Sage Solutions
Advice and insight about personal growth, personal development, and becoming your best self.
Sage Solutions
Q&A #1: Navigating Self-Improvement and Building Inner Strength
For our 40th episode, we're switching things up with a Q&A format to address listener questions about personal development, coaching approaches, and practical self-improvement strategies.
• Passion for self-improvement stems from personal transformation from a muted version to authentic self
• Self-improvement feels like leveling up in a video game—building skills, finding synergies, and growing stronger
• First coaching step is deeply understanding a client's situation before tackling self-limiting beliefs
• Currently reading "Language in Thought and Action," "Sapiens," and "Tools of Titans"
• Don't push personal development on reluctant partners—model the behavior and inspire through actions
• Balance self-improvement with self-acceptance and compassion for yourself and others
• Growth requires both consistency and intellectual humility to keep learning
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The Sage Solutions Podcast and content posted by David Sage is presented solely for general informational, educational, and entertainment purposes. No coaching client relationship is formed by listening to this podcast. No Legal, Medical or Financial advice is being given. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user's own risk. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice, diagnosis, or treatment of a psychotherapist, physician, professional coach, Lawyer or other qualified professional. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions. The opinions of guests are their own and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of the podcast.
Welcome to the Sage Solutions Podcast, where we talk about all things personal growth, personal development and becoming your best self. My name is David Sage and I am a self-worth and confidence coach with Sage Coaching Solutions. This episode is actually our 40th episode, so I decided to do something a little bit different. Throughout our time here at the Sage Solutions podcast, I've been regularly asking people for feedback, just looking to get input so that we can continue to grow and improve and make this podcast the best that it can be. Similar to the goal the podcast is actually about helping people become their best selves by sharing insights that I've learned over time that I use in my coaching, by bringing people with great insights onto the podcast and by sharing the wisdom of the many, many people that I've learned from directly or through a podcast or a book, and I am just happy that this has touched and blessed so many different lives in a way that I had hoped for this podcast to do. Over time, we have gotten a series of different questions that I have curated, and today's episode is actually going to be a Q&A or question and answer podcast, where I take some questions that I've accumulated from listeners and answer them. A number of these questions are just really good, helpful questions that I'm sure the listeners who ask them aren't the only ones who have these questions. So I feel it'll apply a lot of value to everyone listening to this. But before we get into it, our goal with this podcast is to share free, helpful tools with you and anyone you know who's looking to improve their life. So take action, subscribe and share this podcast with them. We've actually gotten a whole slew of questions from different people, but I'm only going to cover a couple this episode. We'll do another Q&A episode at a later date.
Speaker 1:So our first question is why are you so passionate about self-improvement? I am super passionate about self-improvement because my life is completely different as a result of it. In retrospect, I like who I was growing up. I think I was a nice enough kid and I think I was easy to get along with, but in truth, I really wasn't who I wanted to be. I was like a quiet, muted, very filtered version of myself, and my extreme lack of confidence and poor self-image dramatically changed how I showed up in my interactions with other people and, for myself and for me, getting into personal development flipped a switch that completely changed everything about my life. I can't explain how different it is to feel good about yourself on the inside, especially when you compare it to feeling so poorly and so empty and so scared. Honestly, it's a huge flip to see yourself in its entirety, to have self-awareness, to follow it up with self-acceptance and then for the areas that you're working on, for the areas that aren't your favorite, you've accepted yourself for them and you're going to give yourself some self-compassion instead of shaming yourself. And by giving yourself that compassion you actually build up the muscle to be more compassionate to others. And by filling up your cup, building up your confidence, building up your self-awareness, acceptance and compassion, you become happier. And there are many other ways to build fulfillment and happiness, but happy people help people and I am a much truer version of myself today because I was able to do that for myself. And from there it kind of just spiraled out.
Speaker 1:In a way, self-improvement to me feels like leveling up in a video game. If you've ever played an RPG or a role-playing game anything from Dungeons, dragons, baldur's, gate 3, to you name it, there's a million of them but a game where you, over time, build your character, you level up, you grow, you get new skills, you get stronger, you find new synergies. That's how self-improvement feels to me. The willingness to accept yourself for who you are and where you're at, to use shades of gray and not take things too far, and to give yourself compassion for not being perfect, are the counterbalances that allow me to fully embrace self-improvement, by filling up my inner cup and being happy with myself for who I am and seeing things with some nuance and balance and giving myself that compassion. It frees me up to not beat myself up or be hard on myself or focus on everything that I'm not. It allows me to build up that character, to continue to improve and grow. Growth is one of our six human needs, and doing things that cultivate it and make you an improved, upgraded version of yourself, by building all of these different muscles, which skills are really just built like a muscle. Life is like a muscle, so build it. By building all of these different skills, we keep growing, keep learning. We are lifelong learners who are thinking in shades of gray. By continuing to learn new things, being open, having intellectual humility, the ability to grow and develop new skills, by building your life like a muscle, through different skills and consistency and grit and perseverance, we put ourselves in a much better position to just constantly be growing and getting better, and you can take confidence in the fact that you are constantly improving. But you have to stay humble, otherwise you'll stop improving.
Speaker 1:It was a great first question, so we're going to move on to the second question. What is the first thing that you work on with your clients? Honestly, the first step is not really working on anything with a new client. It's getting to know them and understand them. I take time to sit down and have a full conversation, asking as many questions as possible to just get information out of them. I need to understand their situation, what drives them, what's important to them, factors in their life, limiting beliefs, the way that they talk to themselves and why they came to me in the first place. I need to make sure that they actually want this, that somebody isn't putting them up to the coaching, because if you don't want to change, I can't make you change. You have to want this. So when somebody comes to me as a client and they're paying money to have me help coach them through this journey of life hence why they call it a life coach I don't do general life coaching. I really work more with niche coaching, specifically in the area of self-worth and confidence coaching. Now I am actually looking at opening up a second sector of coaching around handling change and being resilient, and we'll get to that in a future episode With my self-worth and confidence clients once I've gotten an understanding of their situation.
Speaker 1:It is highly individualized but statistically speaking, I would say that the first thing we tend to tackle is really starting to dig into their beliefs and start changing some of these self-limiting beliefs, because those are usually the major root of their lack of confidence, and the fastest way that we do that is by working on their self-talk. It's kind of a one-two punch. Now, if you're interested in receiving some coaching, you can always reach out to me at sagecoachingsolutions at gmailcom. But not everyone that's listening to this podcast needs full-on coaching and that's totally okay. So I guess my long-winded answer I'm going to TLDR or sum up as first I take time to understand their situation and all of the dynamics playing into it. Then we typically dig into self-limiting beliefs and the way that they talk to themselves and move on from there.
Speaker 1:Our third question from one of our listeners what book are you reading right now? That's actually a great question. I am often to be honest with you. I don't read a lot of physical books. I do occasionally read physical books, but for me and my ADHD, I tend to find that audiobooks work much, much better for me. So I listen to a lot of books, like a lot.
Speaker 1:I am currently in the middle of a series of different audio books, but the physical book that I'm reading right now is called Language in Thought and Action and it talks about the way that language shapes almost every aspect of our lives, in the way that we talk to ourselves, in the way that we talk to others, in the functions of language throughout time, both historically, and how using different language or different tonality conveys different messages, and how we can look at things and use language to bias things one way or another. I've just found the book really interesting for understanding language and all of its functions better, because I think there's some broad, sweeping things that come from that. I'm also listening to Sapiens by Ival Noah Harari, which details sort of the entire history of humankind, or at least Homo sapiens, which is what we are, and that has been very fascinating for similar reasons to language and thought and action, because it really breaks down how we became who we are from a historical standpoint, also helping me understand just humans as a species better, which I have been gaining insights that I think will help in my coaching, will help for this podcast, and I just find it interesting. And then actually the last one that I've been listening to is Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss. To make a long story short, basically in this book throughout all of Tim Ferriss' time being the incredibly diversely talented Tim Ferriss For anyone that doesn't know, he is kind of like the antithesis of Jack of all trades, master of none. He's sort of Jack of all trades, top 3% for almost all of them. But basically he's had a very, very successful podcast called the Tim Ferriss Show for a long time and throughout all of his self-experimentation and networking that he's done over time, both through the podcast and not for the podcast, for a series of different books and so on, he took notes from these conversations and distilled it down into the most important, I guess, tools or advice that he got from these different individuals, who are extraordinary in their own right, and boiled it down into this pretty impressive book called Tools for Titans, where it's in short, little chapters that detail the best things he learned from each person. So, yeah, those are the books that I'm primarily focusing on right now.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm going to move on to our final question for today, and this is actually. This is a really good one how do I get my spouse slash significant other excited about self-improvement? My quick answer is you don't, because if you try and push personal development on other people, it's generally a pretty big turnoff. Some people take it as you think there's something wrong with them. Some people just think that you're being preachy and annoying Look, I still could probably do a better job of this.
Speaker 1:But generally speaking, I try not to push personal development on other people because it would be incredibly annoying. It is something I'm incredibly passionate about, but I have friends that practically never even and maybe I'm overselling this, but barely ever hear me talk about these things, because it can be kind of grating and if somebody is not in the right headspace, you're not actually changing it. It's like I said earlier I won't take in a non-willing client. I won't take a client that somebody else is paying for and they don't really want to be there. I'm not going to waste their time like that because they don't want to change. They're not going to change. It's the same here If somebody isn't open to personal development, you're not going to purposely open them to it and push it on them and have them change. That's not how it works.
Speaker 1:Now that doesn't mean that you can't have a positive impact on other people. So this is what I would say If you're going to do a good amount of personal development, don't push that on your spouse. A Don't be overly talking about it and super annoying about it. Think about how you're coming off when you're talking about it, because you might make it sound like you're implying that they are bad at something. If you're excited about how you know whatever concept works, what I would say is model it yourself. Actions speak louder than words. Be that person. Do the self-improvement. It's generally a personal thing. That person. Do the self-improvement. It's generally a personal thing.
Speaker 1:Now you might be lucky enough to have some other people in your life that are passionate about it as well, and you can talk about it with those people, but don't push it on people that are not interested in this. Let's say I was super into gardening. I might talk to other people about gardening sometimes, but I am not going to just blow their ears out with gardening if they have no interest in it because I'm going to bore them to death. It's the same thing with personal development, but you have to be even a little bit more careful. So model it by doing it yourself right, and as they see these positive changes in you and they see how much excitement and passion you have for it, they may gain an interest in it. If the time is right. Now I said may they may never. It is okay.
Speaker 1:You need to have compassion. We've talked a lot about self-compassion, but, honestly, compassion for others is just as important, probably more. You need to understand that not everyone is on this personal development journey with you and that it's not your job to push them into it. You are responsible for yourself. So go out, keep improving, be a good person and inspire others to do the same, and I don't mean by pushing it, I just mean by living it Now.
Speaker 1:Yes, there are other ways to make a difference. I mean I'm literally telling people about personal development things weekly on this podcast, or find a job that allows you to make a difference, but that's not necessarily everyone's path and that's okay. I will also say this If, when you bring it up in conversation, just like you would any other hobby. Your significant other shows some interest in it or asks you more about it, then yes, you can definitely just don't go overboard. Tell them more about it and they may already be open to it in the first place, and then they can sort of join you on that journey. But they have to be the one asking and curious when it happens to come up, not you pushing them to do it.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, there's also the situation which I have where I am lucky enough to have my wife Hannah be interested in this field to a lesser degree than me, but still interested in, having read a number of books on personal development before we even met, and I didn't necessarily push it that much or anything. I would just say that Hannah already had an interest in it and, because it's such a big part of my life, has sort of upped her personal development through osmosis and at least through some of the conversations. She said that some of the things I've done or talked about have inspired her as well. So I'm not just saying this without any personal experience surrounding it. This is kind of the way that it worked for me. So once again TLDR. To make a long story short, don't push this on your spouse. Live it and inspire them to join you. If the time is right, you can talk to them about it just like you would any other hobby, but generally, if people feel like they're being influenced to do something, they're much less likely to do it. Well, that's all that we have for today.
Speaker 1:I hope that you found some value in my answers to these questions and, honestly, please keep sending these questions in. I really enjoyed this format. I think it's something that gets at the real-life questions that you have so that I can answer them and provide these quote-unquote sage solutions. So feel free to click the link down below in the description, no matter where you're listening, and leave us feedback, or go to our Facebook page and send a message with questions that you'd like answered. And remember you are enough and you deserve to fill up your inner cup with happiness, confidence and self-compassion. Thank you for listening to the Sage Solutions Podcast. Your time is valuable and I'm so glad that you choose to learn and grow here with me. If you haven't already, don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on more sage advice. One last thing the legal language. This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. No coaching client relationship is formed. It is not intended as a substitute for the personalized advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional.