I rarely get sick, but this time, it hit me hard. I couldn’t get out of bed, I felt really weak, and doing even simple things was tough. Lots of my friends reached out to offer their help but I said no. Other than accepting my partner Santosh’s care, I couldn’t bring myself to say yes to their support.

I’ve now reflected on some of the reasons why I turned them down when, in truth, I really could have used their TLC! It made me think about how many of us — particularly women — struggle with accepting help when it’s offered, let alone when we could be asking for it outright.

Why do we struggle to ask for help?

Growing up as a feminist, I absorbed the idea that to be a strong, independent woman I should handle everything on my own, and that being vulnerable and asking for help is a sign of weakness. Instead, I was socialized to believe that I should focus on offering my help to others.

I know now this messaging is both misguided and misogynistic, and that internalizing gender bias hurts me personally and professionally. We all need love and support from others. In fact, it’s essential for navigating this difficult journey called life. When we deny others’ love and care, it directly impacts our well-being and can hold us back from thriving.

But I want to go even deeper here and vulnerably share another reason I’m uncomfortable with asking for and receiving help. While growing up, I came to believe that I’m not worthy of others’ care. I know I’m not alone with this. Many of us hold this hurtful belief because of the conditional love that came our way both in our childhood and adulthood. Feeling unlovable can make it really hard to accept others’ care.

How can we get more comfortable asking for and accepting help?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since being sick, and I’ve also been working on changing how I respond when someone offers their help. And there are three things I’ve been doing that I want to share with you:

1. Understand your reasons for saying no

We need to know what’s getting in our way so that we can address the barriers that are preventing us from thriving. To figure out what’s at the root of your tendency to turn down others’ help, try engaging in deep self-reflection work. Here are a few tools to make this happen.

2. When you’re about to say no, say yes

So many of us are wired to automatically say “no thanks” when someone asks if they can help us. When you notice that you’re about to say these words, take a pause, engage in self-coaching, and say yes instead.

3. Identify what you need and then ask for it

I recently had some of my friends over for a big dinner. Many of them asked if there was anything they could do to help. And while the old Ritu would’ve said no, this time I said yes. I asked them all to bring either an appetizer or a dessert. The result was not only less work for me but also some kick-ass appetizers and delish desserts. It was a powerful affirmation of why doing our work to live better matters.

And while I’m talking about living better, I want to underscore that the most powerful healing work we can do to open up our hearts to others’ care is to engage in self-love. When we feel lovable, it unlocks our sense of worthiness. And when we feel worthy, we openly receive others’ love and support.

So the next time you feel yourself shying away from asking for or receiving help, tell yourself: I am worthy of love. And then ask yourself: what simple gesture of help could I allow into my life as a first step?

The post Do You Struggle to Ask for Help? You’re Not Alone appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

Purpose is everything! It’s what helps us find meaning in our lives when we’re struggling with personal challenges and what motivates us to keep going when the world feels overwhelming (like right now…).

I have personally struggled with knowing who I am, living authentically, and reconciling my cultural identities, and I’d be the first to tell you that finding your purpose isn’t always easy. But as I share in this #ShineWithRitu video, finding our purpose is critical for living our best life. I hope it inspires you to do the same!

Watch now!

The post Finding Your Purpose in Life is so Important appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

When I was a child, I desperately wanted to feel like I belonged.

As one of the only Brown girls at school in my overwhelmingly White neighborhood, I not only stuck out like a sore thumb, but I was also the target for relentless racist bullying that went on for years.

For a long time, even after the bullying stopped, I had very little self-confidence. I knew I had great potential — I was a big nerd after all (you’ll have to ask me sometime what my favorite book as a child was!) — but I felt so small most of the time.

It took me decades to make progress in overcoming my insecurities and feel more confident in who I am, which meant a lot of healing work, including years of therapy, to get to a point where I truly feel good about who I am.

In this video, I share a bit about my journey to unlock my confidence and why it’s so critical to peel back the layers of insecurity that might be holding you back from both living with authenticity and reaching your full potential.

Watch now!

The post How to Unlock Your Confidence appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

You get the picture! In these moments, if you’re like most people, you’ll likely start to feel the stress surge through your body, coupled with a deep sense of impatience. And once the impatience kicks in, it can take over and cause some pretty crappy behavior.

I know all about this! I can be very impatient at times, and it’s usually about silly, small things — like when I’m rushing from meeting to meeting and the person walking in front of me is slow or when I’m standing in line waiting for a food order. I’ve noticed that I can be particularly impatient when I’m traveling, especially when I’m tight for time. I can get really irritable and, although I hate to admit this, I might even be snippy sometimes to the service people I’m interacting with.

Argh, I know this isn’t great! And this is exactly why I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, why I’m working to change my behavior, and why I’m writing about it now.

We all know that being impatient doesn’t serve us or the people around us (especially if we’re being rude). In fact, being impatient only further exacerbates our stress levels, which feeds into harming our mental and physical health. When we’re calm, we make better choices. And you know that I’m all about making better choices in life!

So how do you work on being more patient so this can help bring your stress levels down? I’d like to share a few things I’ve learned.

Impatience is About Control 

First, it’s important to understand why you can sometimes be impatient, particularly in stressful situations. Impatience is often about control or, more specifically, about needing to be in control of situations and outcomes. In other words, impatience is a manifestation of frustration when you can’t control a situation. 

This mainly happens because you want to feel safe. It’s a natural tendency to try to control circumstances when you feel like you’re in danger, in order to rationalize your behavior, actions, and more. For example, I sometimes will micro-manage Uber drivers in an attempt to get to my destination more quickly, even though it’s my fault that I’m running late in the first place. But here’s a key life lesson I’m learning: we can’t govern every situation or outcome — it’s simply not possible!

Take a Pause 

You may have heard me talk about the power of the pause (and if you haven’t, check out this video on how taking a pause can transform the way you communicate!). Taking a moment to pause is one of the best things you can do for yourself when you’re feeling activated!  

Pausing will push you to slow down and bring yourself into the moment, which is critical for helping you to better track what you’re thinking. When you do this, you’ll be able to acknowledge that you’re annoyed at what’s happening around you and recognize that you’re being impatient — acknowledging this then helps you consciously change your behavior.

Tune Into Your Body 

When I feel waves of impatience and stress come over me, I do my best to tune into what my body is telling me. The body is a guidepost to how we’re reacting or feeling about a situation, especially if we are living in an embodied state. By living in an embodied state, we can better feel the sensations in our bodies which will help us to better settle and calm ourselves during feelings of impatience, stress and more.  

Whenever you hear the voice in your head start to rage because of impatience, you’ll want to immediately tune into where it’s physically showing up for you. Why? Because if you can calm your body, it’ll help you to calm your mind. 

For example, when I hear messages in my head saying, “Why is this taking so long?” I pay attention to what’s happening in my body. In those moments, I’ll often feel my shoulders tense up, my face gets hot, and I feel this heaviness on my chest. I will then either take deep breaths, sending energy to those regions of my body, or I’ll do some stretches right then and there to release the tension.  

Essentially, by tuning into what’s happening in your body, you can bring yourself into a more grounded state, and then have a more thoughtful response and reaction to a stressful situation.

Use Self-Coaching to Release the Stress You’re Feeling 

Self-coaching is an amazing strategy that you can use in moments when you need assurance or a pep-talk. You simply tell yourself the kind, compassionate, and reassuring things a beloved would share with you. For example, in moments of great impatience and stress, I will tell myself, “You’re safe. You’re not going to be late.” It can be extremely useful to plan these words of affirmation in advance so that they’ll be ready for you in stressful moments.  

The beauty of self-coaching is that you can do it anywhere and at any time and, with practice, it’s easy to improve at. It’s a great tool for building your confidence and overcoming your fears because it’s all about taking your power back! 

These stress management strategies can be really helpful when you’re feeling impatient! Not only will they help you feel less activated in stressful moments, but you’ll also be more conscious of being kinder to the people around you. 

So the next time you find yourself feeling stressed or impatient, what will you do to manage that moment? What will you do to tune into your body? What are the words you will use to coach yourself to better manage your moment of stress and be more patient? 

Remember that life is so much better when we feel less stressed and impatient. 

The post How to Be More Patient, Even When You’re Stressed appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

At dinner with his family one night, my boyfriend and his father started talking hockey. I was about to tune out when his dad began to talk about how, when it comes to living a good life, we can learn a lot from the game. He went on to explain, quoting Hockey Hall of Famer, Wayne Gretzky: “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”

This was the first time anything sports-related resonated with me, and since then this powerful quote has stuck with me because it’s so true!

When you have a goal or a dream, but you don’t take a shot at it, you miss the opportunity to score, to win, or to get what you want. In order to fulfill your dream, it’s crucial that you take a chance.

Take Your Shot

The problem for many of us is that we’re afraid to take the first shot. It’s often easier, and feels safer, to keep mulling over an idea or to keep yourself in the research phase. Taking the first step can be scary, because it means opening yourself up to the world and to criticism by others. But here’s the thing — there will always be critics out there, so don’t let them hold you back!

You may feel that something needs to fall into place or you need to make a key decision before it feels right for you to take the leap. But as I’ve said many times before, that is often just an excuse.  Plus perfection does not exist anyway! If you focus on what others think or keep waiting for the elusive “missing” piece, you’ll likely never start anything. And in order to succeed, you must take action.

Yes, you might fail on the first go, but as we know, failing is a part of success. If you believe deeply in your dream and want it to come true, you can’t allow obstacles to stop you.

Instead, it’s critical to look at setbacks as experiences to learn from and as opportunities to re-ignite the spark for your next attempt. Plus another benefit of constantly trying is that you’ll have time to reassess the steps you’re taking to achieve your goal. This means that your output will only get better and better over time. I believe that this type of persistence is what separates the dreamers and the doers.

So if you have a dream, I encourage you to take action! Keep your foot on the gas pedal and try and try again. You have the power to create what happens to you as long as you show up and you do your best.

And if you ultimately do fail, at least you’ll know you tried.

The post You Miss 100% of the Shots You Don’t Take appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

We all have darkness and lightness within us. A big part of living authentically is accepting and embracing the good, bad, and ugly parts of who we are. But being authentic also means taking responsibility for our choices and behaviors — especially when it comes to those moments when our ugly side causes us to behave badly.

When your dark or ugly side shows up — whether it’s at work, with your family, or in your romantic relationships — it can be so easy to become cranky, difficult, or even mean. For example, my dark side shows up when I’m stressed, which causes me to lose patience with everyone from my partner to an Uber driver, sigh.

Fortunately, there are ways to prevent this by planning in advance how you’ll calm yourself down when moments like this arise. It can also be incredibly helpful to plan what you’ll do to improve the situation for yourself and others when you do have a moment of being difficult/mean/however your ugly side comes out. (Because we all have them — nobody’s perfect!)

In this video, I share a story about when my ugly/dark side showed up recently and how I made it up to the person I’d let down and committed to doing better going forward.

Watch now!

The post What Can You Do When Your Dark Side Rears Its Ugly Head? appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

Back when I was in university, I had a really bad habit of procrastinating and leaving things to the last minute — doing course readings, working on assignments, studying for exams, you name it! I regularly pulled all-nighters to study, and I literally wrote 10-page papers the day before they were due. (I figured out that I needed one full day to pull off a 10-page paper!)

I was a chronic procrastinator!

Although I made it through my student days fine, when I started working, I realized that procrastinating was actually causing me a lot of stress. And so I made the decision to break my bad habit of procrastinating, which wasn’t easy after a lifetime of putting things off to the last minute.

It took a lot of practice and self-discipline to flip my behavior, but I’ve managed to overcome my habit of procrastinating. (Mostly, that is — nobody’s perfect!)

In this video, I share the two things that helped me to stop procrastinating. If you have this issue and want to interrupt it, this video is for you!

Watch now!

The post How I Broke My Bad Habit of Procrastinating appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

The pressure to be perfect is something that so many of us carry the weight of. Whether it’s being the perfect employee, partner, parent, child, or friend, trying to be perfect is an exhausting pursuit with no end.

I’ve talked before about how there’s no such thing as perfect, and that by trying to measure ourselves to an impossible standard we can actually harm our minds, bodies, and souls.

During this ongoing COVID moment, when so many of us are struggling with day-to-day life, it’s more important than ever that we stop beating ourselves up about not being perfect and instead focus on just doing our best.

In this video, I share some helpful tips on letting go of perfectionism.

Watch now!⁠

The post There’s No Such Thing as Perfect! Why You Should Stop Trying to be Perfect and Just Do Your Best appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

On top of this, beauty for women is defined as an external experience, rather than being an internal experience (which in my humble opinion is far more important in defining beauty, and so whenever you hear me talk about beauty, know that I’m referring to both our internal and external attributes), and so for many of us, it doesn’t matter how many times we receive feedback that we’re beautiful, intelligent, kind, or anything positive — we still struggle to believe that we actually embody those attributes.

For example, a while ago I was having a conversation with a friend who is a beautiful woman of color and who I think oozes both intelligence and gorgeousness. When I told her how radiant I think she is, she thanked me but then told me it was hard for her to believe the compliment because of her struggle with her weight.

It made me really sad to hear this, but I empathized with what she was saying. Given that I also used to have difficulty accepting compliments, I know that there’s a difference between being told we’re great and truly feeling it.

Why Do We Believe We Aren’t Beautiful?

For many of us, the reason we don’t believe the kind words coming our way is because we have internalized negative messages from a young age that we lack these attributes.

For example, when I was growing up, I consistently received critical comments about my appearance, mostly as part of the horrible racist bullying I experienced.

With my brown skin and long black braids, I looked different in comparison to my peers at school and was constantly called ugly for it. Also, as a darker skinned brown girl growing up in South Asian culture, where fair skin is valued over dark skin, I spent my early adolescent years believing that I was not as beautiful as others.

The cherry on top of this messy cake? For a chunk of my early teens, I really wasn’t very cute (picture an overbite, acne, facial hair, and thick glasses). When I finally blossomed in my late teens and people started to tell me that I was pretty, I just didn’t believe them.

This is why it’s so important to interrupt the negative messaging we’ve internalized, and it’s one of the reasons why I’m an advocate for self-love. By cultivating self-love, we increasingly move to a place where we start to believe deeply in our core that we are worthy of both receiving compliments and of feeling beautiful. When we cultivate self-love, we start to see that our real beauty lies in being perfectly imperfect and imperfectly perfect.

Feeling Beautiful Comes from Within

If feeling beautiful is something you struggle with, one of the most important things you can do to cultivate self-love is to practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is about tuning into the present moment and being aware of what you’re doing, feeling, and thinking without judgment. It’s about slowing down to observe how you talk to yourself — no more negative self-talk! — and how you feel about yourself.

The more mindful you are about your thoughts and about how you feel, the more likely you will be able to identify the negative messages you’re harboring about yourself. Once you identify the negative messages, you can work to replace them with positive truths about who you are, for example, “I am beautiful.”

Aside from practicing mindfulness, there are a few other simple things that I do to help me feel beautiful from the inside out that I’d like to offer you:

1. Focus on Activities that Make Your Heart Sing

Not surprisingly, it’s when I’m doing things that I’m most passionate about, like dancing to my fave tunes, cuddling with my boyfriend while watching Netflix, or presenting to a warm and receptive audience, that I truly feel my most beautiful. And I note, not surprisingly, these are also times when I’m radiating my Authentic Self.

2. Look Good so You Can Feel Good

I believe that one’s body is like a personal art canvas. We use what we wear, how we do our hair and make-up, and more to self-express what we’re about internally. But I also believe that how we self-express externally impacts how we feel internally. Because of this, to feel beautiful on the inside I always make sure that I’m wearing something I’m comfortable in and that I feel great in. Sometimes that means a fabulous dress, while on other days it means leggings, but the point is, I make the effort to do whatever makes me feel good.

While it can be challenging to shift negative self-beliefs to positive ones, cultivating self-love and taking actual steps to change your behavior are critical to get to a place where you’re able to embrace compliments and to feel beautiful inside and out. We all deserve to feel good about ourselves, and it starts with self-love.

The post Why So Many of Us Struggle with Feeling Beautiful appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

For many of us, talking about our accomplishments and achievements can be uncomfortable. Even though we may have worked really hard at something in our career, our personal lives, and more, so many of us describe our success using language like, “I was in the right place at the right time” or “I was so lucky that XYZ happened.”

But here’s the thing: luck isn’t what helps most people get ahead (hello, supremacy, power, and privilege). And in fact, I firmly disagree with the concept of luck.

Part of the reason I don’t believe in luck, is that I know from my work as an equity, diversity, and inclusion consultant that the systems in which we work, play, study, live, and more are designed to be biased tied back to class, gender, race/ethnoculture, and other identities.

And so those who have privilege are able to get ahead more easily than others, while for those who lack privilege, it’s not about luck — it’s about how we show up.

In this video, I share an expression that transformed my outlook on luck and the critical factor that’s way more important than luck in attaining and owning your success.

Watch now!

The post Why I Don’t Believe in the Concept of Luck appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.