That Girl Radio

JanYouary: Hard Habits to Live a Soft Life

• Rikki Lee • Season 3 • Episode 19

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Have you ever found yourself teetering on the edge of burnout, searching for that elusive balance between discipline and self-care?  I'll take you through the misconceptions surrounding the intense 75 Hard challenge and pivot towards a philosophy where small, persistent actions lead to monumental gains. You'll hear about my own experiences where I chose to be strict with my routines, not as a form of punishment, but as stepping stones to a life filled with ease and opportunity.

This episode isn't just about the hard choices; it's a celebration of the rich life that unfolds as a result. From the sound of the morning alarm to the last thoughts before sleep, every decision we make can be a catalyst for success. I share the tough calls I've made—from refining morning rituals to cutting back on the indulgences that don't serve me—painting a picture of a life that gets softer as you get stronger. Whether it's glowing skin, business acumen, or spiritual growth, the power lies in the daily, deliberate choices that build a foundation for triumph.

We wrap up by relating personal evolution to the tender nurturing of a garden, each of us blooming at our own pace in our own time. You'll be inspired to think of your life's endeavors as accounts, where consistent deposits of effort and self-discipline accumulate and eventually pay off in ways you might not imagine. As we close, I extend an invitation to continue this conversation on social media, championing each other as we forge paths toward lives that are not only successful but deeply fulfilling. 

Did you enjoy today's episode? Leave Rikki a voicemail about what you took away to be featured on the next episode.
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Speaker 1:

Hey guys and welcome back to that Girl Radio. It is your lovely host here, ricky Lee, also known as that Girl, and for today's episode of January, I am going to talk about having hard habits to live a soft life. Now we've all heard of the infamous 75 Hard, and it is a challenge that basically invites you to live the next 75 days of your life Doing two a days. You're going to do a 45 minute workout indoors, a 45 minute workout outdoors. You're going to read for like 30 minutes a day. You have to cut out all fast foods and cook from home, and then you also have to cut out all social media, and I think there are a few other rules that are in line with this 75 Hard.

Speaker 1:

Now, when I say hard, I don't mean that kind of hard right, because we live in a life where life is a box of chocolates. You have so many different options at your disposal at all times, and I think we all have our own addictions, right? You have treatment plans for different types of substance abuses, but everyone isn't abusing a substance. Sometimes we are abusing our image of ourselves. Sometimes we are abusing the need for validation of others. Sometimes we're abusing our self-talk. Sometimes we're abusing social media. Sometimes we're abusing other people. There are different types of addiction that a lot of us have, and when you go cold turkey and you remove things, sometimes it's not always the coping mechanism to get you the sort of results that you want. But I do know of a hard that is consistent, that is persistent and that, no matter how you feel, you still show up and do it regardless. And I feel like, as I'm getting older, I'm realizing that the very things that I once thought were so hard were necessary. They were so necessary for my growth and my development. And so, while in the moment it feels like it's hard, you don't necessarily have to feel like you have to cut everything out in order to get the soft life, or you have to alter everything to get the soft life is what I'm getting at, because if you're abusing something or something is abusing you, you have to find a way to cope with that thing, because it may be something that is truly a part of your environment. There's nothing you can change For me.

Speaker 1:

I'll give you an example when I was younger and I've talked about this on several podcast episodes you guys have been super in my business, but when I was younger, I was a much more chunky girl and I've always been about four feet. I'm four foot 11 now, but just imagine all of that weight being compacted into this little body. And both my mom and my sister have completely different metabolisms in me, right? So they don't have to have hard habits, they don't have to cut out certain sugars and not drink so much pop and not have to worry about how much food they're eating, because their bodies were just burning the fuel way faster than mine. And so I was sitting there and I'd be like okay, mom, when you go grocery shopping, I can't have pop. So stop buying pop. Can you buy a healthier alternative? Can you do this, can you do that? And I would go to these extremes to get myself to where I wanted to be. I would cut out all juices and pops, and I was trying to do this lemon, cayenne, pepper, water juice concoction. That was a fast and it would get you to lose 20 pounds in two weeks.

Speaker 1:

I was looking up all these things on Pinterest at 12 and 13 years old, trying to change my body, and what I realized was I wasn't crafting hard habits, I was just being hard on myself, right? Same with rehab centers? They're not really, and my mom works in the mental health field. She deals with people with addiction and a lot of stuff. So I'm speaking from knowledge of what these programs look like. They're not developing hard habits for people. They're being hard on these people, they're being hard on these victims and that's not going to give you the soft life, that's not going to give you the results that you're looking for or the life that you really want to live. And if you want to occupy a better body, if you want to have a better mind, you have to develop the hard habits without being so hard on yourself. You have to give yourself room to fall short and you have to give yourself room, the opportunity. Well, you have to give yourself the opportunity to fail, because that's all about what the process of developing hard habits looks like.

Speaker 1:

It's hard to wake up in the morning at 6 am and read your devotional and get your day going. But it's also hard to get your day going after scrolling on TikTok for 30 minutes and just filling your mind up with a bunch of crap, and so you have to pick your hard. But what you don't ever want to do is be hard on yourself and be like, oh well, this morning I decided to scroll on TikTok instead of spending time with God. It's just like every day is going to look a little bit different, but as you're developing the hard habits, you will start to see that your life is getting softer and you will have the desire to do the harder things, because it's giving you the results that you've always wanted. So for me, I brought up the example of me spending time with God at 6 am, which I never would have thought I would be doing at the ripe age of 21.

Speaker 1:

I am someone who absolutely adores my sleep and for many, many semesters, I lived my life on the premise that if I don't have a meeting or if I don't have class, I don't need to be up, and that mindset has completely screwed my sleep schedule. My circadian rhythm is absolutely horrendous and with lack of sleep, your metabolism is not in a really good space, so I'm making my life harder because I'm refusing to do the hard things. You get what I'm saying. So to live a soft life which is which was like the buzzword of 2023 was soft life, luxury, all these things you have to be willing to do the hard things, but give yourself grace in the process. So, as I was saying before, this habit of waking up at 6 am and reading my Bible is something that is hard. Some mornings I want nothing but to just say, hey, google, like snooze the alarm, wake me up in another 15 minutes. But what I did was I set myself up for success as I'm developing these hard habits by having an accountability partner. My mom is the best accountability partner because not only does this fill both of our cups up and allow us to go on our day With a better posture of grace and being just like faithful, it also is strengthening our relationship with one another. You know what I'm saying? Like it's a checkpoint for both of us to speak to each other before we start our day, and this, at the very beginning of me.

Speaker 1:

Planting the seed is the most important part, like think of the development of habits as Planting a seed right. If you plant a seed and very rich soil, it can do nothing but grow and prosper. But if you plant a seed in very dry, nutrient void soil, it's not really going to thrive. It's going to be extremely, extremely hard to get going because You're not watering it regularly, you're not really tending to the soil, you're not, you know, putting more nutrients into it, and so it's going to be really hard for you to see even a bud come up out of the ground. And then you're much more likely to do away with the habit because you're just like well, heck, like.

Speaker 1:

This isn't getting any easier for me, and the easier portion that correlates with this metaphor is the soft life that you want, the glowing when you wake up in the morning. The lack of bloat in your stomach because your gut health is in check. The long hair and in nails Because you know you're in taking the right amount of nutrients and things in your body. So if you want the soft life, if you want to look like you're glowing and everything is easy, you have to be willing to do the hard things behind the scenes, because the glow that you see on a lot of women who are kept is is only but the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot of maintenance and Self-care that goes into that, and those are those hard habits that she said, that she sets for herself, that says you know, no matter what, this is the bare minimum for me.

Speaker 1:

I have to pour into my cup by reading. Every day I have to read a little bit of my Bible and get my daily bread. I have to work out and move my body a little bit. I have to keep up with my relationships with the people around me, because that keeps me full. I have to read up on on worldly news and things that are happening in the world because that keeps me sharp. Like these are the bare minimum qualifications for her on the daily. That are hard. It's hard to keep up with these things, but it's also hard to live a soft life. You can't have a soft life without the work. You can't have the harvest without Sowing the seeds. You get what I'm saying.

Speaker 1:

So when you get on the back end of what it is that you have to do, that's how you're able to see what you want. I know I want glowing skin in the morning. I want my hair to feel luscious and soft and not very tangled. I want to be able to get up and go and Run my errands and not feel like I need to put on at least a tinted moisturizer. I want to feel like when I put on my clothes they fit really well and they really just Accentuate my curves and just look really nicely and flattering on me. I really want for, when I eat my food, for it to settle and for it to feel like I'm not stuffed and full and bloated, and so when I think about the results that I want, it's like, okay, well, what can you do Daily? That's a little bit harder, that's gonna yield you those results that you're looking for.

Speaker 1:

Because at the end of the day, guys, anything that is worth having Is not going to come easy. If you want the glowing skin, you have to have a night and a morning routine Like you can't just neglect that. You're not just gonna wake up glowing looking like you just came from a poor star. A facial like you're just not going to. You have to do the work, you have to do the research and figure out what is going to address your issues. You're gonna have to go see a doctor and address, you know, your gut, health and all these different things that are gonna help you get to a place to living a soft life.

Speaker 1:

Because once you've done the hard things, you've sown the seeds and you've cultivated very rich soil, it'll get easier and easier to show up in the hard ways. And let me give you some food for thought In just what is today, the 11th, or the 12th. Today's the 12th and just 12 days I have yielded incredible results for myself in my business, in that girl radio, in school. I am just showing up so much better as a woman because I'm doing the hard things. I'm doing the things that have been on my to-do list, that I've been trying to ignore for quite a long time now, and I'm showing up in all of my God-given glory, and that's hard.

Speaker 1:

But it's also hard to sleep on yourself and see other people doing the very things that you know you can do. That's hard too. It's hard to look at yourself and say, dang, like I've lost myself, like what did I do? I didn't keep up with me. I look in the mirror and I'm like what happened? And that's how I felt last year. It was like, girl, you just you gave up. The proof is in the pudding Like you need to put the pieces back together and it's okay to reach that rock bottom place where you're just like man. I shouldn't have to feel like when I get up every single day. It's hard for me, like I. Like it's hard for me to get out of bed, it's hard for me to get things done. But if you feel like that daily, I mean what's more for you to just do the harder things so you can start to live a life where you are in a constant state of flow. Because I feel like I've been floating through the past 12 days, even when school started.

Speaker 1:

While it's a little hard for me to get acclimated to being in a classroom for like eight to nine hours a day, I honestly can say, because of the habits that I built and the harder things that I'm choosing to do on a day-to-day, I am starting to live a softer life. I feel like everything is starting to align. Opportunities are just coming to me, things are just falling into my lap in a way that they haven't before, and it was because I was resisting myself. I was constantly choosing out of the daily options for myself of things that I could do to set myself up for success. I was constantly choosing the easier thing Wake up in the morning?

Speaker 1:

Okay, my alarm rings, I'm gonna choose to snooze it. That's a bad choice. That's the bad choice number one. Second choice okay, I'm gonna get ready, but I'm not gonna get ready to the full extent of getting ready Because, first of all, I'm already mentally not ready for the day. I've snoozed my alarm, I'm still tired, and then I choose to not get ready and put on an actual outfit that's gonna make me feel good and allow me to show up as my best self. I'm just gonna put on whatever. I'll put on some sweats, a little shirt, a jacket. I'm still gonna look clean, but I'm not gonna like look my best. We're just gonna go through the motions. Bad choice number two then I have to choose what am I going to eat for breakfast? And, hmm, how about we just forfeit breakfast and we'll have like a matcha or a chai latte and call it a day? Those are three extremely bad choices that I chose.

Speaker 1:

For months they were all the easier choice, but after a while I started to lose myself, because the morning, I feel like, is the most pivotal time of the day. When we rise, that is the time I feel like that we were most connected to God, like previously, when you rest and you feel back up your cup. That is the time where you kind of recalibrate. I know, at least for me, like when I pray, and now that I'm doing my nightly devotions, I feel like that's when I'm most close to God. Then I wake up in the morning and it's like this is your opportunity for you to like, make the change. This is the opportunity that he gives you to really shift it back, and those first three choices that you make in the morning can really set you up for success, to have that one day that could truly change your life. And every single day that he gave me that opportunity, I was choosing to do the wrong things and if you do that long enough, you'll find that you'll be on a completely different path than you could have been had you chosen the harder choice, the harder three choices every single day.

Speaker 1:

Just think about the first three choices that you make every day. What do they look like? Are you snoozing your alarm? Are you actually getting ready? Are you eating a well-balanced breakfast? Like? What are you listening to in the morning? Are you listening to music? Or are you listening to a podcast or an audio book? Like, what are you feeding your spirit? Daily?

Speaker 1:

It is the very subtle, like small choices that we make daily that compound and result into who we become, and I have gotten so aware of that in the past few months, which has completely shifted and altered my perspective, because I used to be that person that's like, oh, it doesn't matter if I don't get ready in the morning. You know, there's nothing for me to get ready for, I'm just going to class like I'm just going on OSU's campus, like who really cares about what I look like? But I promise you, on the days that I actually get ready, I show up so much better for myself. My posture is different. I'm actually willing to take up space because I'm not afraid for people to actually pay attention to me. I'm not afraid to be perceived because I'm my best.

Speaker 1:

It's when we kind of half-ass it and, you know, show up in a way that we know is in our full potential. That's when we water ourselves down and we retreat and we shrink ourselves because we don't want to be perceived. In this moment and at this point I want to be perceived 365 days a year. I want you to know that I am a force to be reckoned with. I want you to know that I'm doing what I need to do and I want you to know that I'm here for you. I want to show up in all spaces and all of the grand door and, like you know magnificence that I am and the only way that I can do, that is if I'm constantly pursuing the hard choices daily and, like I said, it's hard.

Speaker 1:

But what's harder? Thinking about where you could have been had you changed it, cleaned things up a while ago, or just doing it now and it it's sucking. But in the future, let's say, once you compound these things 20 times, 21 times to be exact, because that's all it takes to make something inhabit, then you'll see that, oh man, things are just easy. Now I flow, I wake up in the morning and when I read my devotion it fills my cup. I feel like I'm calibrated and I'm ready for the day, and now I can, like, make my breakfast and I can eat, and now I can, you know, actually interact with people and it be fulfilling, because I don't feel like I'm operating from a space of just exhaustion and so I have nothing really to give in spaces, because I've been there and it's okay to have bad days where you're just like, oh, I just can't do this.

Speaker 1:

But when you make the hard choices so often, it's easier for, even on your worst days, to still make the hard choice, because you know what the consequences are of doing the easier things. You felt that the easier thing is to go out and have fun on the weekends and like just get wasted, because that's what everyone else is doing. But it's really hard to recover from that the next day. The hangover is crazy, the anxiety is crazy, the bubble guts are crazy, like I'm speaking from experience and that's just not what I want for this version of Ricky Lee. If I choose to indulge in a drink or two here and there, that's fine, but I feel like for me, while it is the harder choice to put myself on a to drink limit, that is the choice that's going to results in me living a softer life, because my skin is going to look better, my weight is going to be more manageable, right, my gut health is going to be in a lot better of a place, a much better of a place, because I'm doing the harder things now, I'm limiting myself so I can have a boundless life.

Speaker 1:

Because a lot of us think of people who have limits, people who set boundaries, people who say or restraints on what they indulge in, as people who are just square right, you're so square, like just live a little. But when I look at those people sometimes I'm like man. They're living such a quality life because they're willing to subtract certain things so that they can add in other ways. And so for me, it's never that I'm depriving myself of anything. I'm not depriving myself of pop. I'm not depriving myself of costamigos, I'm not depriving myself of the club. I don't feel deprived from any of those things, because when I really think about how those things make me feel at the end of the day, how those things make me act at the end of the day, it's not really aligned with how I want to show up. The soft life that I think of in my mind doesn't involve either of those three things.

Speaker 1:

So when you identify for yourself what a soft life looks like and not what you've seen online, and also when you consult God about what your soft life is supposed to look like, if you do what he tells you to do, if you're obedient to him and you start to do the things that he's been telling you to do, I wonder what that will start to look like. Does that look like you will finally be able to get the job that you've always wanted? Does that look like you'll finally be able to have the body that you once had? Does that look like your skin is going to start to glow and look like glass for the first time in five years. Does that look like you'll finally be able to balance your hormones and get rid of your PCOS symptoms that you've been experiencing for the past 10 years? What does that look like for you if you compound the hard choices daily over the next six months?

Speaker 1:

Because I had someone from one of my classes tell me recently that the eighth wonder of this world is compound interest. When he said that to me, I'm like what is that? But he explained it and he said that, essentially, when you do something daily, it becomes a habit. Over time, it compounds and the results that you yield from it are just ultimately so much better. If you know anything about money or interest when you have a loan, and it compounds, it is the same thing.

Speaker 1:

What I want you to think about is what sort of accounts are we going to open this year that we want to compound to ultimately give us a better life? And I'm not meaning an actual bank account. Theoretically, let's say I was to open a wellness account and I was to make a deposit daily that would yield significant results for myself. That would ultimately give me better income, better hair, better nails, better gut health and ultimately I could possibly shed like 20 to 30 pounds. All because I chose to do the harder things daily to yield these sort of results for myself. Who wouldn't want to cash out the ultimate reward at the end of the year from their little, small daily deposits? That's just one example.

Speaker 1:

Let's say you were to open an account on relationships and you were to invest something very small every single day, compounding in either your community or, let's say, with one specific individual. You want to get married, you want to finally become exclusive with a person. Those sort of things take time. It takes choosing the hard thing, which is to be vulnerable with someone, and choosing to be exclusive with that person, when you know the world is a box of chocolates and you can be talking to eight people at the same time, but you're choosing to be intimate with one person. Another account that you could open is an account in your profession, an account in your creativity and depositing something into that daily and that compounds over time and you go from drawing stick figures at the start of the year to painting like your freaking Vincent Van Gogh and like just doing absolute wonders of this world because you're choosing to do the harder thing every single day.

Speaker 1:

We don't see greats like Michael Jackson or Beyonce, or literally anybody, by them just choosing to do the easy things daily. What you'll find is that when you read their biopics or you listen to interviews on their lives is that they chose to do the harder things daily and sometimes it left them in isolation, sometimes it left them feeling like they missed out on a lot, but ultimately it yielded the results of them being able to live a softer life because they made the small deposits every single day and they weren't looking to cash out early. You can't do that. You can't think that you can make some deposits for one month and get this big check reward no, so you have to be willing to delay the reward. You can't have instant gratification and think that you're going to live a soft life. It's going to take time. Let it compound.

Speaker 1:

Put in the effort to do the hard things for six months and see where your accounts are at the six month mark and say well, damn, I've been working out every day for six months and this is what my checking account looks like right now. This is sweet, but you know what? Hey, I'm not going to check out right now. I'm going to keep compounding. I'm going to keep doing this every day. And then it leads to a year and you look at your body and you're like, wow, the reward is even greater, so why not keep going?

Speaker 1:

And then you find yourself at the two year mark, and then the three year mark, and then the four year mark, and you find that these hard choices, these hard habits, are no longer hard, it's easy and it's yielded a soft life, and now you show up better in spaces, you're a lot more bold and just willing to take up space because you feel comfortable in your own skin. And while it was hard at first, it was tough getting started, it got easier and easier and easier and easier and just became second nature because you chose the harder thing every single day. So just ask yourself what are you going to compound this year? What accounts are you going to be opening? Are they going to be wellness accounts, spiritual accounts, relationship accounts? Is it going to be a style account? Are you going to wake up every single day and get dressed? Because I know I've been there Just waking up and rolling out of bed and just saying, hey, I'm going to put on something. I'm going to look clean but I'm not going to put my best foot forward.

Speaker 1:

I want to definitely make some more deposits into my style and my fashion sense, because that's a part of myself that I once was so passionate about at a young age and then it kind of just digressed because I didn't want to be perceived in the ways that I was in high school. It was always off putting in conversations when people would be like why are you so dressed up today? It made me feel like I was doing too much. But when you choose the harder things daily, just know people are going to question why are you doing that? Why are you doing so much? Why don't you just choose the easier thing and you just have to remind them that to be that girl it's never going to be easy. Okay, babe, maybe you're just not enough. It's not that I'm doing too much, it's just because you're not doing enough. You're choosing to do the easier thing for you, which is to show up and be mediocre, and that's fine, that is good for your life.

Speaker 1:

But my God has called me to greater. He's called me to get up in the morning and put some effort into my appearance. He's called me to put some effort into the foods that I put into my body, because it is a temple. He has called me to worry about the things that I consume. I need to be reading my word. I need to not be listening to things that bring me to temptation or bring me to talk to people crazy or act crazy. You got to be a little bit more conscious about the things that you do when you want to be that girl and when you are that girl, you just move differently and that's just that on that. But you don't even have to explain yourself, because the sort of glow and radiance that you'll give off, the fragrance that you give off, people will be spending years trying to bottle up a little bit of that fragrance that you exude, because it's so unique and they can't figure out.

Speaker 1:

What is it that she's doing? Like, does she go see Dr Miami? I mean, the body is giving BBL, but like, I'm just confused. Like, when does she go to Harvard and get a degree? Because the thoughts that she contributes to conversations is just like on a level of a philosopher. I'm just confused. Does she stay in the church house? Like, is she studying her Bible every night? Because the way she's quoting scripture and just constantly bringing things back to God.

Speaker 1:

I'm just confused and I don't know about you, but I want to be such a wonder, such a miraculous being that people are constantly confused about how I do what I do. Babe, it's unexplainable because what I do regularly probably is crazy to the average person. But I wasn't meant to be average. And when you know you were never meant to be average, when you know you were called to be so much more, you'll be willing to do the harder things daily to compound and yield you that softer life. You'll start to flow and things will come to you and it's just like well dang, I was working so hard to get this job, but now it's just fallen in my lap and it's even better than I ever imagined.

Speaker 1:

I thought I was going to get the associate role, but God has given me the director role, and that's because you've chosen to be obedient. You've chosen to be obedient to yourself and obey by the laws and the hard habits that you've set for yourself. You have crafted discipline, which is what most people in this world lack. Everyone can dream. Everyone can dream. We all go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning, and there's like a middle time in between where images and stuff come into our mind. Everyone dreams. However, everyone cannot be disciplined, everyone cannot have a goal in mind and be willing to do the things daily to get them the desired result. And that is what makes you that girl, that is what makes you God's girl, because you're obedient.

Speaker 1:

And when you take on a posture of obedience, I promise you, your entire life will just unfold like a flower. It will no longer be so hard like you're trying to scrape at it and open it up. It's like, oh my gosh, like I'm just trying to get to the goal, like why is this so hard? Just like it doesn't have to unfold like that. It can really just be natural. You can just blossom and it's just like, oh, I'm here, guys, and all of my greatness and glory, I know you've been waiting for me, but I'm here. It can be all so simple if we all just showed up for ourselves daily, tended to our soil and all of the seeds that we're planting at the start of the year and did the hard things.

Speaker 1:

I really do just want to preface that doing the hard things does not necessarily mean saving $2,500 to go get a BBL, or spending $800 on a new wig or, you know, like acquiring material things that you think are going to upgrade your life, because all that you have is all that. You need to start the hard habits right, because last year you probably did the same thing. You went and you spent and you bought all of these new things, these devotions, these books, and you know, you bought this machine and this new smoothie maker and all of these things that you thought were going to upgrade your life and yield you softer results. And, at the end of the day, we buy products because we have to use them, and to use them we have to be disciplined, and so businesses can get away with marketing things to people from a sense of you being the type of person that you think you are, which is disciplined, and that you're going to wake up every morning and you're going to get on that little electric treadmill and you're going to use this smoothie maker and make all of these wonderful juices and you're going to read that daily devotional.

Speaker 1:

But, as I said before, a lot of us lack discipline and so, if you know yourself, skip the fluff. You know, skip buying all of these things that you think are going to upgrade your life first and consult your habits. Consult the two things that you have. No matter where you are in life Poor, wealthy, rich, middle class every single person has these two things One being faith and two being the ability to make choices and, more specifically, be like disciplined. So if you can't consult your faith and your work ethic, then what are you going to do? Why do you think that there are some wealthy people who have weight management issues? Why do you think that there are wealthy people who have to see therapists, like it's not that when you acquire things, your entire life is going to become better, because there are so many people that I know that don't have much but are very happy. So how about you? Make the most of what you've got right now and figure out how you can craft better habits daily to compound those accounts that you're opening up at the start of this year. Consult that faith and consult that work ethic and make them the strongest they've ever been.

Speaker 1:

The way we exercise faith is by continuing to do the very thing that we think isn't getting us anywhere. It's very funny Praying all the time and you're like I don't know if you answer my prayers, god, but I'm going to pray anyway because, shoot, I need something to shake. I've been there, or exercising that faith every day, going to class and you're just like God. I hope at the end of this me paying attention in here is going to get me what I need on this exam, because I mean, I don't know. Faith is the practice of doing something, not knowing where it's going to take you, you know, not knowing the results you're going to get, and work ethic is doing something, because you know that work, working hard, is what gets you, the gets you and gets the job done. You feel me. So if you want to get the job done and you want to meet God halfway, you take care of the work ethic and you show him that you've got the faith and he's going to carry the rest, and the very things that were so hard in the beginning are going to become so much easier and everything's just going to start to flow and you're going to feel like a little flower that's just in bloom, instead of someone who's digging for, digging for gold.

Speaker 1:

So many of us have been, year after year, digging for gold, setting so many goals and so many plans and whatever else, and it's just like that wasn't even in alignment. You know you're going to be digging for the rest of your life, babe, because that wasn't even in the cards for you. Why don't you plant a seed that is manageable, so that it can just blossom and it can flourish in your garden? So many of us are looking at what everybody else has got. You look at their garden and you're like whoa, it's in bloom, like everything is beautiful. Man, I want what she's got, but you don't know what it took for her to get there. You don't know the deposit she had to make, the time that she spent tending to her soil and working on herself to become the beautiful flower that she is today.

Speaker 1:

Some of us are but a seedling, some of us are a bud, but appreciate the space that you're in at this moment and figure out what it is that you need to do to get you to just the next step and not compare yourself to any other flower in any other garden. Tend to you, work on you, water you, and that is truly what's going to get you the soft life. No one's going to get the soft life for you not a man, not a plan, not a school, not a church. You have to get the soft life for you. So I really do hope you guys enjoyed today's episode on doing the hard things so that you can live a soft life.

Speaker 1:

This episode was truly fruitful for me and has shifted my perspective even as I've been talking, and so please, if you don't already like, share an episode with a friend that you think could change their life or change their perspective for this new year, because I think this year is your year and it's theirs too. And if you're not already following that girl radio on Instagram, make sure to do so. Our account name is our podcast name. You can also follow your host here, ricky Lee, on Instagram at RickyLeeco, or on TikTok at the Ricky Lee. I've been quite active on both of these all throughout the month of January, talking to you guys and my DMs, and it has been nothing short of amazing. I love you guys and I will catch you right and early tomorrow.