Unbreakable Mind & Body

48. Life is Messy

• Tiana Gonzalez • Episode 48

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The spiral notebook told the truth—life refuses to stay in neat sections.  If you’ve ever waited for the right time, the perfect plan, or the flawless caption, this conversation will nudge you to leap before you feel ready.

We unpack the hidden ways learning becomes hiding, and how small daily action compounds into serious progress. I break down the shift from memorizing every detail to a faster loop—skim, try, assess, refine. 

Mentorship plays a big role. I talk about hiring the right coaches for targeted outcomes, cutting social noise, and aligning strategy with values so you stop spinning. We also get real about social media in 2025: audiences crave humanity. Polished is fine, but the unfiltered you builds trust and reach. Reframe vanity metrics into real people and your work gets lighter, braver, and better. The takeaway is simple and strong: forgive the rough edges, publish the 90 percent draft, and let your voice lead your strategy.

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Disclaimer: This show is for education and entertainment purposes only. This is not intended as a replacement for therapy. Please seek out the help of a professional to assist you with your specific situation.


SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Unbreakable Mind and Body Podcast. I am your host, Tiana Gonzalez, a multi-passionate creative, storyteller, and entrepreneur with a fierce love for movement. This is our space for powerful stories and actionable strategies to help you build mental resilience and elevate your self-care practice. Together, we will unlock the tools that you need to create an unbreakable mind and body. Welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Tiana, and I want to remind you that life is messy. So I found myself stumbling through a spiral notebook at my desk looking for a clean sheet of paper so I could write my outline for this episode. And in that simple task of fumbling through this notebook, I realized that I used to try to compartmentalize different things of my life into different sections of a spiral notebook. This particular spiral notebook that I'm referring to right now is a large three-section spiral notebook. And the intention for this spiral notebook was the first section was for a writing project I was doing last year. The middle section was meant for podcast notes. And then the third section was just a mixture of journaling and random thoughts, poetry, lists of things, ideas, and so on and so forth. But as you can imagine, throughout the course of time, I have run out of blank pages in various sections. And so I've had to continue the notion, the idea, the vibration of a different section somewhere else in the same notebook. Which leads me to the point of this episode, and that is that life is messy. And so, in my effort to try to keep everything organized and use one section for one thing and another section for another, and so on and so forth, it didn't work out that way. In fact, it didn't work out that way in the previous spiral notebook that I had, or the one before that, or the one before that. And so I have found myself multiple times starting a new notebook with the best of intentions, only to get it all over the place. And now when I do go back into my archives, and I'm gonna give you a little bit of background on what my archives look like, but when I look at the physical paper archives that I have in these various notebooks and in folders, everything is all over the place. So I thought to myself, well, maybe I'll keep notes on the computer. Maybe I will use a notes-taking app. Maybe I'll use notes in my phone. Maybe I will use a web-based program. Maybe I'll keep a little notebook in my bag. Well, guess what? I do all of those things. And I have various notes in various places, various pieces of work in various places, and it's all over the map. And it's perfectly me. So this rigid side of myself really doesn't have control here because there will be times where I'll be really inspired, and so the creative part of me is flowing, and there will be times where I'm not really interested in doing certain exercises from a course, a program, or initiative that I started, and so that's kind of on hold. And so just like in real life, sometimes things flow and then other things get a little slowed down, or you press pause, or you put them on a shelf, or you just say, I'm gonna hold off on that idea for a little bit, but I'll come back to it. And so I want you to start thinking about how you organize things, whether it's physically or even mentally, and think about what you need in order to either take action or to feel better about the things going on in your life. Now, if you're listening to this saying, what the fuck is she talking about? It's really just about anything. How do you organize yourself? And are you someone who you post-it notes? Are you a pen and paper person? Do you use a magic erase board? Do you type in different files and you store them on a drive somewhere on your computer? What is the thing that you do? And do you need everything to be in a compartment or labeled or color-coded or filed? Do you need to have everything beautifully wrapped in a box? I was somebody who was very rigid for most of my life. I needed things to be perfectly neat and fit into my mental boxes. I also would rewrite notes if my handwriting was too messy. When I was studying in school or learning a new topic, I would continue and go back and read the same pages over and over and over again until I memorized the important material before moving on to a practice quiz or practice test. Now I don't do that. Especially if it's a topic that I'm relatively familiar with or very familiar with, I might skim the notes and then take the practice test and see how I do. And if I do okay, I'll just keep it moving. If I miss the main takeaways, then I go back and review the material. There are some things where I will review the material multiple times to make sure I'm picking up all of the important aspects and that I'm not depriving myself or skipping over things. And also that I sit with it, learn it, embody it, integrate it into my life, and then take action with that new information. When I first embarked on my entrepreneurial journey, I would definitely say that this rigid side of myself was a limitation. I often found myself concerned with things that in the big picture were probably not as important. Things like the website design, the logo, uh, the language used on some of my marketing material. I mean, yes, that is actually uh meat and potatoes and not necessarily superficial, but I would get very caught up in it. And if it didn't sound perfect, I wouldn't share a post or talk to people about my business or my branding because I felt like I needed to get the language perfect. And there's no such thing as perfect. It wasn't until years into my entrepreneurial journey that I actually started working with business coaches, being mentored and truly learning, having some skin in the game by making an investment and truly learning the right principles that would work for me at the stage that I was at in the business I was running and working and align it with my future goals and visions. And so I had this interesting mix of folks that I either followed on social media, purchased their books, subscribed to their newsletters, and it was wild. I'm looking at this list of names that I created for myself just to get a better understanding. And I would say over the course of the last 15 years, I've really dived into spiritual growth, business growth, obviously continuing to sharpen my pencil in the health, wellness, and fitness space. And then also just learning strategy. Now we move so quickly that if you're a rigid person like I was, where you need to know every nook and cranny and every detail, to me now, what that screams is hiding, is hiding and learning and not taking action. This perfectionist would never get anything done. I'm talking about myself here. And I would find myself frustrated often because when I looked online or when I saw other trainers, they did not have the same type of experience as me or the background or the knowledge or the personal experience, particularly when it came to coming back to normalcy post-competition that I did. And yet they were very successful. They were buying homes, they would go on vacations, they would have a family, and I couldn't wrap my head around that because I was struggling financially and just trying to make ends meet. Obviously, we shouldn't be comparing. But I think that it's natural at a certain point in your career to look at your peers, look what's around you, take a look at the market, and make sure that your finger's on the pulse. And if it's not, do something about it. But when you have that perfectionist mentality, when you are rigid, when everything needs to be perfectly boxed up and wrapped with a bow on it, you're stopping yourself. You're getting in your own way. So, what did I do? I continued learning, I continued trying to grow. I've heard many people that I look up to say that entrepreneurship is personal development on crack, and it truly can be, because your business and your success andor lack thereof is a direct reflection of yourself because it's it's literally showing you if you are somebody who does well one month and then is in a deficit the next month and it's this roller coaster wave, well, there's a loophole somewhere, and we need more consistency. How do we stabilize things? Look at the systems. What is your lead generation looking like? Do you have a pipeline of people? Do you have a wait list? Do you have an evergreen product that can generate income for you without you having to do a whole heck of a lot? Yes, there's no true passive income. It does require at least overview or oversight, and it also requires you being engaged, but you can create products, you can offer services where you could do something that's lower ticket that can create some income for you and eventually have it on a more passive type of recurring income process. So, what I mean by that, that would be something like if you created uh an ebook, those were really popular like 15 years ago. You would create an ebook that you know somebody could pay a lower price point for, let's say like$27,$47. And in that ebook, it would have different exercises and uh, you know, things where people could input information, they could track their workouts, let's say if it's for exercise and fitness, but the point is you got to look at yourself and you got to see what systems are working and what's not, and then take action. So the whole point of this conversation is that sometimes you got to take action before you're ready. Sometimes you need to do things, even if you know it's you feel like you didn't turn over every stone. Sometimes life is going to accelerate things for you. And if you're choosing to uh get it right, make it perfect, you could be hurting yourself. Now, I will say there were periods of time where I was probably consuming too much, and things that I was hearing, things that I was ingesting, watching, reading, seeing were conflicting with each other. And it was not until I actually retained services of different coaches, and I will admit, at one point I had two different coaches for two different things simultaneously and very different energy. Uh, but I learned so much from both of them, and I was able to find a way to make it work for me. I would not recommend that. That's like hiring two trainers at the same time that are completely different. Like maybe it could work if one is focused on martial arts or some sort of combat sport, and the other is more into bodybuilding or strength training. But nine times out of ten, there's gonna be a little bit of conflict and you're gonna have to navigate that. So once I hired people, it was easy for me to sort of turn on the blinders on social media, to log off of things much sooner, to not consume as much because I had my person that I was listening to. Now, right now I do have a mentor, and the best thing about her is I am actually enrolled in three offerings that she has online. One is a course that helps you learn how to create a course and then launch it and eventually get it through a funnel, which will allow me to generate more passive income. I hate to say passive income, as I said before, but it would be something where I could just oversee it without having to actually do a physical launch month after month after month. The other offering she has is for my mental health, and that's a community program, and I love that one. And then the third offering is a very low-ticket membership, and that is helping me refine my copy and my messaging for everything I'm doing. So whether it's for social media posts that I want to create regarding my one-to-one in-person work, or if it's more in line with the podcast, and also for the course that I'm in the process of creating. And I know I've been talking about it for a little bit, but we got derailed. And the reason why we got derailed is because I actually made it through the course creation work, and then I came to a halt and I said, wait a minute, I want to make sure that this is something I definitely want to do before I spend time and invest more energy and effort into creating something, and I don't even love it. Like I have to love it, otherwise, there's no point in me offering it because I'm going to feel icky when I want to talk about it online, when I want to promote it, when I want to, you know, gently, softly, in a just a nudge and suggestive way, sell it online. If you follow me on social media, you know I am not that aggressive salesperson. I am not the person that's gonna say, so what do you want to do? Are you in or are you out? Uh-uh. That ain't me. And anyone who speaks to me that way, I immediately go cold on them. I don't do the bro sales nonsense. It just doesn't work for me, doesn't align with me. It's not my jam. Never been into it. But I am somebody who is willing to hear someone out, especially if what they're sharing with me looks interesting and it looks like it could help me. And it looks like maybe there's something I can learn here. So for now, yes, I'm enrolled in three different things all at the same time, in addition to creating this show for you and my one-to-one work that I do in person, as well as just life in general. And this is a very busy time of the year, the fall, because there's a lot of holidays coming up and people getting it together, and I have quite a few things down the pipeline for me, like um, I have a wedding coming up in the spring for my best friend. So we also have his bachelor party and the holidays, and yeah, life is messy. So I can't wait for it to be the right time to work on all the things I want. But if I did a little bit every day at the end of a year, that's 365 days of just a little bit, which could add up to quite a lot when you think about it that way, right? And it's the same thing with your health and wellness, it's the same thing with the gym, it's the same thing with nutrition. It's literally all the same. It's one big giant fucking mess, and we're all just winging it and trying to do the best that we can. So I would like to encourage you to get rid of that perfectionist mindset. I would like to get rid of the files, the labels, the color coding, the post-its, the highlighters, the pens, the ruler, and just get messy with it because you can have the best system in place, but if you're not adhering to it, if it's not useful and if it isn't helping you move forward, what's the fucking point? So I want you to take action even if you're not ready. I want you to create that post, even if your hair isn't perfect. In fact, I gotta tell you, social media, particularly in 2025 and going into next year, the more human you are, the more relatable you are, the more views and the more reach you will get. Why? Because we are looking for real, we want connection. So, yeah, if you're an artist, that's great. If you're a director, a cinematographer, you want to play with your video editing skills, cool. But post the real you too because we want both. Okay. Even if you don't feel ready, even if you're scared, even if you're not sure. And something that I'm learning from my mentor is to find your own voice. It does not matter what strategy you use, if you are not yourself, you are not going to be found by the right people. And that's what you want. Social media may have you thinking that you need thousands of views, but let's take those numbers and make them real people. How would you feel if 6,000 people came up to you and gave you a tap on the shoulder because they liked your outfit? Think about that. Put it into perspective. Now, what if it was only 600? What if it was 60? That's still a lot of people in a day. You'd be overwhelmed if it was 6,000. You wouldn't know what to do with yourself. You'd probably be really fucking uncomfortable. So come back down to earth. Get real with yourself, forgive yourself for not being perfect. Take the fucking messy action and do the things you want to do. I hope that you enjoyed this show. I appreciate your time and attention every week. And if you did enjoy this episode, please do me a favor, give me a rating and leave a review. It helps me to be seen by more people that are part of our tribe. As always, I'll catch you on the next one.