Life coach. Author. Hellraiser. Andrea Owen is passionate about empowering women to value themselves and fiercely love who they are.
She just released the amazing book, How to Stop Feeling Like Sh*t, 14 Habits That Are Holding You Back From Happiness. It’s a straight-shooting approach to self-improvement for women, one that offers no-BS truth-telling about the most common self-destructive behaviors women tend to engage in. From listening to the imposter complex and bitchy inner critic to people-pleasing and more. She has helped thousands of women manage their inner-critic to create loving connections and live their most kick-ass life.
Background
Andrea is certified in the work of Dr. Brene Brown, who has done extensive work in the study of these behaviors that make us feel terrible. She calls these behaviors the armor. We use these behaviors in our day to day life to protect ourselves from judgment, criticism, failure, and things that are hard about life. Andrea studied more about these compulsive behaviors and came to the conclusion that there are fourteen different types of behaviors that human beings, especially women go through to protect themselves but in reality, these behaviors are the root cause of why many women feel terrible. The book is about identifying different behaviors that can keep you under-confident and that stop you from taking your life to the next level. Find out what they are and what they look like, confront them. These behaviors work counter-productive for you.
What was your inspiration for writing this book?
She wrote this for women to reclaim and take back their life. Andrea talks in a very easy and casual way so readers can easily digest her content and understand what it means. A lot of her readers call her their ‘very casual therapist’ because she writes in a very straightforward and easy to understand manner. The things she talks about in the book are very easy to apply in real life.
What is the first step that can start the process to happiness?
Andrea believes the first step to happiness is to identify what your self-talk looks like. She talks about self-talk in the first chapter of her book. Andrea says she cannot walk into any personal development conversation without asking someone what their self-talk sounds like. Many people hear that inner articulation that stops them from taking new challenges in life. She asks people to get intimate with that inner voice.
What was your self-talk like before you started the journey of personal development?
Back then, it was heavily around perfectionism. Andrea tried to be perfect in the way she looked and the way she would do things. She tried hard to control everything around her, including people she knew and she says it was very exhausting. She always had an anxiety of looking bad in front of others and what they would say about her. She tried to engineer her life in a certain way so as to avoid shame, judgment, and criticism.
What was your self-talk like when you decided to start your own business?
It was rough in the beginning, she recently had two kids. She started working from home and back then her self-talk was terrible. She moved to Utah along with her husband and for the first few months, they were not relying on her income so it was more like a hobby for Andrea in the first few months until she finally realized she had to take her business to next level and put more effort and hard work so as to increase her profits.
How is excellence different from perfectionism?
Perfectionism is doing things and engineering your actions in a certain way as to how people perceive you. Excellence is doing things so that you feel proud as to how you are showing up in your life. Andrea believes no one would feel proud if they are struggling with insomnia, anxiety or health issues just because they are selling themselves to the idea of perfectionism.
What is one piece of advice you would give to the listeners?
One of her favorite activities is to break down the areas of life into career, family, friends, body, relationships, the past and the future. Ask yourself, what your self-talk looks like in those areas, how do you talk to yourself when things get hard in these areas? These self-talks are your triggers.
Why do you think that the thing we want in our life is the thing we are afraid of?
Maybe it is because we want it so much and so much is at stake, we are afraid of failure. Maybe because it requires us to be a better version of our self and requires us to work hard to become a better version of our own self.
What is the best advice you have ever been given?
Back when Andrea believes her life was falling apart, she was nannying part-time for a family and the mother of the child gave her this advice “No matter what you do, just take care of yourself. Now is the time to take care of yourself”.
How can we connect with you?
You can connect with her via her website
You can know more about her current and upcoming programs through her website. You can also find information related to her books on her website.
How to Stop Feeling Like Sh*t, 14 Habits That Are Holding You Back From Happiness.