The Hilary Silver Podcast - Stop Tolerating & Level Up Your Life

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

In this episode, Hilary explores a pivotal realization she experienced shortly after she turned 50: the unnecessary burdens we all carry by tolerating less than we deserve. This episode is a candid exploration of personal thresholds, examining everything from daily inconveniences to significant life choices, and how moving past “what we put up with” can transform our lives as we commit to putting SELF first. Episode Highlights: Hilary's personal journey of eliminating “just putting up with sh*t” as she approached her fifties. Practical advice on identifying and addressing small to significant instances of tolerating in one's life. Insightful discussions on how tolerating less can significantly enhance personal and professional wellbeing. Episode Breakdown: [00:00:02] - Introduction to the theme of tolerating and its impact on life. [00:31:31] - Hilary shares her personal experience of un-tolerating to improve her life. [01:00:00] - Discussion on everyday tolerances and how they accumulate to impact mood and self-esteem. [01:31:00] - Strategies for confronting and overcoming significant tolerances in relationships and careers. Listener Takeaways: Awareness and Action: Learn to recognize the small discomforts and larger issues you've been tolerating and how to actively address them. Empowerment through Change: Understand the profound impact that reducing this type of behavior can have on your mental health and personal growth. Practical Steps to Transformation: Gain insights into actionable steps to reduce tolerating in various aspects of your life, from personal belongings to professional ambitions. Inspiration for Personal Development: Hilary's story serves as a motivation to embrace change and stop settling for less than you deserve. Catch this transformative episode to understand why tolerating less can mean living more fully, and how you can start making those changes today. If you're tired of just "putting up" with things, this episode will offer you the tools and courage to demand more from life and yourself.   Resources Click Here to download the Toleration Tracker: https://hilarysilver.com/tolerate/ Here's the link to the episode I mention on How I Changed My Brain in 90 Days: https://youtu.be/bwT6gBswlNY?si=q3J98mjMuA-iLPB-  

Today we are talking about tolerating, and it's important because we all tolerate a lot in our lives and don't even realize it. I think even just saying the word tolerating can give us a lightbulb moment of awareness. It's a bigger problem than you might think because it affects your mental health, your well-being, your sense of self, and surprisingly, what you are able to achieve in life. Yes. So from the small daily annoyances to the bigger, more important things that influence our lives, we make concessions, we settle, and we accept a whole lot less than we desire and a lot less than we deserve. And it's really crazy what we can get used to. So in this episode, I'm sharing why it's so bad for us to tolerate, how to start the process of untolerating in four distinct categories of our lives, and I'm sharing some of the

things that I personally have stopped tolerating because I think you're going to want to do it too. Hi, it's Hillary. Welcome to the Hillary Silver Podcast. Thanks for tuning into the conversation today. If you haven't already, it would mean so much to me if you would just take a moment and click that five-star rating on your podcast app, leave a review, and subscribe too so you never miss one of my episodes. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please share it with your people because they'll enjoy it too. Okay, so I started the process of untolerating

in my mid-40s when I was working on growing my business. My goal was to be the founder and CEO of a multi-million dollar coaching company. And in order to achieve this goal, I first had to become that version of myself. To get to my next level externally, I had to get to my next level internally first and become this new me. Now, this whole concept deserves an episode of its own, which I will do. And there were a lot of things that I did to expand my identity, like work on my limiting beliefs and my mindset. And I even recently did an episode on how I changed my brain in 90 days. I'll put the link to that episode in the show notes if you haven't heard it already. Untolerating is one of the things that I did to elevate myself. So that's what we're going to talk about today. There are

four categories of things that we tolerate. And I'm going to start with the small things first, which are actually a lot more impactful than you might think, and then move our way to the more profound things that we tolerate. So make sure to stick around until the end so that you get it all. I'm saving the best and the biggest and the juiciest for last. So let's start with the things that we tolerate day to day in our busy lives. And as I go through these examples, this list of examples, just imagine your own home, your own surroundings, your own environment, and see the specific things in your life. So a squeaky door, chipped dishes, worn out or scratchy sheets, outdated clothes in your closet or clothes that don't fit anymore,

sweaters that are pilly, TV remotes that don't work with just one click A couch that never was really that comfortable Home decor you've outgrown So think about your home and your car and your workplace You get the idea These little things are everywhere It starts when you first notice the thing But then you experience it again and

again, and it can become notable, meaning you might make a comment to yourself about, ooh, someday I'll have to replace this, or I really should fix this, something like that. But then it becomes an annoyance because the longer it takes you to address it, the more you are just living with these small things that make you uncomfortable in your own home and in your everyday life, these things that you're settling for and living with. Now, we don't always have the time or the bandwidth or the finances to do something about it, but putting off the resolution to do so means we are stuck putting up with these little things that just jab at us. They're like little sucker punches. It's kind of like a paper cut. It's so tiny and seemingly insignificant,

but actually it really stings. Why it matters? Because it affects our mood and our well-being. It can make us grumpy, annoyed, irritated, frustrated, even if it's only for a fleeting second. I was frustrated for years with a stupid TV remote that never worked until I started the process of untolerating and we finally took the time to deal with it. And I can tell you the relief that I feel every time I use the remote and I click just once and it actually works is something to celebrate. And it does affect our sense of self. By tolerating all these little things and settling and accepting this as okay, making this your normal, you're sending the message to yourself and to the universe that this is okay for you. It's what you deserve. It's good

enough for you. This is the environment that you surround yourself with. Exposing yourself to these things that are less than ideal brings you down, putting up with lower quality or broken things, as if you don't deserve better. It becomes a part of who you are and what you expect for yourself and from yourself and from others and what is even possible for you. If you do this for yourself, then others will follow and you'll tolerate less in life overall. You deserve to take the time to fix the squeaky door. You deserve to eat off of plates that aren't chipped and to have the correct tool for a specific job, not to make do, not to accept mediocre. All the little things that we just get used to that don't seem like a big deal become familiar and a new normal for us.

And listen, I want to make this very important distinction. It is not about perfection. It's not that everything needs to be in its place and everything needs to be perfect. We all have a lot of these things in our lives. It's about noticing the things that bother you, the things that you tolerate, and then addressing those things. I'm not coming to your house and I'm not gonna start pointing out all the things that are out of place.

That's not what it's about. It's paying attention to the things that I listed and beyond. And if it's not notable for you, then you're probably not tolerating it. And that's okay, you can leave it. So let you, then you're probably not tolerating it. And that's okay. You can leave it. So let's graduate to the next level of tolerating. And this is about our lifestyle, how we are living. So our chores, our tasks, our routines. Think about all the things

that you do in your life from the time that you get up and you do your morning routine and get yourself and your family off for the day, getting to work and so on. It's the laundry and the cooking dinner and the cleaning up and the errands that you have to run, like going to the cleaners or the post office, putting gas in your tank, in the car wash, all those things. I asked myself, would a multimillionaire successful business owner fold laundry or is there a better use of my time? I decided to get a laundry service. My kids still do their own laundry because they need to learn to be responsible and all of that. But for the sheets and the towels that always defaulted to me and for my own clothing, no more. Also, I used to like cooking until I had to cook every single day of my life for the last 17 years

because I have kids and they depend on me and everyone likes different things and I have a picky eater and I have to do it rather than cooking because I enjoy making a meal. Maybe you can relate. So over the last few years, like many of you, I've experimented with the meal services that are really popular right now, all the way to having a private chef come into our home once a week to prep meals for us. And funny enough, I found myself tolerating things about those options as well. So for now, personally, I'm right back to where I was doing all the cooking, but my kids are older now and they're not around as much. So the pressure is off and I don't feel like I'm tolerating that anymore. Should that change, I will revisit. And that's what I want for you to be doing.

So in the next few days, start to pay attention to all of these things that you do that make you feel resentful or annoyed. Okay? What can you do about this? Can you be creative and resourceful? Can you delegate or outsource? I'm sure you can. There are some things that you

can do. So two more categories. The next is what are you tolerating about yourself? What are you living with that is a nuisance, something that bothers you, something that makes you feel insecure or self-conscious, something maybe causing you pain or just frustration maybe. Maybe it's the five extra pounds that you've been battling for years. It's the shoulder or the hip or the joint pain that you've been tolerating. Maybe it's just time for the surgery. Maybe it's how you're showing up in your life and it's creating patterns for you that are preventing you from getting something that you really want. I was tired of living with my teeth being crooked. So during COVID, when I started all this

process in my mid forties, I also was on camera a lot more and I had to look at myself every day. So it wasn't just uncomfortable in my jaw, but I had to look at myself every single day and it really just got to bother me. Even with braces as a teen, my bite had always been misaligned my whole life. So I finally did something about it and I got Invisalign. And even though it's been a pain in the ass, I can honestly say not only has it changed my face, it's changed my entire life and I cannot believe I put it off for so long. Again, it's really crazy what we can get used to. And when you start doing these things for yourself, you too will wonder why you put it off for so long. Don't put yourself off, everyone. Don't put yourself off. If something is

causing you pain or something is bothering you that is fixable, stop tolerating it. Life is way too short to be unhappy with something about you that you can change. and it will be the best time and money you have ever spent. I promise you, investing in yourself is the best investment you will ever make because you have to live with yourself every single day. It's like putting money right back into the bank. So last category, and this is the biggie. It's the more impactful things that we tolerate, being in situations, friendships or other relationships, experiences, or even careers that we don't really love, value, or enjoy, or even that are harmful for us. When I hit 50, I evaluated some of my friendships and relationships, and I got really

honest with myself about what I was tolerating. I've always been the planner, the organizer, the outreach person, kind of doing all the inviting. And I just kind of realized I wasn't feeling valued. Something was missing for me. And I had this thought that I want to be invited too. So I stopped carrying the torch and putting all the energy and effort into people who weren't giving it back in some way. Not in a score-kipping tit-for-tat kind of way,

but in just a reciprocity. So I decided just to stop doing all the inviting and to see what would happen. And to be honest, my world went a little quiet. And at first, I was a little disoriented, and then I grieved the loss just a little bit. But then after the smoke cleared, what I realized was the loss was of something that wasn't really there to begin with. And what I was left with was way more important. Those who actually really love and value me the most. That's what remained. And it allowed me to spend my time with the value, quality over quantity.

And it cleared the path for new, fresh connections to come into my life with people who show up for me. Letting go of relationships that were not mutual has been totally life-changing for me. And it was hard. Yeah, of course. But I'm so glad that I did because what's remained is true, and I will take quiet and true over filler noise any day. Another example, my Ready for love clients are high achieving, hyper achieving, super successful women. They have great careers and great lives and so much to be proud of and grateful for, but they have patterns of disappointment in their romantic relationships one after another. And they're just sick and tired of settling for a

great life, but not having someone to share it with. Settling for a life without love. So for them, it's no more tolerating BS from men and no more tolerating a life without everything but love. It is a simple decision to stop tolerating your status quo, your patterns, what's familiar and comfortable for you, to stop settling for less than you desire and less than you deserve because it doesn't have to be this way. And this is really important. Play attention. When we don't hold ourselves in the highest regard, we tolerate people, situations, relationships that are also not good for us. And we even settle for careers that might be comfortable but aren't fulfilling.

We settle for friendships that aren't enriching, romantic relationships that are unhealthy. We tolerate being spoken to disrespectfully. We put up with shit that we shouldn't have to put up with. We expose ourselves to people and things and conversations and experiences that bring us down. You have to protect your energy, your mood, and yourself. It is your job to do that. We all have to do that for ourselves. So are you tolerating friendships or other relationships that are one-sided or where you're not feeling valued? Are you tolerating people in your life? Maybe because they're family and you don't even realize

this is something that you don't have to tolerate. Maybe tolerating a particular job or even an entire career that isn't quite aligned with your purpose. These bigger things may seem harder to change, and it's true, they are harder to change. There can be a lot of fallout or upheaval in your life when you draw the line and decide no more. But the positive impact it will have on your life is exponential, and you deserve that. I have a special tool for you to go along with today's episode. It's called the Toleration Tracker. I will put the link in the show notes

so that if you are interested, you can just go on over there and click the link and we will send it to you. And it's basically just a PDF download. It's a chart that will help you track all the things that you're tolerating, the impact that it's having on you, and it will make it really easy for you to be motivated and then also to take action in fixing these things in your life. So one last thing I want to share about all of this. You're going to maybe, I hope you will, do this untolerating exercise for the very first time and you'll make a lot of changes. You'll clear out all the clutter, so to speak. But I want you to do it periodically. Check in with yourself often. I do it regularly. I elevated my identity by not tolerating anymore those things dragging me down and holding me back and in how I see myself. I was used to it and so are you. We all do our own laundry until maybe

one day we don't. We all have that one person in our life who isn't a positive value add, but we tolerate them until one day we don't. Okay, that is our conversation for today. Thanks for being here. Please share in the comments below or reply to our emails. I want to hear all the things that you are now aware of tolerating and the changes that you're making aware of tolerating and the changes that you're making. And I'll see you next time. Thanks so much for joining the conversation today.

I hope you learned something new or heard something that inspired you to take action in a new way. As your greatest champion and someone who truly cares about your love, happiness, wealth, and success, I always want to encourage you to ask yourself this question. How have I contributed? You are the only person who can ask this and the only one who can answer it. This doesn't just change your life. This changes everything.