs to go back & forth between both people. When that doesn’t happen, it can become too much and you have to make the choice to endure or move forward.

Here are some red flags for when it might be better for you to end a relationship:

• They betray your trust
• They are more often negative & have a victim mentality
• There seems to be drama with & around them too often
• They don’t seem to listen to you or care when you need support
• They don’t respect your boundaries

Sometimes trauma or abuse that happens in a relationship causes you to instill a break or an ending. These will be moments where you need to decide what is best for you & what needs to happen for you to endure as little pain as possible & no abuse. My suggestion to you is that if you are being abused, that should be an immediate end of the relationship. Trauma is tougher because being around those that were present during your trauma experience can be triggering for you. Which could lead to you taking a break from those relationships or even having to end those if it’s just too much hurt.

Today I want to share with you some tips on How to Take a Break or End Friendships & Relationships:

1. Really Think Through the Reasons Why You Want to Take a Break or End the Relationship.
2. Don’t Ghost Them, Have the Conversation Out of Respect.
3. Don’t Come to Someone in Anger or Reflect Their Anger in the Moment.
4. Don’t Play the Blame Game & Only Speak How YOU Feel.
5. Share Your Boundaries With Them to Know for the Future.
6. Make Plans to See Each Other in the Future.
7. Forgive Them.

Thank you again for listening & I hope this episode was helpful.

Come visit me on my Instagram page @sabrinajoyperozzo.

Have any questions, comments or feedback? Send me an email at [email protected] or check out my website, www.sabrinajoy.com where you can listen to all my episodes, send me messages & sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter

Support the show

Watch the Video Version of RPG: https://www.youtube.com/@realpositivegirl/podcasts
Buy the Planner on AMAZON!: https://amzn.to/3WwthT2
Visit me on Instagram or TikTok: @sabrinajoyperozzo
Email Me: [email protected]

Being liked by everyone might feel nice & living life based on other people's opinions might be easy, but it's not worth your autonomy & being an extension of someone else for the sake of making life easier. I have 7 ways to stop living your life based on other people's opinions that will help you change this mindset.
Show Notes:
Being liked by everyone used to be a necessity to me. I HAD to be liked by everyone or I felt like a failure & that my existence on Earth didn’t matter. Dramatic, I know. But it’s how I felt because pleasing others was so deeply ingrained in me & being accepted by others was what made me feel safe. I needed a place to feel safe since I didn’t at home, so school, church, activities with others had to be the place for me.

The problem with being obsessed with other people liking you is that you make that need more important than anything else. And what those people say & how they feel about what you decide to do or don’t do become truths for you.This is because you have gotten so used to them liking you that the possibility of them not liking you anymore due to you doing something opposite of their advice is scary & crippling to your own thoughts & opinions.

We all want to be liked & accepted. But some of us take it too far. I certainly did. And I missed out on really being me for the longest time because of it. And I realize that fitting in & being a part of something can garner more respect from others & even make life easier at times, but it’s really creating more problems than it’s solving. You’re living your life based on conditions set by others, not actual acceptance. And I understand that many of us developed this behavior because at one time in our lives affection, care & acceptance WAS conditional & we learned how to play the game. But I’m here to tell you (& myself) that we no longer need to do this.

We are going to create a new mindset today that echoes the truths of not needing to fit in to be successful, to be respected or even to live a good life. You can make your own decisions & like who you are & still have all those things. It’s actually liberating.

Today I’m going to share with you 7 Ways to Stop Letting Other People’s Opinions Control You:

1. Stop Feeling Embarrassed.
2. Become More Self-Aware.
3. Learn to Trust Yourself.
4. Find Better Friends.
5. Embrace Failure & Mistakes.
6. You’re Gonna Need Thick Skin.
7. Evaluate How Happy You Actually Are.

Thank you again for listening & I hope this episode was helpful.

Come visit me on my Instagram page @sabrinajoyperozzo.

Have any questions, comments or feedback? Send me an email at [email protected] or check out my website, www.sabrinajoy.com where you can listen to all my episodes, send me messages & sign up for my weekly newsletter!

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Support the show

Watch the Video Version of RPG: https://www.youtube.com/@realpositivegirl/podcasts
Buy the Planner on AMAZON!: https://amzn.to/3WwthT2
Visit me on Instagram or TikTok: @sabrinajoyperozzo
Email Me: [email protected]

The biggest reason to keep promises to yourself is the added effect of becoming more confident while doing so. I'm sharing more about that & other tips & knowledge in today's episode.
Show Notes:

This topic came about after watching Courtney Shields’ stories on Instagram during a Q&A sesh. Someone had asked her how she is able to be so confident on the regular & the first thing she mentioned was keeping promises to herself. This is one of her biggest ways to stay confident because it helps her build trust in herself. And this really stopped me in my tracks because I have often spoke about building trust in yourself, but never thought about the link between keeping promises to yourself & building trust in yourself that would eventually lead to more confidence. It got me really excited, though.

I want to go over the importance of keeping promises to yourself, how doing so fosters becoming our best selves every single day, then share some tips on how we can accomplish this every day.

We already know that keeping promises to ourselves builds self-trust. With self-trust, we can count on ourselves to follow through with commitments & do what we say we’re going to do. And this can be an even more important thing if we don’t have people in our lives that do this. We will WANT to build self-trust EVEN MORE if we know we can at least count on ourselves. Regardless, when we build strong self-trust, we know we will get things done, which can also lead to an increase in self-esteem.

It’s a given that building self-trust will benefit our personal growth in relation to resilience & creating new habits that we need to follow through on for it to become a proper habit that’s actually helpful. Consistency & accountability are being built up, as well, when we start to trust ourselves more and more. And when we learn to become accountable to ourselves, we end up accomplishing more and more without too many setbacks. Also, keeping promises to ourselves can be a form of self-care because when we prioritize what we need to do, it’s us investing in our own wellbeing.

When we consistently keep promises to ourselves, we are also engaging in discipline. You have to have discipline to continue follow through with something when the motivation runs out. And with discipline, we have the ability to make healthy choices & carry on with committment in everything we do.

Productivity isn’t one I thought of off the bat, but it came up in my research time. But it’s true. When we are following through with our promises, we are leaning less into procrastination & are more focused, which leads to getting more completed. And the last one I wanted to mention was the improvement in our relationships. When we can demonstrate that we are able to keep promises to ourselves, we show how responsible & reliable we are.

Let’s get into How to Keep Promises to Yourself & Make It Mean Something:

1. Figure Out Why You Struggled With This in the Past
2. Be Realistic With Your Goals
3. Create a Plan
4. Find the Perfect Reminder
5. Track, Reflect & Celebrate Your Progress

Support the show

Watch the Video Version of RPG: https://www.youtube.com/@realpositivegirl/podcasts
Buy the Planner on AMAZON!: https://amzn.to/3WwthT2
Visit me on Instagram or TikTok: @sabrinajoyperozzo
Email Me: [email protected]