Last week I had the incredible honor of sitting down with Lauren Jawno. Lauren is a Certified High Performance Coach, my boss at Growth.com and the co-creator of Mojo Mastery. I always admire Lauren for her openness and ability to be so vulnerable; we can all learn so much from each other and we connect on such a deeper level when we all let our guards down a little. Lauren did just that in our interview; she shared some amazing tips and coaching on how to push through adversity, how to trust in the process, how to bounce back without guilt or shame when you haven’t been acting as your best self and why finding a deep sense of WHY is the key to it all.
Such an amazing interview and conversation. You can find Episode 3 on the Rebel and Rise Podcast on iTunes, Spotify and Podcast Addict: http://bit.ly/rebelandrisepodcast
I’ve known and worked with Lauren for awhile now, and even I had SO many takeaways and new insights from our interview. I know that a lot of people who watched and listened to the interview felt the same way – so I wanted to share some of the biggest learnings with you from my chat with Lauren.
1 – Be attached to your goals but unattached to the time it’s going to take or the path it’s going to take.
Let go of attachment and expectation when it comes to your goals. Remain attached to the goal and know where you are headed, but be open to the fact that it’s going to happen on it’s on schedule and in it’s own way. When you have your blinders up and have convinced yourself that the only path to success is on the trajectory that you have decided in your mind, you’re not allowing yourself to be open to all the other possibilities that might come your way. When you let go of those expectations, you open yourself up for amazing things to come into your life that you otherwise would’ve shut out because they weren’t in “the plan”. By letting go, you’re also able to enjoy the process more with less stress and less pressure; you can have an intentional path but also have flow and openness within that.
2 – If it seems like it’s not working out and nothing is going right and the pieces aren’t coming together…they are. You just don’t see it yet.
You need to trust that things are working out the way they are supposed to be. As Steve Jobs says, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” In the last few years, this is one of the things that has allowed Lauren to find such success; she has enough experience to now realize that the dots always connect. Even if you can’t see it in the moment, know that they will and it will all make sense; the pieces are falling into place even if they don’t seem like the pieces you think they should be.
3 – Your WHY is everything.
Understanding why you want to do something is huge; but it’s not just the why. Lauren says it has to hit you in the core; the reason must be so deep it brings you to tears. When you connect to THAT, then nothing will stop you. The challenges will still present themselves, and they won’t be any easier, but getting through them will be. There will be people who don’t like what you’re doing and will be critical of you on your journey. There will be bumps and struggles and really hard times along the way. There will be times where you feel like you’re hitting the same wall, over and over again. If you allow those things to stop you, then you just haven’t connected deep enough to your WHY.
4 – Be intentional with every moment.
Every morning, Lauren takes time to think about what’s on her schedule for the day and she asks herself what it’s going to take for her to show up in the best way? In every situation and every interaction or task you have in the day, ask yourself “How would the BEST version of me show up right now?”
In the moments where you catch yourself not being your best self, be very intentional with resetting yourself. Recognize quickly when you’re not showing up as your best, regroup and learn from it. It’s not about beating yourself up; it’s about learning and doing better next time. When you’re not being your best self, ask yourself what about that situation was threatening to you or made you feel insecure in some way? Or perhaps it was an external circumstance – you didn’t get enough sleep the night before, for example. When you take the time to seek clarity in those moments, it reveals where more work needs to be done in terms of how you can do better for next time. It all comes down to being honest with yourself.
5 – Don’t give up.
Lauren has faced a lot of adversity in her life – immigration, not following a typical career path and the tragic loss of her mother. She never thought that success would be in her future. Today, she is an accomplished author, High Performance Coach, director of coaches at Growth.com and is the co-creator of her own coaching program, Mojo Mastery. Lauren faced so many times in her life where she felt like things were never going to get better; but even in all those times, she had such tenacity and just never gave up. She sees now the reason why she never gave up; “if it sucked at the time, and I gave up, it’s going to suck even worse”. If what you’re going through is hard, giving up is just going to get worse. It was never an option for Lauren to give up; she just found a way and did it.
If you want to connect with Lauren, check her out on Facebook. You can also check out Lauren’s coaching program, Mojo Mastery (she’s the co-creator with the incredible Maria Flynn). What’s unique about this program is that it beautifully combines the topics of High Performance coaching with the spiritual side; and it’s a program that is more accessible which allows them to serve people in a much larger capacity. Learn more at www.mojomastery.net.
Lauren shared that every year, she chooses a quote for the year and puts it up in her office. I’ll end this blog with her quote for 2019, which I thought was so incredible:
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space is our power to choose a response. In our response, lies our growth and our freedom”.
Again, you can find Episode 3 on the Rebel and Rise Podcast on iTunes, Spotify and Podcast Addict: http://bit.ly/rebelandrisepodcast