How Are You, Really? | Jenna Kutcher

Generally, when I am trying to find a book to read, I visit amazon.com and check out the most sellers in business and biographies. It was a weekend like this and I was updating my Kobo ebook reader with new contents and I just saw that Amazon advises this book: “How are you, really?” by Jenna Kutcher. This honest and natural question interested me and I have a quick look about its comments. Then I visited goodreads.com and saw the high rating and I decided to download. It was one of the many books I uploaded to my ebook reader that weekend but because of its tempting name, I decided to start reading this book first. And I am glad to have read it. It is maybe another personal development book that motivates you but it does not repeat the same things with the other ones. It clearly states how Jenna manages her success story. It is authentic and it makes it unique. I like it as a summer read and I highly advise it to those who do not stop and check how she/he is. In the meantime, how are your, really?

The truth is, we lie. We lie to ourselves about how we’re really feeling and what we really want. Not anymore. In How Are You, Really?, Jenna Kutcher teaches how to harness your power to take control of your life. You deserve more – and deep down, you know it. If, when you get really honest with yourself, you discover that you want more out of your life: more joy, more passion, more fulfillment, and more peace? In today’s chaotic world, sometimes you might wake up and not feel like yourself anymore, and you don’t even know how you are… REALLY. You’re trying to balance it all: your family, your work, and your goals, but your emotions are all over the place and you don’t feel as confident and happy as you thought you would. This book is a guide to reframing your entire life and finally finding your own sense of joy and fulfillment in a world telling you who to be. It’s about understanding what’s going on in your head and finding your way back to a life that is truly your own. Your expert guide is Jenna Kutcher, who started from working a day job at Target to building an empire while living in a small town in Minnesota as a mom. In her inspirational debut book, she shares how she struggled with these same issues to find her identity and balance in launching a business, raising a family, and, eventually, starting her popular podcast The Goal Digger. Join the millions of people who count on Jenna’s life and business advice every week because of her authentic example and deep understanding of how women think and strive to achieve their dreams. It’s time to ask yourself the question you’ve been avoiding: How are you, really? It’s time to find your answer, and start living.

Introduction: Can We Talk?

Have you ever felt the feeling that comes when you cut the fluff, get past the small stuff, and are asked, “How are you, really?” Just the addition of that one precious word, that small invitation to cut the crap and stop with the niceties and be real with yourself and whoever is brave enough to ask it? It feels like a gulp of oxygen, like coming to the surface and seeing the light again. So why don’t we do this every moment we can? What are we running from, drowning out, and keeping under lock and key?

The truth is, we’re scared of what might come out if we pause to pose the question with honesty—not only to the people in our lives, but to ourselves. We’re scared of what we’d hear if we got quiet enough to ask ourselves the questions that matter. Is there more out there? Is this it? Am I actually happy? What now? What’s next? What’s wrong?

And like we’ve been conditioned to do, we just keep going, keep pushing, keep smiling, and keep reminding ourselves that we are lucky, we are blessed, and we should be thankful. That same old song with the cheap lyrics. We tell ourselves so many others have it far worse than us. Or it’s probably our fault we aren’t content or happy, and we should just “choose joy” like the coffee mugs and water bottles say.

Listen: not every feeling is a choice. As if life is simply a menu of delicious options and we just need to choose! As if the world isn’t burning and the oceans aren’t rising! As if our pain can’t exist because others have pain, too. As if accessing more difficult, complex emotions like sadness, discontent, or futility means we’re doing this all wrong. (Hear me loud and clear: it doesn’t.) There will be times in our lives where joy is not an emotion we can access in the moment, and in those times, the goal isn’t to just choose it. The choice we do have is to ask ourselves when we last felt it, and to dig hard for that answer.

But sometimes seeking out the answers becomes too painful, especially when we think we have to ask them in the shadows where we won’t bother anyone. Where no one can hear that we’re actually admitting we’re not happy or that life hasn’t turned out how we thought it would.

It’s like that error we get when we send a text and whatever wizard it is that runs the magical cloud these days bounces us right back to earth: “Message failed to send.” The times we didn’t ask for what we needed.

We’re overflowing with these unsent messages and these unanswered questions. Our bodies are storing them, our lives are storing them, and there’s no cellular 5G plan on earth that can handle that sort of backup. We’re carrying them around, all day and all night, all of these unfelt feelings and unexpressed words and unexplored dreams.

And we wonder why we wake up so damn tired.

It’s no surprise we’re exhausted. Before we’re even fully awake, we start scrolling through everyone else’s opinions and ideas and solutions—our news feeds, our Facebook page, our Instagram feeds. We crowdsource our life to push us toward something else, to distract us, to lose those 3:00 A.M. thoughts in the comforting chaos of the latest craze. We set goals we think we’re supposed to, we buy the bestselling planner, we create the resolutions that sound nice to (and for) everyone else, and we hope for the promise that on Monday it’ll all be different.

But most of the time, on Monday, we wake to reality, again—that the five-star magic diet plan didn’t work. So why isn’t it working for me?

Spoiler alert: that thing you’re doing isn’t working for you because it didn’t come from you. That “answer”—the diet, the planner, the four-step-manifestation plan—came from something (or someone) outside of you. It came from Amazon. It came from an influencer or that wellness guru. It came from your sister or your sister’s neighbor or her sister’s neighbor’s best friend.

Who You Are, Really

We have to learn how to silence our inner playground bully and turn up the volume on our intuition. If you can get quiet enough to let the deepest part of you speak, you might be surprised by what you hear.

The Softer Question: How to Feel Your Feelings

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

—VIRGINIA WOOLF

Asking myself How does this feel? has been the catalyst for every chance I’ve taken, every leap I’ve attempted, and every dream I’ve chased.

So, what’s a good way to establish a true and honest relationship with yourself? Document where you are today. Like dropping a pin on your life map and really getting the lay of the land you exist in right now, you’re making it easier to see the ways in which you’ve grown as you’ve gone from there to here and as you go from here to wherever is next.

Every feeling is worth feeling.

Golden Handcuffs: How to Ditch the Supposed Tos

Here’s the thing: we all know that bad days are inevitable, they will come, and we will survive them, like we’ve survived all the hard days we’ve already encountered.

But I’m not talking about a few bad days here and there; I’m talking about the hard days that turn into hard weeks, months, and even years. When the bad days become the norm, when they outnumber the good ones, and you can’t really remember the last time you felt true joy or were excited to get out of bed in the morning, then it might be a sign that you need a change.

All of this is what Inc. magazine calls “the golden handcuffs.” The salary is good, the benefits are good, the retirement plan is good, “everything is so good that you’re willing to sit in a cubicle hating your life for 8 hours a day simply because, on paper, you’re ‘living the life.’ ”

Have you built your life on a stack of supposed tos? Are there areas of your life where you’re staying stuck because it’s conventional or convenient? Where are you simply going with the flow? What are some life changes you need to make?

Halfway to a Dream: Going After Your Goal

I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same as “making a life.”

—MAYA ANGELOU

Most of us are equipped with two extremes for decision-making: Get over it or get after it! Accept it or make the change. To run toward or run away. Go big or go all the way home!

It’s time for you to breathe life into your dreams.

What are you dreaming about today? Speak it out loud, even if it’s just one of a few that you carry. Write your dream down every chance you get. Then, tell someone else about it. The first person you think of: your neighbor, an Internet friend, your office manager. Pay attention to what begins to happen.

More than inspiration, I needed a plan. I had to figure out what was necessary for me to learn, create, or get help with in order to turn this idea into a real, paying job. A job that could, hopefully, make me feel more alive.

If you want to be somewhere, something, or someone, but the process of getting there looks a thousand miles long, just get as close as you can.

Falling down is so much better than never rising up.

Something very significant happens once you decide to step out of your comfort zone and walk toward something new.

When you decide to turn to the amorphous dream and give it a shape, say it out loud. Admit to yourself you want something different. Say you’re ready for a change. Say it to someone who loves you! Write it in Sharpie on your planner or in your journal.

Wherever or however you speak it—declare that you’re willing to work for a truer life, whatever it takes. That slapdash, faraway dream? Name it, because it’s about to be born.

Mothers Studying Mandarin: How to Have Some Fun Again

Creativity itself doesn’t care at all about results—the only thing it craves is the process.

—ELIZABETH GILBERT

In time[s] of uncertainty and instability . . . people need an anchor to familiarity and what once brought them comfort, stability, safety, and happiness.

Later as I was responding to the comments on the post, totally floored with gratitude, I started to think about what this hobby could mean in a larger sense: Was my art worth something? Would someone really pay for these creative explorations? I had originally turned to watercolor painting as an outlet for me to detach from my business and all its pressure. Nothing more, nothing less. But what if this creative spark might actually turn into something more? What if I sold that painting? What if I sold more paintings—enough to splurge on a date night with Drew? What if I sold enough paintings to take a weekend off in the middle of my next wedding season? Heck, what if I sold enough paintings to sustain me during the entire off-season of weddings, those lean six months I experienced every year?

In the months to come, I’d pull up to my painting station and churn out a growing variety of sentiments, quotes, and floral arrangements, slowly building up my inventory of watercolor designs. With a little research, I discovered a site where I could run my own little printshop and all I had to do was upload the art and they’d take care of the rest!

A few hundred dollars the first month turned into a thousand dollars the next, and pretty soon my watercolor hobby was paying the monthly mortgage on our house.

Short-term play reaps long-term rewards.

The reward is in the process itself, that flow you can reach when you lose yourself in a state of momentary, outcome-free bliss. “One way to think about play is an action you do that brings you a significant amount of joy without offering a specific result,” writes Jeff Harry, a positive play coach. “A lot of us do everything hoping for a result. It’s always, ‘What am I getting out of this?’ Play has no result.”

The lesson here isn’t to turn your watercolors into your work. It’s to turn your work into watercolors. It’s to take the hard edges of your day, or your commitments, or your responsibilities, and make the decision to soften them into something playful. Inviting joy, wherever you can.

Inviting play, whenever you can. Inviting creativity, however you can.

Maybe “creative” isn’t a word you’d use to classify yourself or a title you’d claim. But creative is more often an adjective or adverb, rather than something you do.

However you think you’ve lost it, the good news is this: It’s still there. It’s always been there. It’s in you. Creativity is inherent, ready to be unearthed in any given moment. It doesn’t require a basement full of watercolor supplies, a supportive mother-in-law, or even a moment of career burnout. It just needs an outlet. A reason. An invitation.

What can you do in five minutes just for you? What is a thing that once sparked your curiosity and joy that you’ve pushed aside in the busyness of your life? How can you bring it back?

Saint Francis de Sales once said, “Every one of us needs half an hour of prayer a day, except when we are busy—then we need an hour.”

Swap the word “prayer” for whatever makes your heart sing, or what makes your soul recalibrate, or what helps your heartbeat return to you, and you may have just unearthed the secret magic of creativity: that it doesn’t exist to fill up our time. Creativity exists to become a respite from all the other ways we fill up our time. And in doing so, it fills up our self.

If you need a place to start weaving a little more joy into your life, pay attention to your curiosities: the things you Google, the forums you could read for hours, the thoughts that nag you, the YouTube videos you watch, the visions you hold for a someday version of you. The things you are curious about or are aching to do are not random, they just might signal an area where you can try, play, experiment, and expand.

The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile,” says positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. “If the activity at hand happens to be something we enjoy and we’re good at, we achieve a flow mental state—and it can leave us feeling ecstatic, motivated and fulfilled.”

A Battlefield of Cuts: How to Listen to Your Body

The mind that says, No matter how I am feeling, I will also keep pumping blood to all the right spots. Your fifth-grade science teacher wasn’t kidding. Your body works hard for you. I’d even go so far as to say it loves you, so it matters that we work hard to love it right back.

Married to Mr. Six-Pack: How to Speak to Yourself

Out of every battle you will face, I can promise you that how you respond to the challenge is affected by how you view yourself.

Research suggests that positive self-talk can help you approach challenges and stressful situations with a more open and optimistic mindset. The more optimistic our words become, the more optimistic our minds become.

I want to leave you with one magic word that changes everything about the way you speak to yourself. It’s a tiny dose of kindness—the proverbial spoonful of sugar—and you can sprinkle it onto every sentence you utter, today and tomorrow and for the rest of your life. One word, one million possibilities. Are you ready to hear it?

It’s “yet.”

I can’t run that marathon yet. I can’t control my temper yet. I don’t have the guts to try that thing in the bedroom yet. I don’t like my freckles yet. I don’t love what I see in the mirror yet. I don’t know how to truly believe I am worthy, enough, glorious, and powerful . . . yet.

Vision Fulfilled: How to Make (No, LET) Your Dreams Come True

Belief pairs well with a glass of behavior. Which means that whoever first told you “practice makes perfect” definitely meant well but misspoke. I think practice makes power, meaning the action of stepping into the patterns of a life you want is the only way to create it.

You don’t have to pick up your life and move zip codes away to step into a new dream. Start where you can, when you can. You don’t need to go big, but you need to go.

What would you do with your life if money wasn’t a factor? What dream would you chase? What legacy would you create? What vision would you fulfill?

I can’t tell you who you’ll be in five years, but I can tell you—without a doubt—that if you’re brave enough to answer this question, you’re brave enough to take one step to go after it.

The Cribbage Board: How to Share a Dream

Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.

—URSULA K. LE GUIN

Here’s the thing about visions and callings: it’s not anyone else’s job to understand yours. It’s no one else’s responsibility to know it before you do, give it to you, or figure it out for you. Others can and will help. But the source must be you.

Tacos and Truth: How to Create Your Authentic Community

Friendship isn’t a spotlight to be shoved into. It’s a floodlight to be shared. And once we let that kind of relationship shine, we get to see that, yes, we can vote differently, dress differently, and think differently—and—as impossible as this sounds, we can still love one another wildly and walk one another home.

Pride’s Utter Chokehold: How to Ask for Help

No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you.

—ALTHEA GIBSON

What Brooke Shields Doesn’t Know: Why Your Story Matters (a Lot)

Life is teaching us lessons every day. We are shaping our legacies, one brave choice at a time. Most of the life-changing things I’ve learned didn’t necessarily come from people with multiple degrees. I learned that that part didn’t need to be a qualifier.

Tragedies happen all on their own, without our permission, without warning, so when the pen is in our hand, why not write a good story?

Just One Step: Where to Start, and How

Every new path begins with one single step. One action to inch you closer, to scooch you further, to move you onward in the direction of your dream. But here’s the catch: No one can take action for you. You have to be the one to take it, even if it’s with trembling knees.

Failure, like success, exists only in the ways we define it. Who gets to decide what counts as a success or a failure? We do.

Moving forward is knowing that you can commit to just one step at a time, and then deciding to take another, and another.

You’re the gardener of your own life, and you get to choose what to plant. You get to enjoy what grows.

When a Woman Knows Her Value: How to Make It Happen

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.

—MARIE CURIE

Before all the steps of “building a life you love” either beckon you forward or tempt you to turn and run, you must transform the way you see your own value. This is a step you’re prepared to do with what you have right here and now. This is another place where the woo meets the work. It’s where you allow who you are and what you have to make a mark on the world you live in.

Open hands open doors.

It’s Complicated: How to Invest in Yourself, and Why It Matters

The way you spend today is a reflection of how you’ll spend your life.

Every dream will cost you something. It’ll take time, money, energy, or all of the above to take an idea into reality. Every vision holds risk. And when you decide the time is right for you to make a move toward your truest answers, remember that you aren’t the risk. You are the investment. And you get to determine the level of time, money, energy, and skills you’re willing to invest.

What’s Your Enough Point?: How to Say Heck No

It’s not the load that breaks you down; it’s the way you carry it.

—LENA HORNE

The fact that we label work as the important stuff and joy as something to just toss onto the calendar if there’s room. That’s the shortcut to burnout. If you’re reading this and thinking, That’s me. I’m there right now. Burnout city! I want you to know that it’s okay, and that you’re not alone. A Forbes study reported that over 52 percent of respondents experienced burnout of some kind in 2020. That’s over half of us in one year’s time!

Our breakdown or burnout might be a sign that a breakthrough is coming.

It’s those very thoughts (or, rather, lies) that keep us believing our worth is found in our output, that we have to say yes to everything. When I really pull these beliefs apart, I recognize that somewhere along the way, I was told that happiness was entirely up to what I could achieve, and therein I would find some wellspring of importance, success, and purpose. But that notion led me to a boundaryless life, a life where I felt like my pursuit for more was endless, a life where the finish line was always out of reach. And if I couldn’t ever have enough, then I certainly wouldn’t ever be enough.

Soul Savasana: How to Be

The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of room, not try to be or do anything whatever.

—MAY SARTON

Your worth isn’t measured by what you’ve produced. You aren’t a machine; you are a human being. Rest is the fuel for living.

There’s an age-old tale where a Buddhist monk visits New York. His Western host helps him navigate the city, and he tells the monk they could save ten minutes by making a complex subway transfer at Grand Central Station. So, they do it. And when they emerge in Central Park, the monk sits down on a bench.

“What are you doing?” the host asks.

And the monk replied, “I thought we should enjoy the ten minutes we saved.”

And here we are, running around like chickens loose in Grand Central Station, adopting every latest trick to earn time and save time, and what do we do with it once we’ve got it? We use it to run around some more.

Why? Because rest makes us anxious. Stillness scares us. The mind starts to spin and think about everything we’re not doing. Worrying that we’re dropping the ball. Or that the longer we’re away from the work we do, the more replaceable we get. The less valuable we are.

Remember the song lyric “A dream is a wish your heart makes, when you’re fast asleep,” because I think some wisdom lives in that ol’ tune. Rest is an essential part of making your dreams come true.

Epilogue: This Just Might Be It: What to Do Now

In my years of leadership, I’ve learned the things we teach are the things that we (the teacher) need the most. When I speak words to you, they are likely the words I’ve needed to hear myself. Writing a book meant I would have to get honest about all the lessons I’ve learned, but also all the ways I am still learning. Just like we all have to do, every single day. Blinking in the sun, celebrating our hard-earned answers while staring full-faced at the questions ahead. That’s the beauty of living.

Whether we like it or not, as long as we’re awake, we are a permanently enrolled student in the school of life.

Every moment is a lesson. But to learn those lessons requires application. Movement. Progress. When you work on your dreams, you’re inherently going to be working on yourself.