Jen Sugermeyer Helps RESET Your Life
Jen Sugermeyer is more than an author, life coach, and motivational speaker. She’s the ultimate truth seeker who spent her life in the inquiry of what it means to love yourself fully and to be the best version of yourself; but her journey has not been an easy one. To everyone around her, Jen appeared to have the perfect life. She was fit, had a loving family and worked a successful corporate career. But behind the scenes, she was struggling with addiction and hated herself and what she had become. She was living a double life and her two worlds were getting closer and closer to disastrously colliding. Every night she promised herself that tomorrow would be the start of a new life and a healthier path, but instead she’d sink to a new low. It was none of her lows or her bottoms that eventually changed her life - it was the kind words uttered by someone who genuinely cared that made her realize that she was worth fighting for - and that’s what she did.
Jen embarked on the fight of her life and she now aims to share her strength and encourage others to claim the life they deserve! She put everything down in her new book, Reset: 5 Steps to Reclaim the Life You Thought You Lost & amp; Learn to Love Yourself! and is now dedicating her life to helping others through her personal experiences and insight.
When she isn’t writing or coaching, you’ll find her globetrotting (she’s visited 49 countries), boxing (watch out, she’s a southpaw with a reach!), exercising, being both in front of and behind the camera, spending time at the lake, hanging out with friends, family, and doting over her niece, Olive.
While discussing her latest book we talked about her life-changing program that teaches everyone how to recognize, eliminate, structure, elevate, and transform your life.
Exclusive Interview
Tell me about yourself, your background, and what led to a shift in perspective about your life? At a young age I had an eating disorder and that eventually led me to have a double life because that wasn’t something people openly shared. I didn’t realize that I was triggering my reward system in my brain and I had become an addict.
In my mid 30’s I was a full-blown alcoholic living two lives. I was a successful woman in corporate America where everything looked picture perfect from the outside. But what I didn’t want people to see, I kept close to myself.
I tried to get sober for a decade and failed. I really didn’t love myself inside. One day, someone said seven words to me that changed my life: “Jen, you need to learn to love yourself.”
Did you know what that meant?
There were certain things I loved about myself, but the reality is I was really hurting inside. I saw that child within me that life led me to internalize.
I thought my problem was drinking, but my problem was ME. I needed to learn to love myself. I committed to changing my life and started doing all these wonderful things: addressing my negativity, my anger, etc. I put boundaries in my life and started dating myself. It’s about setting a standard of how you’re going to allow yourself to be treated. A lot of getting back on track was getting deep with myself.
What inspired you to take action and write your book, Reset? I realized so many people are probably going through the same thing and instead of going to a therapist or something that’s more of a time or financial commitment, I wanted to write a book that someone can easily pick up and read on a plane, for example. Especially in corporate America, people are so afraid to talk about their struggles. Knowing that they’re not alone and they can have people to connect to is a gift I wanted to give people.
Can you tell me about Reset and the 5 step program your book talks about? Reset is a holistic approach that I was using for myself. RESET stands for: Recognize, Eliminate, Structure, Elevate, and Transform. Within each step, there’s about 4-5 smaller steps. I’ll give a short breakdown of each step.
Recognize: recognize that something needs to change in your life. No more, “on Monday” or victim mentality, there’s no more excuses. You’ve committed to change and to take ownership of your life.
Eliminate: what in your life doesn’t serve you anymore? What is holding you down? What’s toxic? How can you re-frame things that you get angry at and make those into a positive?
Structure: how do we keep ourselves in a safe space? How can you start to create boundaries and build a protective layer around yourself?
Elevate: this is where you start to live in the moment, learn gratitude, find your purpose.
Transformation: how do you translate all this into a lifestyle and make sure you stay on track?
You’re also a motivational speaker and a life coach? What led you to that? It ties into my bigger life mission of helping people. I truly believe that I was given this purpose because I can carry a heavy load with my head held high. I prayed to be led down the right path and this is where I landed.
What do you feel like your purpose is now and how has that differed from what it was 10 years ago? I got lost in corporate America and wanted to see how far I could scale up. I didn’t have that people-centered focus, it was just about how far I could push myself. When I was 10 years old, I would’ve said I wanted to help people, but I got disconnected with that person somewhere down the line. My purpose now is to put good back into the world and touch as many lives as possible. The world has been so good to me and so has God. I plan to grow my company and expand.
What’s your advice to a young woman who feels like they’re struggling to love themselves? I look back at the 12-year-old girl who looked in the mirror who thought she was fat and too tall and so many other things. You can cover it up or embrace it. I would tell her to embrace it. I covered it up for a decade and finally started telling myself that “I’m enough.”
What else are you working on? My new book is coming out in 30 days: Defining your Boundaries: the yes/no playbook to what you want in life.
When I wrote the chapter on boundaries in Reset, I felt my life change. I decided to dedicate a whole book to that topic. I’ve also created an online course that I hope to get out in the next few months. For those who can’t do 1:1 coaching, this is perfect for them.
I also intend to have a podcast within the next 6 months or so!
To read more about Jen and buy a copy of her book Reset, head to her website at: https://www.jensugermeyer.com