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August 28, 2021 21 mins

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How do you set your intentions each day? Do you rise late, rush to get ready, head out the door and jump from task, to meeting, to phone call, to kids sports, to the grocery store with never a thought about caring for yourself? Where do you find time each day for you? When do you take a moment to just breathe? What will it take for you to realize that you, and only you, have the power to say: "I am important!"

In today’s episode, host Jason Ramsden shares 10 tips on how you can mindfully take back control of your life in these crazy times. He also shares experiences from his own life on how he is working to make improvements in the hopes of inspiring others.

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Take Back Your Life in Ten Steps by Tony Schwartz (hbr.com)
Seven Ways to Feel More in Control of Your Life by Anthony Rao; Paul Napper (berkeley.edu)

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it on your heart and say, No,this is what's important. Ian
Thomas.
How do you set your intentionseach day? you rise late rush to
get ready, head out the door andjump from task, to meeting to

(00:25):
phone call to kids sports to thegrocery store, with never a
thought about caring foryourself. Where do you find time
each day for you? When you takea moment to just breathe? When
you take a moment to justbreathe?
What will it take for you torealize that you and only you

(00:45):
have the power to say I amimportant. And when you do, how
will you prioritize self care?
If working from home has taughtus anything over the last 15
months? It is we need to findspace for ourselves. So tell me,
friend, when will that happenfor you?

(01:05):
Hi, I'm Jason Ramsden and Ibelieve we can all work on
leading a more positive andintentional life. And this show
details my journey by sharing mylearning stories and
conversations with guests. Ifyou want to lead a more
intentional life, focus on beingthe best you possible. Please
subscribe today. Now. Let's getinto today's episode. Hello,
positivity posse. Welcome back.
I'm Jason Ramsden, your host andfriend looking to help you

(01:29):
improve what you do each andevery day through stories about
me and my own journey. And todaywe're talking about it's your
life, time to take control. NowI'm brand new to working from
home throughout the pandemic, atthe time that the pandemic was
taking place. For me at least,living in North Carolina, I was
considered essential personnel.

(01:52):
So even in March of 2020, I wasat the office every day, it was
at the office every day fromMarch until June of 2021. When I
left that position, working fromhome for me is brand new. I just
started here the last couple ofweeks as I'm on this
entrepreneurial journey, partpodcast part coach, it's an
exciting time for me. But I'vebeen struggling lately with the

(02:16):
concept of it's my life. Andit's time to take control for so
long. And by long I mean 30years, my entire career, I
worked somebody else's schedule,I was working in schools, I had
to be there at a certain time, Ihad to stay until certain time
and I obviously stayed way pastthat because I was in it. And
when you do, you've certainlygot a lot of things to do each
and every day to make sure thata school or a business or an

(02:38):
organization continues tooperate at an optimal level with
their technology. But now I'm anentrepreneur. So I've been
struggling lately with like,what is my life look like? What
are my daily life look like? Sohow how do you start to focus on
taking your life back? It's aquestion I've been asking
myself. It's a it's a questionI've been asking my own coach.

(02:59):
And what I found in my research,it's not all that difficult when
you think about it, like whenyou put it down into steps. And
so today I'll go over 10 steps,I found that I thought were
really, really positive steps tobasically taking my life back.
It's not difficult. But beingable to commit to that very

(03:20):
first step, being able to sayyes, this is how I'm going to go
about it. This is I want to makethis change in my life for
myself. That's the tougher part.
And it doesn't matter what stageyou are in your career, if
you're early stage, mid stage orgetting ready to retire. We all
run into these situations wherewe find ourselves with our lives
kind of getting a little bit outof control, where we no longer

(03:42):
control them, we we no longerthink about what's important to
us. We think about what we needto do for other people as
opposed to what we do forourselves. Now in the opening
quote, we talked about puttingyour hand right on your heart
and saying you know what? No,this is what's important, right?
What's inside of me, that's moreimportant than anything else in

(04:04):
the world, when you start torealize that you and you alone
are the only one who's going totake care of yourself, that's
going to look out for you. I'mnot here to say that people in
your life your spouse, yourpartner, your husband, your
wife, your boyfriend, yourgirlfriend, whatever it is your
family, your mom, your dad, yourkids, I'm not saying they don't

(04:25):
love you, or they don't care foryou, but they're not going to
take care of you the way thatyou need to be taken care of
only you can do that foryourself. And once you do that,
you have to think about Okay,what are the steps to actually
take my life back to make myselfa priority? What does that
actually look like? I found agreat article in Harvard

(04:46):
Business Review that goes backeight years this is this is a
long time ago pre pandemic preanything pre our life, changing
our routines changing, workingfrom home schooling, kids at
home, whatever it may have.
In, this wasn't the time,there's always going to be an
occasion where something isgoing to change, our routine is
going to change, and we need toget our life back on track. And

(05:09):
what it really comes down to,and we'll get to the 10 steps
here in a minute. But what itreally comes down to is habit
building ritualizing your life,turning things into routine,
putting whatever may be tasksthat you have into some sort of
digestible content on acalendar. So that you know, you
block off time, you have toblock off time, if you live by

(05:31):
your calendar, for taking thekids around town to taking them
sports to knowing when to gogrocery shopping, or laundry or
when this project is your do, orwhen you have to email this
customer get back to them.
If you don't put the tasks thatare also important to your life,
on your calendar, guess what,they're not going to get done. I
know I live by that rule ofAsana, my calendar, it doesn't
exist. Now going back to theForbes article, what I really

(05:54):
like about it is it takes youfrom this very basic, minimal
levels like okay, here's thefundamentals, you can do a
couple of these things. And thisis just fundamentally sound,
good way to take care ofyourself. And then you can ramp
it up to like the next level tothe next higher level. And
that's it goes from one to 10love that super easy, to a

(06:16):
little bit more difficult. Andwhat I like about that for you,
and we talked about this inother areas of our lives, is
that you can chunk it, you couldtake a task, and just work on
that a month at a time, thiscould be a 10 month program for
you take one step at a time,we're not trying to run a
marathon here, we're not tryingto race to the very end. Now

(06:37):
we're going to take this onemonth at a time. So let's take a
look at that here. So in monthone, what we're going to do is
get sufficient sleep everynight. It's paramount to your
life. A few years ago, Icommitted to making sleep a
priority for myself, I used tobe a stay up late kind of guy,

(07:01):
they up until one or two andthen get up at 630 or seven and
rush to get out the door. No,now, I'm really focused on
getting seven and a half toeight hours of sleep. When I get
up in the morning, I generallyget up before my alarm clock
goes off. Shortly before itdoes, I spend a few minutes kind

(07:21):
of getting myself going for theday. But because I prioritize
sleep in my life, it has left mefeeling more physically
energized. I feel that I have abetter mindset about life, I
find that my mind is clear. It'sready to go to work when I want
to go to work. I'm not rushingto get there. I'm taking my time

(07:44):
in the morning for me. And it'sbecause I'm getting a good
night's sleep. Number two in thelist, not a shocker, you have to
move more. I myself recentlycommitted Now, going back to
step one to sleep down pat, I'vebeen doing that for a couple
years now. So that's your monthone, get that done in month one,
month two, focus on moving more.
And for me, I've done thatrecently, I've committed to

(08:07):
walking an hour every singleday. And I know that sounds like
an inordinate amount of time toput towards exercise. But you
can find the time, if I can findthe time I don't have any more
hours in the day than you havein the day. So if I can find a
time in the morning to walk foran hour, and still find time to
make breakfast for my beautifulbride to be able to take the dog

(08:30):
for a walk, get out to organizethe day and still get showered
change and be in the office bynine o'clock. And I know if
you're if you're in a schoolsetting, that's not going to
work for you. Or if you have adifferent sort of lifestyle that
you do shift work, it's notgoing to work for you. Find What
does, but find the time to movemore. If you just find 30

(08:52):
minutes to walk and that's whereI started 30 minutes, four times
a week, where you're moving yourbody, you're gonna start to see
results, and then ramp it up to45 minutes, then ramp it up to
an hour. You'll find the timebecause you realize that it
makes you feel better eatingengages your mind. You have
clarity, you have theopportunity to think deeply

(09:17):
about things while you'rewalking. And so step two, move
more. Now step three or monththree, try to eat less but more
often. I must say that again.
Eat less more often. And you mayhave been the path going into

(09:37):
dieting or trying differentformats. Trust me, I've done it
all. I've done paleo. I've doneAtkins. I've done Weight
Watchers, you name it. I'vetried it.
Well, okay, maybe not all ofthem haven't tried keto. I
haven't tried the Mediterraneanstyle, but that seems super
appealing to me because of fishand vegetables but

(10:00):
Because I've started to focusmore on that now in my day, I'm
trying to eat six times a day,but smaller meals, keeping track
of the types of foods I'meating, trying to eat more whole
food, less processed foods, I'mstarting to find that my
internal furnaces like being fedall day long, and it actually
feels good, smaller amounts offood more often throughout the

(10:23):
day than trying to just havethree big meals a month for
number four, however, you wantto take it, renew more, renew
more. And what that means is ifyou had to go back into
Paleolithic times, and talk to agay person, they would tell you,
they're not working continuouslynon stop all day, every day.

(10:47):
They're taking time to hunt andgather, they're taking time to
rest. They had to rest, right,they had to rest because they
were constantly on the move, sothat the dinosaurs didn't know
where to find them because theywere their food. So you need to
renew more. And what that meansis that, take a break every 90
minutes, do it for five minutes,do it for 10 minutes, whatever

(11:11):
it may be. And if you can't waitthat long, do it every hour,
okay, at if you start a projectat the top of the hour, when you
get to the 15 minute mark, breakfor 10 minutes, take that time
to do some deep breaths, perhapsget up from your desk, walk
around the office, walk aroundthe building, walk around the
campus, wherever you happen tobe, walk around your yard, take

(11:33):
time to renew deep breaths, andrefocus.
Number five or month five,invest in those you love. Give
the pandemic has taught usanything spending time together
is a good thing. It's alsotrying I understand that. But
when we get out of the pandemic,when we're back in our routines,
I suggest perhaps that you don'tgo back to normal. Take some

(11:57):
time to really invest in thosethat you love. Take the time to
be a better listener, take thetime to listen more than you
speak. Be mindful when you'reengaged in conversations with
others. be fully present, bephysically present, be mentally
present. Don't be distracted,when you're talking to people

(12:17):
that you love. Take it in, youwill find and trust me, I've
started to do this myself, youwill find that your family
members, those who are in yourlife that you love those
meaningful friends, when youactually put the distractions
away and focus and talk to them.
Things open up you learn thingsabout them that you may have

(12:40):
never learned. The conversationis more robust. It's deeper.
Number five, invest in those youlove.
month six, number six, whateverorder you want to take it in,
and these can go in any order.
You don't have to go one to 10something piques your interest
here, in the next couple of onesor the ones that were before
whatever you feel like is theone that you're going to tackle

(13:03):
go after it. But just spend amonth focus on that. Don't try
to do them all. But number six,give thanks, give thanks. We
often text people, thoughts,comments all the time, right?
That's it's quick and easy totext somebody and let them know.
And this is something that Ineed to work on better myself is
that I'm good about reaching outto people that I haven't kept up

(13:26):
with a while with a text messageto check in, or a phone call to
check in. But what I need towork on and I suggest you do the
same is go back to handwrittennotes, write some money, a note
of appreciation, tell them whythey matter in your life, why
they're important to you and whyyou're grateful for them being
in your life. So number six,give thanks. Number seven, do

(13:48):
the most important thing. First.
Some people call this eat thefrog. Because nobody wants to
eat frogs. If you spend yourmorning where you're typically
the most clear have the mostclarity have the most energy are
most productive. Now, noteverybody fits into this
category. But most people do.
Start your workday withoutinterruptions. A clear 60 to 90

(14:13):
minutes on whatever it is it'syour most challenging task. If
you don't know what your mostchallenging task is, and you're
staring at a list of to Do's,then you need to start planning
your day. Look at the top threethings that you need to get done
that day. And then at the verybeginning of the day, tackle the

(14:35):
one that's the hardest, the onethat's most difficult the one
that's going to give you themost headache, because it's hard
to do, but tackle it in themorning when you have the most
energy if you leave it to theend of the day. If you have
three tasks that you're gonnacomplete in a day, and you leave
the hardest one for the end ofthe day. It's going to get
pushed till the next day and thenext day and the next day until
you eat the frog. So numberseven do the most important

(15:00):
thing first, Number eight,practice reflection. So
recently, I've been on a littlebit of a journey to find the
perfect agenda, the perfectdaily, weekly, monthly planner.
And I haven't quite found ityet. I love pen and paper, I
also love technology, I'mlooking for something that can

(15:20):
blend the two together. But I doneed to make sure that whatever
I sign up for whenever I decideto go with has a space in it
where I can practice reflection.
Right now I do a daily gratitudejournal. I've been doing that
for the last six months or so Ineed to get back to it To tell
you the truth, because I'vestopped doing it when we moved
and he got caught up, but I'mstarting to get back into it.

(15:44):
But it allows me to practicereflection at the end of day for
what I'm grateful for. But Ialso need to start practicing,
reflecting on what went wellthat day. What was a win, or
something I need to improve on.
What's something that I need tostart doing what something I
need to stop doing. If you taketime, at the end of every

(16:04):
workday, or in the evening,whatever works best for you
10 1530 minutes, at the end ofthe day to go through. Okay,
what were your highestpriorities? What did you get
done? Did it feel like youaccomplished much? And then what
are you going to do the nextday? What are the top three
things you're going toaccomplish next day and reflect
on what went well, and whatyou're looking to improve upon

(16:25):
tomorrow. So number eight,practice reflection.
Number nine, keep learning. I'ma big proponent of being a
lifelong learner. My parents aregreat examples of this. They're
83 and 81. They're constantlydoing and learning new things.
You know, 83 years old, my dadis still managing his stock

(16:46):
portfolio, he's still reviewingcompany information, he's still
looking at it every single day.
It's just amazing to me. And sonumber nine, keep learning. And
the reason that you want to keeplearning couple of reasons. But
in my mind, the reason that youwant to keep learning is a keeps
your brain active keeps yourbrain functioning. As soon as we
stop using our our brain, itstarts to diminish function. So

(17:10):
the more that we can do, themore that we can learn, the more
that we can challenge ourselvesthroughout our entire life, the
better off we'll be readingbooks, listening to audio books,
listening to podcasts, anythingthat you can do to build a daily
practice around learninganything, a new language, a
sport, an instrument, how towrite code, fix a car, draw, fix

(17:32):
a leaky toilet, how to changethe oil in your car, whatever it
may be, the concept of continuallearning, the concept of being a
lifelong learner will allow youto take back control of your
life. So if there's somethingthat you're interested in, is
there something that you want todo or change up, start reading

(17:54):
about it, start focusing onthat, and I guarantee that
you'll find yourself feelingbetter about the types of things
that you're doing in your life.
And finally, number 10. Giveback, give back, take time,
every week, if you can, if not,every other week, once a month,
whatever it may be, take time toadd value to the world at large

(18:18):
go out and do something forsomebody else. Go out and
experience the world throughtheir eyes, give back to them,
treat them in the coffee shop,whatever it might be volunteer
at a soup kitchen, help thehomeless volunteer at a
hospital, well, maybe not now inCOVID. But once we're out of
COVID, do something thatregularly gives back to the

(18:39):
community. And I'm not justtalking about give back, write a
check. I'm talking about giveback and be kind give back make
a difference in other people'slives. Give back so that they
can see you doing good, and sothat you can see the smile that
you're going to put on somebodyelse's face. So number 10, give
back. Now I know I threw a lotat you today, there were 10

(19:01):
different steps. They can bebroken down into 10 months, 10
weeks, 10 days, I don'trecommend that break them down
in a month. find one that worksfor you. of the 10 You don't
have to do them in order you canjump around. But what they went
from easier to more difficult,because we got to find time in
our lives to do these things.
But just remember, getsufficient sleep every night.

(19:24):
Move more, eat less more often.
Renu more, invest in those youlove. Give thanks. Do the most
important thing. First, practicereflection, keep learning and
give back. I don't know aboutyou, but I'm energized by this

(19:45):
particular topic. It's somethingthat I need to continually look
at each and every day in mylife. How am I living up to
these 10 steps, these 10 ways totake back my life to take more
control of my life. It's goingto be something that I'm focused
on, you're probably going tohear about
individual steps I'm takingacross these categories and
other podcasts. If there'sanything that you think could be

(20:07):
added to the list, hit me up atJason at positivity on fire,
calm. If there's something thatyou're really interested in
working on, you want to tell meabout it. Again, email me, let
me know I'd love to hear fromyou. The more that we stay
together, the better off we'llbe. I fully believe that we're
stronger together than apart.
And in closing, thank you forbeing here today. Your gift of

(20:28):
time listening to this show doesmean the world to me I say it at
the end of every show, but it isso important. You have 20
minutes of time that you give tome. And that's precious to me.
And I thank you for being here.
And as always remember, be wellbe happy, be you and until the

(20:49):
next time may your quest forpositivity begin today.
For more on my positivity quest,follow me at underscore j y
Ramsden on Instagram tik tok andTwitter. If you like today's
episode, please give us a fivestar rating and review on your
favorite podcast app or visit JCcomm and search for positivity

(21:09):
on fire.
Positivity on fire is aproduction of impact one media
LLC All rights reserved.

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