Welcome to the Elevated Edit podcast.

I'm your host, Blakely Ramsey, and the goal of this podcast is to discuss all things personal development, wellness, and the art of editing your life in an elevated way.

From mastering morning routines to mastering your mindset, we're going to sift through the noise and empower you to take elevated action.

Make sure you catch the show notes for all the details.

Enjoy the show.

Hello and welcome back to the Elevated Edit podcast.

So I was talking with one of my guy friends the other day, and he is a business owner and someone that I definitely look up to in the professional space.

He runs a very honest business.

He is very diligent, very organized, very timely.

If he says he's going to do something, he does it.

Everything that he has is, like, done in a very good presentation.

And he is well respected in.

In his industry.

I wouldn't necessarily say he is well liked, but he is well respected.

And I.

That's definitely right up my alley because that is how I want to operate my business.

But him and I were talking the other day about how we both feel like we have had the opportunity to have a lot of personal growth in the last couple of years that we're very fortunate for.

It has come through a lot of hardships, but very thankful for the progress.

And we were just talking about different things that we feel like have helped us the most.

And one of the habits that we both feel like we have done a great job of in the last couple of years is intentional reflection.

Now, I want to give a little backstory on intentional reflection before we get into it, because I don't want you to be overwhelmed, to be like, oh, that sounds like a ton of work.

It's really not.

It's a habit that you can develop.

But so here's the backstory.

I was homeschooled for a couple of years when I was younger, and my mom, one of the things that I had to do for school was I had to journal first thing in the morning and right before I went to bed.

And I used to hate it.

I didn't like it.

I didn't want to write.

I sure didn't want to write my journal twice a day every day.

You know, it was just.

It was such a burden to me back then.

But by the time I got in high school, it was something that I just did every day regularly.

And I have kept up my journaling habit, I would say, pretty much my whole life.

There have been a couple, like, seasons in college where I didn't journal or like, Even a couple seasons, like, post college, like, my first couple years in real estate.

I would say I've probably kind of let my journaling habit fall to the wayside, but I can definitely tell a difference in, like, my mental clarity when I am journaling regularly.

And one thing I would start to notice is that my journal entries, while, yes, I was very considerate, consistent, they weren't always helpful.

Now, sometimes I would brainstorm a big idea, or sometimes I would brainstorm myself through a problem, but more often than not, I realized that I was journaling, like, all of my aggressions, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing.

I definitely.

I would prefer to journal my aggressions than let them out through my words or my actions.

I think other people would enjoy that as well.

But I did notice.

Like, I would look back on my journal entries, and I was like, wow, like, these are all really negative.

Like, it's just kind of the same negative pattern.

And I'm not really doing anything.

Like, I'm not really making any real progress.

I'm just doing the.

The action, you know?

And so a couple of years ago, I really tried to go, okay, how can I take this habit that I do every single day and make it something that is actually, like, helping me and helping me develop as a human being?

And that was when I started practicing a more intentional reflection.

And at first, this was, once again, it was just something super negative.

Like, I would look back at my week before, and I would look at all the things I did wrong or all of the ways I was wronged, and it was still a really negative way to look at it.

But slowly, over time, I started to notice that my intentional reflections were becoming not necessarily more positive, but I was getting.

I was getting more value out of them.

So instead of just looking back on my week before and being like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe so and so did this to me, or, I can't believe so this and this happened to me, or I can't believe I did this and this and this.

Instead of it just being, like, all negative and all criticism, I would try to take a couple of the specific situations that happened and kind of dissect them and be like, okay, this didn't feel great in the moment, but to.

Did I learn a lesson from this?

Did I, you know, develop as a person?

Did I develop a strong relationship with someone else?

Like, was there any positive that came out of this?

Were there any lessons good or bad?

And what can I extract from this and take it with Me and move forward.

And when I started journaling in this manner, that's when I really think that things started to kind of take.

Take hold for me and really start to move the wheel a lot faster.

So now at this point, I feel like things move a lot faster than they did a couple of years ago.

Like, as soon as I get an idea, I'm able to put it in place a lot faster than I was.

And I think that this is such a small habit that it can often be overlooked.

Like, even if you are someone that journals regularly, like, if you aren't doing it intentionally, it can.

That can be one of those things that, at least in my opinion, that you go, okay, I'm journaling, and you check it off your list.

But if you're not intentionally journaling, it's almost like you're just wasting your time, you know?

Like, at least for me in this season, I am kind of limited on time.

And so I want to make sure that every action that I do is very intentional, and every action that I take is producing some kind of result, whether it is rest or joy or productivity or reflection or learning or whatever the case is.

And so I have really started to try to be more intentional with my reflecting.

Now, one thing that I want to point out here is that you do not have to journal in order to take time to intentionally reflect.

I have friends that will meditate and reflect, and then I have some friends that don't feel comfortable with the word meditation.

And so they call it their dedicated, dedicated contemplation time.

Try saying that five times real quick.

I'll give you a second.

I'm not going to try to say it.

Okay, that was your time.

Hope you got it all in.

That's pretty hard to say.

Dedicated contemplation.

And, I mean, there's a thousand ways that you can do this.

Like, you can plan to do it during a walk.

You can plan.

Okay, on Fridays, I'm going to show up to pick up the kids 10 minutes earlier, and I'm going to set my car line, and I'm going to do my intentional reflection or, you know, whatever it is, whenever, whichever time you want to do it, however you want to do it.

I think just.

Just getting in the habit of doing it.

And we all know with a habit, if we start too big, we'll get overwhelmed, and we probably won't do it.

So start small.

Like, take 10 minutes or five minutes or even two minutes, and just think back on one situation that happened during the week and not just look at it from an overthinking standpoint, but really give it some intentional reflection.

That is something that I used to be super guilty of is if you had asked me, you know, three years ago, I would be like, yes, I intentionally reflect all the time.

That's all I do, basically.

But I was really just overthinking.

I was thinking back on the situation, and I was going, oh, I can't believe I was so wronged, or, I can't believe that was so embarrassing, or, I can't believe they said that to me or that happened to me or whatever it was.

And then I would just replay the situation over and over and over and over again in my head, and I would.

In my.

In my mind, I was like, oh, check.

I intentionally reflect.

I reflect all the time, but it wasn't a productive intentional reflection.

Now I.

When I find myself overthinking a situation, I'm like, okay, I need to sit down and, like, extract all the pieces of this.

Do, like, what.

What was the root of what happened?

Why did it happen?

What was my part in it?

Like, that has been a big one for me, especially if I get in, like, an argument with someone or I have a disagreement with someone.

I have enjoyed sitting down and looking at what I did wrong and going, okay, I could have said this and this and this and not feeling guilty about it, but just going, okay, the next time I'm in this situation, I would prefer to do this option over what I did.

And also, something that's really helped me with intentional reflection is, you know, sometimes when I overthink, I do start to feel guilty about, like, oh, I can't believe I said that rude thing to that person, or, I can't believe I snapped at them, or, I can't believe I did this.

But when you intentionally reflect, yes, take accountability where you need to take accountability.

But I also think sometimes it's really nice to go, wait a minute, they actually said something really rude.

And like, yeah, I maybe could have reacted in a better way, but the blame is not completely on me.

Like, for me, it can go either way.

Like, sometimes it's like a relief of, like, okay, they were being very passive aggressive.

They were being very rude.

Like, I don't think we always have to react in a nice way, Especially if someone's being rude to us and, you know, being intentionally negative towards us.

And so I.

That has helped me both ways.

I will say 90% of the time, the conclusion that I come to is that I.

I could have done a lot better.

There are very few times where my final conclusion is like, okay, they shouldn't have said that.

And I was totally okay with.

With what I should have said.

The majority of the time, I was in the wrong.

And once again, it's not something that I'm going to feel guilty about, but most of it, I'm like, okay, I can learn a lesson from this.

I can take this and move forward and, you know, try to do better next time.

And then the 10.

I don't know.

I guess we'll just.

We'll just let that one bump.

Y'all know who I'm talking about.

About.

There's just some people that I personally no longer feel obligated to be nice to.

And I think that's the most politically correct way that I can say it.

But it is just my honest truth that I'm living in right now.

There are so many people in this world that I love and respect and look up to.

I would say, like, 98% of the people that I know fall in that category.

And.

And the other 2%.

I'm just not even going to waste my time, like, thinking about you anymore.

Like, you're just irrelevant to me.

I'm just not going to think about it because I want to give my attention to the 98% of people that, like, I do respect and I do look up to and I do value.

So that's just my little tangent on that.

But I wanted to give y'all kind of like a real life scenario of how I have been intentionally reflecting and once again, remember that I have been doing this since.

Since I was, like, a 7 or 8.

So to me, journaling is a habit.

It's just a habit I've improved on.

So don't feel like, oh, my goodness, I could never do.

I could never run Blakely's intentional reflection habit.

So I'm not even going to try it.

Like, take what I say.

Let it be your brainstorm, and then create your own whatever it is, whatever system or habit you want to create, create with that.

So every Friday, Fridays are good for me because I am pretty much done with my commitments by Friday.

I'm kind of, like, wrapping up loose ends, but it's also close enough to the next week that I know what I need to be working on.

I know what I need to be focusing on.

And also I want to get all of this done before the weekend because I have been trying to protect my weekends.

I really want to be checked out, off the clock, intentional every Saturday and Sunday.

That is just a New standard that I would love to start implementing in my life.

And I've done a lot better.

I still have room to improve, but I am, I'm trying to protect my weekends moving forward.

And so on Friday afternoons I will time block usually about an hour and a half.

Sometimes it takes me way less, but I like to give myself the space just in case.

And I will write down a.

And I'm going to do a flat whole podcast episode on this at some point.

I call it my CEO week.

And it just kind of gets me in the mindset of like getting ready to really show up, as in like a super high level way for myself every single week.

And so there's different portions of it that I go through and do.

But one of the, I would say first 5ish things that I do during my CEO week prep is I do my intentional reflection.

And so I have developed a list of questions that I ask myself on Fridays.

They're not always easy to answer, but when I am done, I usually feel a lot better and a lot more clear.

The majority of these questions, and I don't have that many, there's like, I think four or five, and they're very short, but they do get the wheels turning and they get me thinking about my week before.

And I love to think back on situations that really stand out to me, good or bad.

Unfortunately, I feel like it's human nature to look back on the negative things, and I don't mind doing that because I think that there's so many lessons to be learned from our failures and our setbacks.

And so I will look back on a.

I'll try to have a couple, a particular setback or a particular problem or situation that I had to deal with.

And I will try to get to the root of whatever happened.

You know, what was the actual issue?

What was the actual problem?

If it was something that I forgot to do, why did I actually forget to do it?

Did I not have a system in place?

Was I not prepared enough?

Did I not make it a habit?

Like, was I not organized?

Did I not have all the information?

Like, what was the actual root of the problem?

If I get in an argument with someone, what was the actual root of the problem?

Was I tired?

Were they tired?

Was I overwhelmed?

Like, were we in an overstimulating environment?

Were we drinking?

What was the topic?

Like, what were we talking about five minutes before?

You know, I try to analyze it, not analyze it to death, but just think like, okay, what was the actual root of that argument?

Or what Was the actual root of why I messed that up?

Like, what was the true problem?

And then I try to pull lessons as far as, what can I do better next time?

I don't always feel guilty, like, oh, my gosh, I need to call this person and apologize.

But there are times where I'm like, you know what?

The next time I'm in this situation, I don't want to react that way.

What can I do better next time?

The next time that I am faced with this timeline or this deadline, I don't want to miss it.

What can I do to ensure I don't miss it next time?

And just this little.

It's such a little shift in journaling, and it's such a tiny added step.

But for me, having that, like, intentional reflection of, like, okay, we're going to, like, intentionally look back and say, how can we learn from this?

What can we do to move forward?

And how can we improve next time?

I'm telling you that one little, like, mindset shift and one little habit shift has been so such a pivotal change for me.

And I truly, truly, truly think it's one of the reasons why I have, you know, made so much progress over the last couple of years in.

In all different areas of my life is that I have started, you know, incorporating that intentional reflection instead of just constantly overthinking and always constantly thinking negative things and being like, oh, what with me?

Why did that happen?

Oh, that was so awful.

Like, like, okay, the thing happened, the argument happened, I dropped the ball.

I forgot something.

You know, something happened to me, and.

And I'm feeling like a victim.

What can I do to improve or change that situation next time?

And at least for me, it also makes me feel better in terms of, like, I control my life.

Other people don't control my life.

Other people don't control my emotions.

Yes.

That's definitely sometimes, like, a harder way to look at it, because it is sometimes easy to just feel like a victim and be like, oh, well, they shouldn't have done that to me.

Like, poor me.

Well, that.

That happened to me.

Oh, well, what am I gonna do about it?

Oh, well, I'm just a victim of my circumstances.

And it's like, okay, yeah, you might be a victim of your circumstances, but are you just gonna wallow in that hole?

Like, are you just gonna live there?

And at one point in my life, I did live there.

I was like, oh, all this is happening to me.

And poor me.

I guess I'm just gonna go, you know, watch New Girl every night.

And eat, you know, a whole pizza all by myself, what am I gonna do?

Oh, well, you know, and I, I don't want to live like that anymore.

And I think it's really easy to fall in that hole.

And that's why I love this intentional reflection.

Because it.

If I am in that hole because, look, I still get in that mindset sometimes of like, oh, that person wronged me and that person said this and this and it hurt my feelings.

And I can't get anything done today because my feelings are hurt and I am all in my head, you know.

But if every Friday you have a checkpoint of intentional reflection and you can look back and kind of like just check the situation, go, okay, am I kind of being a whiny butt?

Am I, you know, doing, you know, whatever it is, just having that intentional reflection of looking back and analyzing a situation in a non overthinking way.

And just like a very clear, very structured way for me has been huge.

And for you, you might need to have more detailed questions for yourself.

And look, you can put these in ChatGPT.

You can put this whole conversation.

You can download the transcript for this podcast, you can open a Chat GPT chat, you can drop the transcript into ChatGPT and you can say, hey, Chat GPT.

Can you make me an action list based on this transcript for this podcast episode?

I want to start intentionally, I want to start doing intentional reflection.

Can you create me an action list or, you know, word it however you want, however you talk to your chat, YouTube chat GPT.

But you can make that an action list right then.

And then you can go from there like whatever the initial action list is that they give you, you can say, okay, I struggle with this and this and this.

Can you help me format the questions so that I can answer them in a concise method or whatever it is?

Every once in a while I will tell my chat GPT I'm kind of getting off on a side note, but I hope this is still helpful.

Every once in a while, chat GPT will give me something and I will say, okay, thank you for this information.

I'm always nice to my chat GPT just in case.

I will say thank you so much for that information.

You're so smart.

Do you mind modifying this in a way that is not.

That is a little bit more ADHD friendly?

I am not sure.

I've never been tested for ADHD, but I have noticed that if I ask ChatGPT to give me information in a way that is ADHD friendly, I can read it much easier.

I can comprehend it much easier and I can implement it much easier.

So just a tip, especially if you do have adhd, add, whatever it is, and you are using any kind of AI, make sure you're telling that AI like hey, I can you give this information to me in a way that is reader friendly for, you know, whatever, whatever it is that you're needing.

That's just kind of a really side note, but hopefully a helpful tip.

And you can, and you don't even have to download the transcript.

You can just say, hey, I'm wanting to start intentionally reflecting every Friday.

Could you give me a 15 minute, 15 minute structure of what my intentional reflection time could look like?

Can you give me five questions that I can answer during this intentional reflection time or whatever it is?

Or if you don't like AI and you want to stay super far away from it, you just get you a little a journal from Dollar General and you sit you honey in a chair and you just sit down and you journal and you do it, do it intentionally.

It's, I mean there's all kinds of ways that you can do it.

The only wrong way to do it is to not do it.

But that is seriously the one thing that I think has helped the most.

And as I have been so, you know, him and I had that conversation and I have just kind of like gently asked other people in my life that I look up to in a professional standpoint, like, hey, what is your like intentional reflection time look like during the week?

Some of them are intense.

They're like, oh, on Sunday I sat down for three hours and I go back and I make a Google document of all the.

I'm like, okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, like I love it.

That's, that's definitely a dream, but I'm not there yet.

You know, to, to very simple, like, oh, you know, I spend 10 minutes every Thursday evening and I sit down and I try to reflect back intentionally on what I did or whatever it is.

But I do think that that is something that is so helpful and it gets you out of your head, it regrounds you and it helps you move forward in a constructive manner.

It helps you learn lessons a little bit faster and it will get you out of that victim mentality.

At least it does for me.

And it'll just provide more clarity on different situations.

But I hope that this episode was helpful.

I feel like I went on a, a wild rant with the AI prompts there for a second, but I, I at least feel like AI is not going to take over anything.

It is going to create.

There will be some things I think that are going to shift for sure as AI grows.

But I think think if we integrate it into our lives in a seamless way instead of resisting it.

Because I did it first, I was like, I don't want AI in my life.

Like, that's scary.

It's going to take over.

And that's why I'm still nice.

Just in case.

I'm just saying, I say please and thank you.

I have seen too many movies.

But y'all let me know if you want more Chat GPT details or hats or tricks.

I love AI.

I love Chat GPT.

I can do some wild and crazy things with chatgpt.

I think it is so game changing.

There's so many different things that we could do.

But do some intentional reflection this week.

Like I said, start with five minutes, start with two minutes, start with one minute.

Like, if that is your excuse that you don't have time, start with one minute.

30 seconds.

Think what.

What is one thing that happened and what was the route?

And then the next 30 seconds go, okay, what can I do moving forward?

I mean, that quick?

And if you do one minute every week, by the end of the year, that's going to have compounded.

Like, it's a big deal.

Like, there's just so many.

There's just so many little things that we can do, so many microhabits that we can do to improve our lives.

And instead of, like, you know, leaning into what marketing tells us or what the media tells us, like, oh, we've got to do everything all at once.

We have to be all in microhabits.

Just breathe, do some intentional reflection if it feels good for you.

And yeah, y'all know I'm not great at the end of these podcast episodes, but I will practice on these.

And I have so much.

Oh, there's so much work going on in the background that I cannot wait for y'all to see.

Y'all are going to be so excited.

I have all of you to thank for all of this because this podcast really was the catalyst for everything.

The catalyst allowed me to meet certain people that I needed to meet for this new project.

It allowed me.

It, like, really built my self confidence.

It gave me all of the ideas and, you know, just the fact that y'all show up and listen every week.

I mean, like, I have so many people that literally listen to everybody single episode, and if they miss an episode, they'll message me and be like, oh, my gosh, I missed that episode and I'm like, it's okay.

Like, it's just.

Oh, it just makes me so happy.

But I really am.

I'm so incredibly thankful that y'all show up every week and spend time with me.

It really is.

It feels great.

Okay, I hope you had a wonderful rest of your day, and I'll see you in the next episode.

Thank you for tuning in to the Elevated Edit podcast.

I hope you found today's episode inspiring and full of actionable tips.

Don't forget to check out the show notes for all the resources and links mentioned.

If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, leave a review and share it with your friends.

Follow us on social media for more updates and inspiration.

Until next time, keep growing, glowing and elevating your life.

See you soon.