Lead Yourself First: Petite Practices for Calm

[00:00:00] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: You’re tired, you rest, and it doesn’t quite fix it. Nothing is wrong exactly, so you tell yourself, “It doesn’t count.” And then you catch a photo of yourself and think, “Oh my gosh, she looks so exhausted.” And it takes a second to realize, oh, it’s you. This is the Happy Healthy Hustle podcast, and I’m your host, Dr. Christiane.

[00:00:23] Today, the calm and confidence reset. Six small shifts that spell one word: leader. Listen, energy, align, direction, enthusiasm, and repeat. Follow the show and tell me in the comments which practice you are keeping. Calm is built, confidence is earned, and leadership is repeated. Let’s begin with this episode.

[00:00:55] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: Let me ask you something. When was the last time you paused long enough to notice how you’re actually doing? Not your schedule, not your inbox, but you. There’s my new book, Petite Practice. Let’s talk a little bit about exactly that, petite practice, because most people cannot remember the last time they paused.

[00:01:16] They just keep moving forward while their energy, their focus, their patience quietly drift off track. I want to use the next few minutes to change exactly that, not with a big overhaul, with something much smaller. Learning to lead yourself before you try to lead anything else, and this is really, really important.

[00:01:40] Here’s the truth. You cannot pour calm and confidence into your work, your family, or your team if you have lost the thread of your own. So in the next minutes, we’re going to build exactly that. Think of it as a reset, calm and confidence reset. Six small shifts and one idea that holds it all together. Six small shifts spell out a single word: leader.

[00:02:12] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: We’re going to listen, we’re going to build some energy, align, build direction, enthusiasm, and repeat. Each one comes with a small practice. I call them petite practice. Nothing dramatic, just enough that you will actually do them. And let’s start with where all self-leadership begins. Guess what? We’re going to listen to our system.

[00:02:40] Now, this is really, really important. Everything begins with listening because most people are not broken. They’re just what I call overloaded. There’s too much input coming in from all sides, and you just kind of rush around and trying to get it all done. So many choices we make on autopilot, and when that happens, all of a sudden you stop hearing your own system.

[00:03:06] You just kind of feel off, and you don’t even know why. You have low energy, and your thinking is what I call foggy. And because your thinking is foggy, you have low energy, your fuse tends to be shorter than usual. Guilty of that? Yes, yes, yes. So leadership starts right here. Not with fixing everything, just with paying attention.

[00:03:31] What drains you? What steadies you? What throws you off? And what steadies you to keep you back on balance? Because if you cannot hear yourself clearly, you will lead from noise, and this is really important. Here is your very first practice. Today, we’re not changing a thing. All what we’re going to do is we’re going to notice.

[00:03:56] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: First, how is your energy? Second, how is your focus? Write down your observation. Don’t be dramatic about it. Just write down data, words. This is your very first petite practice. You have to listen to your system. Now let’s come to that E. E is energy over autopilot. Because once you can hear yourself, the next question is energy.

[00:04:27] Most people actually think energy comes from motivation. Well, it comes from attention, and most of us move through the day on autopilot. We eat a snack here, we take a bite there, something sweet the moment our energy dips. And most of the time, it’s not because we’re actually hungry. It’s more a habit. I have to grab a quick snack, or maybe stress, or maybe we’re just tired.

[00:04:56] Sounds familiar, right? So we pause, and how about this? Use that pause and ask yourself before you grab your next snack, do I actually need food? Or do I just need a break? Because when you stop reacting automatically and you open that drawer to grab that snack, all of a sudden you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I’m in control.

[00:05:19] I can lead myself again.” So if you need food, eat a real meal. Sit down, put on a candle, put it on a nice plate, and enjoy it. Let your body receive it. But if what you really need is rest, you need to take a pause, a real pause, because energy comes back when recovery is intentional. So here is your practice.

[00:05:41] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: Before you grab that next snack, ask yourself, “Food or pause?” And then choose on purpose. We are at our third letter, A. A for align how you nourish yourself. Now, we are paying attention to our energy, and now we can actually align how we fuel it. And this is really, really important. It’s actually one of my favorite words, align.

[00:06:10] Aligning is so important because most people try to change what they eat. They’re basically thinking, “Oh my gosh, I have to think a little bit about the overall food my refrigerator looks.” But it’s also actually the order of what you eat. And what I always say is, start light, right? And then go heavier.

[00:06:35] So maybe eat fruit first, and then grab a smoothie. Anything like that. Maybe a salad first, and then go to heavier meals. So what’s really, really important here is the more intentional you are with everything, the more you’re going to start noticing how your body is just reacting to what you do. If you eat a light meal and then a heavy meal, light food moves faster through your body.

[00:06:59] Think of fruit like little sports cars. You let them go first. And when it gets stuck behind heavier foods, your whole system feels it. So once you align yourself with your choices, whether that’s food, whether that’s taking a break, your system is going to become much more reactive to it. So alignment is not about strict rules.

[00:07:21] It’s actually about making things easier on yourself, and that’s really important. So when I wrote this book, I also thought it needs to be small. It needs to be small enough so you can take it along, right? The same with your food. If you want to have a nourished meal, it’s like a smoothie. You can enjoy the smoothie and just sip the smoothie and really take your break and slow down.

[00:07:44] Digestion already begins in the mouth, and then small shifts happen, and they change how your whole body actually feels about this. Truly important is also that your practice now ties in with all of this. So pick one pause today where you’re taking a meal and start really light. Just think of this as being the first meal where your body gains energy, and then go heavier from there and notice the difference, how the choice of the meal leads to different energy.

[00:08:19] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: Now, let’s go for D. D is direction through small movements. I know. We listened, we built energy, we aligned, and now we’re actually having direction. And this is really important because energy that is aligned needs somewhere to go, right? We fueled ourself, we took a break, so this is where movement really comes in.

[00:08:44] I am a fitness instructor, and I always say it doesn’t need to be a perfect workout. It just needs to be movement. Just move. Nothing needs to be perfect, nothing needs to be long, and nothing needs to be expensive. Just move. And most people believe movement only counts if it’s, like, one hour. And then I tell them, “Well, guess what?

[00:09:04] I don’t even work out for an hour, and I’m a fitness instructor.” I would like to ask you, and I will give you permission, stop that belief that more movement really leads to more energy. Not true. I would like that you just move. The movement even starts before you even set your timer to it. It counts when it happens.

[00:09:26] When you have five minutes, move for five minutes. It counts. Short walks, amazing. It counts. So think about, you have some time in the kitchen, five minutes, just do some quick little squats on the kitchen countertop. Stretching. You need to get up from your desk, you stretch. All that counts. And if you accumulate all that together, all the small movement changes how you feel.

[00:09:52] It lifts your energy. It breaks what I call the inertia of just sitting still and not doing anything because you thought you needed that one hour. So to me, something is quietly building that’s very, very powerful. It’s called self-trust. And see how we built this together here? We made choices about breaks, we made choices about food, and we made choices about movement.

[00:10:18] Because here’s the truth: confidence does not come from motivation. It comes from evidence. Every time you keep a small promise to yourself, your brain learns one thing. “Oh, I do what I say I will do.” And that is leadership.

[00:10:45] Not intensity, it’s the follow-through, and that is so important. So here is your practice for today. I would like that you schedule one five-minute movement pocket. I call it a pocket.

[00:11:09] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: Like, we build a whole bunch of little pockets in the day. And then keep the promise and actually move for five minutes. Let’s come to the next letter. E for enthusiasm, and enthusiasm for what works. So by now we’ve started to notice something, a few things actually helping. More energy, more clarity, we got more calm, and all of a sudden, this is the next practice.

[00:11:36] Enthusiasm. It’s not hype. It’s just paying attention, right? So you need to ask yourself one very simple question: What actually worked? What made my day easier? Because guess what? Leadership grows when you repeat what works. And at the same time, you can get rid of what doesn’t work. But we’re not chasing the perfect routine.

[00:12:01] Too many people just kind of go in a loop, and they make a new plan, and they look at this new program, and they have these new rules. But it’s not necessary. Just notice what already supports you, and then you just do more of that. You don’t need to start something completely new. Enthusiasm grows when something generally helps and you do more of that.

[00:12:27] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: So here’s your practice. Write down one thing that helped you this week, and then do that again. And that’s how you build your enthusiasm. Now we are on our R, the very last letter, which is repeat, and that is the most important thing. We have a system. We repeat what works, which is kind of like the most important one because the goal is never to be perfect for a week.

[00:12:55] It’s just not. Nobody needs to be perfect. The word imperfect stands for I am perfect, right? I’m perfect. So the goal is to lead yourself well over time, and self-leadership is built through repetition. So look at what you have already practiced. You listened. You paused before reacting. You aligned how you feed yourself, and you added movement, even the five-minute movements through the day, those little pockets.

[00:13:24] And you noticed what works. Those actions say something about you. It says, “I pay attention, I support myself, and I reset when I drift.” And guess what? That is leadership. It’s not intensity, it’s consistency, and it’s so important that we start with that. So don’t ask, “Ugh, what should I overhaul next?” No. The much better question is, “What small action will I repeat?”

[00:14:00] And then choose that habit from this reset. Repeat it for the next seven days. Because guess what? The leader you’re becoming is who you already are. And here’s what I want you to see before you go. Everything I just gave you was small. Listen, pause, align, move, notice, and repeat. None of it was dramatic, and this is exactly why it works.

[00:14:31] Leadership does not begin when other people follow you. It begins when you learn to guide yourself. And in this case, you actually reset when things drift. You protect your own energy, and you notice what works, and you keep that. That is calm, confident leadership. It’s not loud. It’s consistent. It’s calm.

[00:14:55] And with that, you are also, of course, going to attract the right people. Because calm is built and confidence is earned. Leadership is just repeated. So with that, I hope you’re going to check out my book, because that’s the whole idea behind Petite Practice: Small, Steady Steps to a Life of Momentum and Real Change.

[00:15:21] And if this reset helped you, the book would simply be your next small step. You can grab the book, check it out. You can ask me any questions about it, and I would love for you to get that real change. If this was useful, tell me in the comments, subscribe, and share with me which practice will you keep.

[00:15:42] And if you want more conversations, follow along. Can’t wait to hear from you. My name is Dr. Christiane, and let’s see you in the next video.