Today I want to talk about how unknowingly choosing scarcity in our lives might be keeping us small, scared and not accomplishing the things we say we want. I actually wrote about this on Instagram a few days ago and it got a huge response (see bikini pic below, gah!), so I thought I'd expand a bit here.

This past weekend, I was in Cabo San Lucas with two of my best girlfriends. I normally work a little every day, yes, even on vacation (and this trip was no different—I am literally writing this email on the flight back to LA).

I sometimes get asked, “Don’t you ever not work? Can’t you just unplug??”

And the answer is, of course, yes, I can not work and I can unplug if I want to. Anytime.

But I don’t want to.

This is the difference between work-life balance and work-life integration. To me, trying to find a “work-life balance” means I am trying to find a balance between something that takes away my energy (work) and something I do to recharge (weekend, vacation, clocking out, etc.).

But, in the case of work-life integration, I don’t need to escape my work because it, too, recharges me.

This isn’t for everyone—working a little every day—but for me, it’s the life I’ve consciously created over the last 9 years and something that in and of itself fuels me.

In 2007, I read ‘The Four Hour Work Week’ by Tim Ferriss. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. If you haven’t, it’s a nonnegotiable read in my book (har, har). Reading it helped me learn to manage my time better so that I wasn’t just busy, but instead productive.

But for the first 27 years of my life I valued busy.

I liked having a busy schedule, I wore it like a badge of honor: “See how important I am, I have all this STUFF to do! People need me! I am worthy!”

Upon graduating from college, I got a full-time job running a university fitness center. I also started teaching group fitness classes before and after my 9-to-5. And then I started taking on more and more personal training clients—even earlier in the morning and later into the evening. Weekends even.

My ever-busier schedule continued to serve my desire for worthiness, AND helped pad my bank account, which was nice. But it was also exhausting and driven by fear of not having enough.

And it wasn’t until I had said yes to everyone and everything for 7 years straight—running round like a chicken with my head cut off—that I realized: my entire life was one huge scarcity operation:

Never enough money (even though I had plenty to live on). Never enough clients (even though I was booked solid). Never enough validation. Never enough affirmation and approval (hence getting into competitions and fitness modeling). Never enough happiness. Never enough love.

No wonder I was terrified all the time! What if I go broke? What if I end up homeless? What if I don’t get that raise? What if all my clients leave me? What if my partner leaves me? Or finds out I’m not as amazing as they think? What if my friends decide they don’t like me? What if I’m not pretty enough, strong enough, successful enough, lean enough?

I will be a failure. I won’t be worthy. I won’t be good!

I was scared of theoreticals, even in the face of the reality that I was a success. I was worthy. I was good.

Operating in scarcity is exhausting—feeling like everything might be gone in an instant. What I found is that it only brings more fear, more resentment and more … scarcity. And it definitely perpetuates a small, scared existence.

Scarcity was the exact opposite tool necessary to create the thing I said I wanted, which was abundance.

And so as scary as it was, I started slowly, one opportunity at a time, choosing time over money.

I started working less time-for-money in the gym, and carved out time to write my blog and add value online.

If a potential new personal training client wanted to train but could only train at times that didn’t make sense for my schedule and productivity, I turned them down. If they couldn’t pay the rates I’d just increased, I didn’t take them on, even when my inner placater wanted to “find a way to make it work,” and I was scared people would think I was a heartless bitch. I asked my then-boss if I could have two afternoons off a week to work on my schoolwork and my JillFit business—I told him I’d take a pay cut to do it. It was scary!

But I forced myself to stick to the standards I set for myself, the value I believed I was worth, EVEN IF it meant working less and not making as much money.

But by slowly clearing my schedule and only bringing in the perfect client who was willing and able to pay my rates and train on my schedule, not only was I able to leverage that time to create online value (and invest in my JillFit brand that would pay off later) but I was also sending a message to my higher self of what I was worth.

By doing things that at the time feel risky and scary, we’re able to watch OURSELVES own our worth. Truly choosing abundance. TRUSTING that there will be enough, and that we will have exactly what we want.

This is a shift from a scarcity mindset to one of abundance.

I know it’s sounds cliché and I feel like the word “abundance” is played out, but it’s still true: when you approach your life trusting as best you can in that moment that there is enough, that you are enough, that YOU CAN CREATE EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT, those exact outcomes start showing up.

But it doesn’t happen without a leap of faith and some major self-trust. You have to harness the willingness to question your old beliefs and quit the old operating system to do things differently.

Whenever I am scared to leave my comfort zone, I remind myself of this quote:

So while I will continue to work every single day, I’ll do it voluntarily because I love what I do and wouldn’t have it any other way.

This stuff takes time! But it begins with one single choice to do something different, to do something seemingly risky, to step into the uncertainty and discomfort and trust that you’ve got this.

Talked about this exact thing earlier in the weekend on IG, if you didn’t get a chance to see it: