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From Loops to Alignment: Let’s Be Excellent with Aziza Ransome
43 Plays9 months ago
Today I'm joined by Aziza Ransome, host of Psychology Of The Heart, for a heart-centered talk on breaking loops, realigning with your truth, and why “let’s be excellent” beats chasing perfection—every time.
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Transcript
Introduction and Themes
00:00:00
Speaker
Today's guest is someone I connected with through social media, a lovely example of how meaningful online connections can be, a holistic business and leadership coach, and a host of Psychology of the Heart.
00:00:13
Speaker
I'm looking forward to diving into the heart of self-leadership and growth today.
Podcast Introduction
00:00:18
Speaker
You're listening to Connected with Eva, the podcast on human connection. I hope you enjoy.
00:00:24
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I'm
Heart-Led Women and Alignment
00:00:25
Speaker
so happy to have you on today's episode and I'd love if you could introduce yourself and your podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I'm Aziza. I'm a consultant and coach.
00:00:35
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I specifically work with heart-led women who are business owners or career-driven women, and they're looking to find more alignment in their life, whether that be through the way that they communicate, the way they honor their rhythm, or the way that they decide to lead operations in their business or for their team.
00:00:57
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And really about how they show up in authentic leadership, all about the strategy and the soul when it comes to leading life that you always wanted to live. And yeah, owner of Psychology of the Heart. i also have a podcast.
00:01:12
Speaker
So yes, I'm really excited to be here. Thank you. You know, when
Challenges of Alignment and Patterns
00:01:16
Speaker
you say living aligned, creating a life that's aligned, a lot of people say that. And I find to actually live in that alignment, it could be quite tricky because we all have these horrible old patterns that are very difficult to break.
00:01:33
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So I thought that it would be a good thing to talk about that. I believe that the universe, God, or whatever you would like to call it, that the higher power of where we're existing together tends to share similar themes in ah in life. And today i met with so many different people and we actually talked about what it feels like in that aha moment when you realize that, wait, what I'm doing right now doesn't feel aligned with who I am or where I want to go.
00:02:03
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And how when you realize that, it can be very terrifying, but also when you decide to take that shift and make that step, that it also feels really relieving that you finally listen to yourself.
00:02:19
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Living in alignment really is about listening to your inner wisdom and your intuition. And that's a very intimate and specific journey for each individual on this planet.
00:02:31
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It looks so different for everyone. And I think
Authenticity and Responsibility
00:02:35
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that All in all, like when you're living in that aligned space, it also helps you become like a better person to connect with others because you allowed yourself to listen to you first, if that makes sense.
00:02:51
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To have a good connection with someone else, a meaningful connection, you need to know authenticity and to recognize it in yourself. And if you don't do that, how can you authentically connect with others?
00:03:04
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But talking about that aha moment, I remember ah few months ago, it was suddenly this realization that I'm happy being where I am today and doing what I'm doing. And it took a lot of time. And like you say, it's scary at the beginning because you're responsible for yourself as a human being.
00:03:24
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And that could be quite terrifying, right? Because to be truly free, you need to be fully ah autonomous and fully take charge of yourself as a human being. There was this funny post on Instagram or GIF where it says, I'm an adult, but I'd like to speak to an adult here adult.
00:03:43
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I actually speak to this a lot with my clients and in my work because I think it comes up in so many different ways when Your career or your work takes up a lot of your time.
00:03:53
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And it can feel like when you acknowledge that there's like misalignment in your life, I think it's a moment of either running away from it and just pretending like it's not there.
00:04:05
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Or like you said, it's when you realize that you're an autonomous human being and you're an adult, that you are literally in control of everything that has happened. Like that, that some part of you an influence in where you're at in life. Some things do just happen and that's life. But there is a part of us that has made choices and we've done things and chose to do them. And we're in this space because of that.
00:04:32
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And when you realize you're in misalignment because of that, That's it's really heavy and it does lead to a lot of anxiety or a depression or just feeling really, I guess, dysregulated in the nervous system. You're just like, oh, my God, i just realized all this. What do I do now?
00:04:49
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I always say like when you have that aha moment, it's not about how do I change my life really quickly? Like now let's just. shift everything in my life to be better. it
Steps Towards Alignment
00:05:00
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takes like small intentional steps because I don't think anyone chooses misalignment. like People aren't living life and choosing to do things that don't feel good over and over and over again because they want to. It just happens because Maybe for me, i was a chronic people pleaser, so I just wanted people to be happy.
00:05:21
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But it turned into me being really miserable because I just kept making the same choice over and over again. So sometimes I just feel like the moment at the same time where you're like, oh my gosh, I just realized I'm living in misalignment is the same as realizing how it takes so many little steps to get there.
00:05:40
Speaker
And that's the thing. It's also about these patterns because that's how we've grown up. That's how we've lived our entire life. So it's very difficult to break the loop. Also, I feel like it's quite addictive because our brains find it very soothing.
00:05:55
Speaker
Sometimes things that are not good for us could be soothing. So what do you think could be a good thing to do to stop the pattern maybe gently at the beginning? what you just spoke to is very like and it's very important because it's so true that when you're breaking that loop it almost is addictive your body and your nervous system like we're all energy so naturally we're going to crave familiar so if you created a life that's in misalignment and you're not feeling authentic that is a life energetically and nervous system wise you created so that's familiar and it feels good to an extent because you know what to expect
00:06:33
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When you start shifting, which is why I said if you just wake up, like say you eat poorly, don't get enough sleep, and you don't talk to anyone, and then tomorrow you're like, I'm going to wake up early, I'm going to change my diet, going to make a ton of friends, you're going to feel worse. like You genuinely will feel worse.
00:06:48
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And so I think, like you said, to break that loop, it isn't about drastic change. It isn't about like shifting your life 360 but it's really about making those really small steps toward who you want to be or like the life that you want and so I think it just depends on how you visualize that life but I know for me it kind of went into especially with when it comes to work it's just honoring boundaries where I could if you know if but I was an employee right I would, you know, end my day when I ended my day. If someone asked me some for something at 5 p.m. and it was time to go home, it's like, nope, I can't do that. Sorry.
00:07:26
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And then what as an employee or as an employer where I have my own business and I don't have a team yet, but as my own having my own business, I think it's important mean to continue to do that. Like,
00:07:38
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At 4 p.m., if I said I'm going to be done, I'm done for the day. And if a client reaches out to me, i i i don't see it because it's 4 p.m. and I told myself I'm taking a break.
00:07:49
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And just taking that one step of saying, today i end at this time, I think is a good start. And then maybe the next couple of weeks you work on that.
00:08:00
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It's not like
Acceptance of Imperfection
00:08:01
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that one day you're going to change too because there's been times where like I said that for a whole week, never did it. And then two weeks later, though, I got into the habit of doing it.
00:08:11
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And then I feel like you could take the next step where it's like maybe I won't work on Fridays or maybe I'll go out with my friends on Fridays after work. So it's really about those small steps. It could be as simple as sleeping in for five minutes, you know, like it doesn't have to be really drastic.
00:08:28
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The less you do, the easier and the process is. But sometimes life throws things at you because I'm self-employed as well. And normally it's okay to not read emails or reply to messages at odd hours of the night.
00:08:43
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Yeah. But there was a specific client who would message me any odd time. Maybe it was like 12 o'clock at night or 7 o'clock in the morning.
00:08:56
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And they kind of expected a reply immediately. And that was just one specific person. But sometimes things happen. And you're like, okay, so how do I work around this? You have to start allowing imperfection in your life to move forward.
00:09:12
Speaker
Or two, improve. Because nothing's ever perfect, man. It's something I've suffered with or struggled with as a concept. Even when I started the podcast, I'm like, Oh, no, but this edit is not perfect. and i But nothing is ever perfect. And some sometimes you have to accept that it will be 70% or 60% in that specific instance. And to be able to continue doing what you do and not give up, because a lot of people give up, you have to accept imperfection.
00:09:46
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Yeah,
Excellence vs. Perfection
00:09:47
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once you lean into the idea that it's not going to be perfect, you have so much more space to be the person you want to become. Because no one, like even if you admire someone and you can think of them now, they weren't who they are now by just shifting overnight. It took a lot of time to build that person. And so why should you be perfect in the next minute if it's something that you need to work on and that's fine?
00:10:14
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I think what you mentioned, though, about like, say you have like that one client that just is expecting that response. I feel that it's interesting um when it comes to like misalignment in life or or like when you feel like you're not being authentic.
00:10:30
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You not only are you when it comes to relationships, are you. kind of creating a habit and familiar life for you but you're also doing that for everyone around you too and it's like you're create an expectation of how you show up with others in your relationship and i think that's where people can either make or break an existing relationship is that if they decide to shift themselves and be more authentic and then that might not align with the person that you already have an existing relationship with because they already have a certain set of expectations on how you show up, but it's in your misaligned way. So if you're like a people pleaser and you're like, oh yeah, I don't really want to answer you right away anymore,
00:11:16
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because I have boundaries, then that person's going to be like, what do you mean? Like, that's that's what you do. Like, this is this is how our relationship goes. And I think it's such an imperfect process because of how that dynamic works. You're not only affecting yourself, but other people. And so it feels like so much is changing over time because you have to kind of weed out all of the inauthentic moments energies, whether that be people or you know, the way you eat or your routine or how you work or even what you do for work.
00:11:49
Speaker
So it's such a process, I feel like, yeah. Sometimes I find if I concentrate on one part of it, maybe work, for example, something else might be lacking because I'm like, okay, so this one thing is doing well, so the other thing can, I don't know, stay in the sidelines. I'm just...
00:12:09
Speaker
mar know I don't know how to concentrate on everything at the same time and that feels a little overwhelming sometimes. That's so true. i think I think that is what balance is, though. there's i feel like when I speak to some clients or even people, when they talk about balance, it is some people believe it doesn't exist or some people believe it's the duality of both.
00:12:30
Speaker
And I think I'm that person that believes that what you just described is balance because there's always going to be something that requires our focus more so than something else. And that's the balance of things. Like maybe work is going really well, but like personal life isn't or personal life is going really great and then work isn't or sometimes it's both but then something new comes up and it's really great and so I feel like that's actually the balance of life I think it's really what you said it about accepting that life in general is just imperfect
00:13:02
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Once you kind of acknowledge and accept that, then i feel like you can be more authentically you because nothing's perfect. So you might well just do what you feel is aligned for yourself and live that life because nothing will ever, whether you decide to be what quote unquote people think is perfect or be, you know, living a life that's very performative, still things in your life could go wrong. So why not enjoy your life and live in a way that feels really good for you?
00:13:31
Speaker
Then it doesn't matter if things go right or wrong, because at least you're doing what feels aligned for you. if you think of it in that way, where it's not as heavy as a concept, I feel like.
00:13:42
Speaker
that I love that. But you know what? I've met so many people who they'll say that and then at the same time they will expect perfection and really suffer if life is not perfect.
00:13:53
Speaker
And obviously suffer all the time because life is never perfect. Who taught us that things should be perfect? Was it movies? I don't know. I mean, it's a great question. think it always, is i feel like it's like the psychology of things where people are wondering if it's nature versus nurture. i
Cultural Views on Perfectionism
00:14:09
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personally think that it's a little bit of both, but I also think it's really how we grow up.
00:14:14
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But then you could argue society is created differently. first So then how we grew up is based on our guardians experience with, you know, society. So i think it's definitely why like these types of podcasts and conversations are really important.
00:14:32
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Because it really helps kind of break that idea mentality and help people be even more autonomous and figuring out, wait, there isn't this idea of perfect, but maybe there is this idea of being excellent and trying my best and doing the best that I can in the moment that I'm in now. Yeah.
00:14:53
Speaker
so I love that. This should be on a quote, let's be excellent. It feels so much more achievable, doesn't it? There is this um soothing tone to it almost when you say let's be excellent.
00:15:05
Speaker
Because when you say let's be perfect, obviously that's impossible. When you say let's be excellent, it feels achievable and also it feels uplifting. Yeah, definitely uplifting where you feel like, oh, that sounds like the best version of me without making me feel bad that I don't achieve it every day. Especially as women, our cycles influence so much of our rhythm that excellence for women is so different than for excellence for men. so I think honoring where you're at and in life might be different. You know, excellence is always seen differently. And I think that's, yeah, that's why it feels really uplifting. It does.
00:15:45
Speaker
It is really hard to think that though. Like, even though I'm on here saying all these things, I do think, oh, but I really want to be like perfect or really good at this one thing, but I'm thinking perfection.
00:15:55
Speaker
And it's just undoing those thoughts and habits in that moment. Like me acknowledging it or anyone that's listening to this is acknowledging it is like the first step.
00:16:06
Speaker
And it's really uncomfortable. But once you do that, then you can start making change. The thing with perfection as well is that it's because we as human beings need to strive towards something.
00:16:17
Speaker
So if we were trying to accomplish something that's not perfect, there would be no drive. we want perfection yeah because we want to achieve something. I think it's, and I think too that there's like the double, the duality of things where it's really great to have that drive because when you think of perfection, it does give you more that of that fire beneath you. It's really like, oh, that's really what I'm going to try and and and do it or aim for.
00:16:45
Speaker
then when you think of excellence, I think it's like the softer version of that. And maybe for some people, it doesn't provide that power to like go and set forth and with that drive.
00:16:58
Speaker
But I think it might not even be the words, but it's just knowing that sometimes you can aim for perfection that will be a different type of excellence. And then when you're aiming for excellence, it might be a different type of greatness, you know, like there different levels of things. So I think like in what you shared, I'm like, that makes a lot of sense. And I think it's just that perfectionism actually can mean a lot of different things to people. And in some people, it might mean excellence.
00:17:25
Speaker
But I think it's honoring the fact that even perfectionism has its moments of it just wavers. There's a yin and yang of, you know, those moments of where It just feels really great to be aiming for it. And then it
Balancing Perfection and Excellence
00:17:40
Speaker
doesn't. And when it doesn't, that's when you aim for excellence.
00:17:43
Speaker
Maybe it's just, you know, accepting that. I love that.