12: finding self-love within (with nikki gal)

in today's episode, shelby leigh interviews nikki gal about her experience as a former model, self-love as a model and beyond, and pursuing her passions and creative career. they talk about feeling stuck, how to find self-love within, and more.

welcome to small steps to self-love with bestselling mental health writer, shelby leigh!

every episode has a small step for YOU to take on your self-love journey.  tune in for today's small step about taking risks and tag me on IG @shelbyleighpoetry if you share how the small step goes for you. i'd love to hear!

listen to my interview on Nikki's podcast here!

About our guest:

Nikki Gal is a former fashion model, entrepreneur, mental health advocate, speaker, and designer. Gal began her professional career as a model in early 2014, and made the decision to end her career all together in 2018. Since then, she has created her own success as an entrepreneur of digital design company See Thru Nikki, founder of mental health advocacy non-profit and podcast Raw Talk with Nikki Gal, founder and designer of intimates line, Gal Intimates, as well as founder of photography/film company, Shots By Gal. Nikki Gal as well as her works have appeared in Cosmopolitan, People Magazine, Page Six, as well as television program, Good Morning America. Gal’s mission is to encourage all women that they are capable of every dream they put their mind to and to never limit themselves- anything is possible. 

Instagram: @seethrunikki 

seethrunikki.com

rawtalkwithnikkigal.com

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Transcript

Shelby:

Hi everyone welcome back to another episode of small steps to self love. I'm Shelby Leigh, a mental health writer. Today we have Nikki Gal with us. She's a former fashion model, entrepreneur, and mental health advocate, and reading through some of her bio and some of the things that she does, it seems like we have a lot in common so I'm really excited for this conversation about just career paths and things like that that really matter a lot to me, so I'm really excited to hear your perspective. But I love to just pass it over to you to tell us a little bit more about you and what you do.

Nikki:

Hi Shelby. I'm so excited to be on your show. Again I look up to you and your platform so much I think you're incredible and this platforms incredible, so such an honor for me to be on your show. So a little bit more about me my name is Nikki gal. I'm a former model. I'm a digital artist and founder of companies. I'm a mental health advocate alongside my nonprofit platform Raw Talk with Nikki Gal, which is a mental health advocacy platform I created for women. I also dabble in fashion design as well as visual branding and content consulting as well so I'm keeping busy and I'm just living my best life.

Shelby:

I love that. I also do a million and one things so I relate to the busyness of that. So you're a former model. Can you talk a little bit about the decision to leave the modeling industry? Was this something that was like a dream job for you and it didn't work out? I'm really curious about that decision to leave that that role. 

Nikki:

I get this question a lot, it's like $1,000,000 question and people actually today they still ask me you know why aren’t you still doing it? You're still young you know, but I mean it's kind of a funny story kind of a crazy one and so I started modeling when I was 15 and so that was like roughly 10 years ago. I’m 24 now but it was something inside to pursue because again I felt like it was something happens you know I was good at it and was gonna like open doors for my career and you know my family told me something that I was you know modeling was meant for me. And it was just something I had a passion for but after a while being that industry yeah it was it was an interesting situation because again I feel like we do something so much all at once, you can slowly become uninspired and that was something that I felt a lot of and I don't really like to use that word uninspired. I don't think anybody likes that word. It's not a good word and it's very upsetting word so you know being uninspired so you know in that industry you know that was really the main reason why I decided to leave but another reason was I was so limited career wise. I couldn't really do much outside of the modeling just because it was so you know mentally and physically time-consuming and there wasn't really any other doors open outside the industry. So I feel like I really had to put on the brakes and we navigate um so ultimately I feel like leaving was a hard decision but it was definitely necessary one I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today if you know I didn't leave. And not really having any opportunities of what i've done now and but yeah I mean I think I think limiting yourself as well and that's why a lot in my own career you know, when I was modeling it was it was the limit the limit the limit. You know you can never limit yourself. You can never you know just categorize yourself as one thing or one career. You know you have to keep your mind open and and really understand that so that's really what I did with my career and let's you know why I left. And I had a great career you know don't get me wrong I had amazing opportunities and people but I had to move on for the better of my mental health and my well-being.

Shelby:

So for those listening who might be considering leaving their job or switching careers, how did you know when it was time and how did you kind of make that decision to leave? Were you scared? What was that feeling like?

Nikki:

I was just tired of feeling tired. I'm doing the same thing every day and when you do the same thing everyday and you do the same routine every day again it gets very tiresome and again you get very I mean really bored, and I was kind of feeling so limited you know. I feel like that could be with any job you can feel limited you know safe passionate or something you're not really making any time for it. That was kind of like what it was with me, I mean I you know when I was young I was an artist you know, I love drawing but unfortunately I was modeling, I totally neglected it and I never did it, so yeah give up one passion for another but it was against my well-being. But yeah I wouldn't really say I was scared in that moment I would say it was more so just really upset and and again very limited and I felt like I was just kind in this box of just you know people telling me what to do and I wasn't really doing anything for myself. So it was really deciding what I wanted for myself and again deciding what I wanted for my future.

Shelby:

Yeah I love that. I was similar and I think that it's so important and amazing that you recognized this early on 'cause I was, I was similar a few years into my career and what I thought I wanted my career to be, but I always was writing and had published some books and that's what I wanted to pursue full time, and so yeah making that decision to leave that and change careers and really pursue what I wanted to pursue. Because it's hard whenever you're so busy with your other job, you're feeling maybe uninspired or just taking a toll on your mental health and then you don't have that energy to pursue the other things that you wanna pursue right?

Nikki:

It's really tough spot to be in for sure yeah for sure and a lot of us don't know it either what I was just saying, you know something happened and we're gonna you know get somewhere, but yeah you really have to trust your gut. I think that's my biggest you know advice is just trust your gut and it will guide you in the right direction.

Shelby:

Absolutely yeah definitely, that's so important. How did that transition affect your mental health? Did you notice the benefits right away?

Nikki:

Good question. No actually I didn't really notice right away because I keep in mind I was so sad when I left. That was what I wanted my whole life you know that was that was a huge dream of mine and just giving up on it was was pretty difficult for me. I mean again I just kind of left, I didn't really look back on it, I just closed that chapter immediately and I moved on. That was difficult to do again when you have that goal or that free in your front moving on that train your final moving on that goal and then you just have to leave it all behind you kind of go into like the zone of all my gosh what I'm gonna do now? What's my next move? I invest all those times one thing but what else I'm gonna do now? But you kind of worry yourself and where you know really just everything just kind of comes crashing down all at once so it's more so for awhile i've kind of just one emerging now because I don't really have anything to fall back on. When I'm talking with a lot of models as well there's there's other models that I know personally that they've had the same struggle of they’ve invested their whole life in that career but they don't have anything else waiting outside for them and that's more So what happened to me. I didn't really have anything else to fall back on so yeah mentally it was it was a lot because I had to really again takes some time and really you know understand what my real passions were. We all reinvent ourselves at one point part of being a woman yeah that's that's exactly what I did I had to kind of take some time off, and there was a Good year or so where I just was like what the heck am I gonna do you know and but that was taking that needed time for my mental health and to really just heal from that and really just also heal. But also you know I think healing and reinventing is great but you have to have that fluid energy you can't just do it you know what I mean you have to really manifest it in for it to really happen.

Shelby:

Yeah interesting interesting. Talk to me about that manifestation, how you practice that and how you kind of seen it work for you.

Nikki:

Yeah manifestation is a tricky thing. It’s a double edged sword. It's a it's a tricky process. I think also hearing stories to my friends you know I think you have a goal that you really wanna accomplish um for example you know right when I left modeling I knew that I wanted to become you know do something the entrepreneurial world. I knew I wanted to do something and I think along with manifestation is is really risk taking and I really had to take a risk you know. I had a dream of course selling my own artwork someday and as as we all know you know we always hear that term we know the starving artist or artists that are there. There's some talented other word you know they're always struggling their whole lives but I couldn't I'm gonna try to sell my artwork. If it fails it fails but I can at least say that I tried even if it fails, so I took that risk as well but that also again came with manifestation. And a lot of my friends were telling me you know back in that time zone they said you know with something you're really good at with something else that you wanna pursue, I wanna do my art and they said well write some stuff down. Write some goals down and really just look at it everyday and remind yourself what you want to do. If you wanna become an artist do it if you want it. Whatever you wanna do write it down and remind yourself everyday so that you won't forget about it, and that's exactly what I did and I you know honestly just stop looking at that. It's that little I had like a little notebook like my grandma gave me and I kept looking at my first art piece you know in in 2019. I wanna do that and I did it. Again I don't know when it took that risk and that kind of led me starting our company and and yeah I did a lot of the artworks. That kind of worked out for the best but at that point I had no idea what was on the other side of that but that goes along with that manifestation that risk taking yeah and it's hard to do but it's possible it's it's absolutely possible. You can never limit yourself right.

Shelby: I love that I definitely heard as a writer that same thing about like “good luck making money” or whenever I tell someone  I’m a writer it’s like OK but what else do you do? You know so it's something something that we kind of have to battle with as a creative person. Yeah that's so funny.

Small Step:

In every episode I have like a small step that I give to my listeners on their self love journey and so you just made me think of 1. So you just write down a goal for today like breaking down a goal or something that you want to achieve, and then I don't know, like one risk that you can maybe take soon? Like a small risk, small baby step to get closer to a goal that you have. I think that's a really nice small step to take today or for the week. 

So this is a self-love podcast, and I feel like we hear in like the modeling industry just like body image issues and insecurities and things like that. And I'm curious has your self-love kind of changed or improved being out of the modeling space or is that not something that really affected you? Was your self-love better at that point?

Nikki:

That's a good question. It's so much better now so much better, and a lot of people would probably think the opposite. They would probably say “oh you're not in front of the cameras anymore you don't look amazing anymore like like don't you feel weird you don't feel yourself” it's funny when I left I actually got a lot of kind of backlash for that for like well what are you gonna do now you know you don't have that spotlight anymore you don't have that you know you don't sign with anybody anymore you know. 

And a lot of models will go through that again they have transition period where they will you know in their career all together like just like I did it's it's so crazy as well because I feel like it's better to come as far as S left goes you know outside of the industry or just in general it's really it really really boils down to what you want for your life self love and since this is pretty this is something I really you know had really learned on my own it's not outer itself. Is not outer at all it's very much internal. And I think that's something that a lot of us don't understand is we just think Oh yeah you look amazing or we look like Instagram picture or something like that or whatever or the celebrity that celebrity we're gonna be like the most confident person in the world. No it's inner work. And when I was young you know 15 years old when I first  started modeling I used to believe that basically that you know I look like one of the girls in the magazines I would be the most confident girl in the world worry worry in the world and I wouldn't even 100% of peace with myself that's not true but that's not true you know when you reach that other side of things it's it's more so internally connecting with yourself and that takes I mean as you know it takes work.

It's not easy it does not come overnight it takes years and it never ends you know it's you know self love is a journey but it can also be a battle and that's OK no ones perfect no one has everything figured out no ones perfect individual you know turn on all the best versions of ourselves, but no one is. So it's important to understand that especially within the modeling industry because a lot of people look at look at those pictures of those girls or whoever and say I wanna look like that. That's my goal. That shouldn’t be your goal as far as your self-love goals. It should be any goal you know your goal should really be focusing on yourself and working on yourself and working for you know what you wanna do with your life. I mean you only live once at the end of the day you know so you really have to manifest in that so it's not so much about the outer it's about the inner. And I know it's hard to say with everything going on in social media nowadays and everything do you know everything going on you know just circle back to that 'cause that's that's the reality to me no absolutely absolutely i've definitely been there in like if I was prettier if like what this thing about I'd be so happy like that's just not how it will right after really focus on their internal happiness and appreciating ourselves for who we are and what we do have.

Shelby:

Yeah. So what are some ways that you practice self love on a regular basis? Do you have anything that you do in particular?

Nikki: absolutely and you can probably relate to this busy schedule like oh God it can attack you so much and oh gosh taking breaks you know taking those breaks, that life isn't perfect you're not a robot. You can't compete with technology you can't compete with your phone stop trying create you know take a bath take a take along with your talk or just go outside for 20 minutes or 30 minutes or however long you have you know even like making your bed in the morning or doing the morning self-care like you know skin care or something like that you know just take some kind of shooter relax you know life moves fast but life doesn't move that fast you can find time for yourself it's not mounting system but not a lot of people say well I'm too busy I can't do so you know anybody can just getting in it and you also have to prioritize it and you know not everybody will will do that but it's it's important 'cause you don't wanna you don't wanna burnout you know. Burning out it's not good for you so stop streaming get yourself back and be healthy

Shelby: 

Definitely I think that we always can say that we don't have time for it. They're always there's always something else that could be done but it's remembering that we are our number one priority or we should be top priority. You know of course we have kids and family to deal with but like we should be on the top of the list also. We should be up there and so whenever we run or running out of time for things it's kind of a shift of reprioritizing what is important and we are so important.

So I think when I we were talking about the episode, the topic of like pushing through moments where like you couldn't succeed or just like the power to control maybe your life or like what happens in your life. So I wanted to ask you about that just like what have you done in moments where you felt like maybe you would fail with your business or whatever it may be and how did you push through that or overcome that?

Nikki:

That's a good question as well. Two answers for this I feel like number one believing yourself. It's you know everyone hears that so common thing that people here believe in yourself I think support having a support system around you my family is my biggest support system my friends and even my clients are my biggest support. I'm focusing on that you know I I think is is huge and makes a huge difference in your life. I always say that you know support support support, and not beating yourself up too much I think especially in the entrepreneurial world we all wanna be you know, we all want to be at the top but then also you know overlaps with beating each other up and I don't really believe in that for remember the first time when I started my company I I didn't know what to do. I was I was like I my company was ironically in accident I I never thought I'd never do I just kind of took off and I was like OK I just make money off of it you know I just kind of this is some Renee I know at all I think this is stuck on I mean I again I'm I'm a model you know I don't that's what I do as I thought I did before I I'd imagine real life I was getting back on my add is for his career professional wise so I know professional training in business at all so I kind of had to take that without critical and say OK once turn navigate everything on my own but I never you know beginning I beat myself up for it but I I never do that anymore because it didn't get anywhere I member I wouldn't do this right or I wouldn't do that right or I wasn't you know doing this right or you know I pick I pick apart myself so much and I ended up nit picking my really my craft and and really who I was it was affecting very negatively affecting my performance as a business owner so I had to kind of you know steps back and really you know dig into my self-awareness and I had to understand that you know it's OK you may have days where mark every answer but that's OK 'cause none of us do you know nobody has the answers nobody does so it was important for me to really you know channel in that but also to not really having myself get defined by one situation you know in business I mean I I can oh gosh it's it's a lot it's like a circus at times.

There's so much going on all at once you can come and get you to not let it define you just accept it you know so I should just certain things i've learned about you know also choose this thing through who you are too I mean just being yourself I think again one day that's just my life model was just be yourself you know go out there be yourself. Just be yourself just do it you know.

Shelby:

Yeah I love that advice that's wonderful advice for really any moment in our lives whether we're going through a moment where we feel like we can't succeed or whatever it is. My last question for you because I think vulnerability is so important I know that's something that you do as well and I write a lot of vulnerable things. I share a lot of vulnerable things online so I'm curious how vulnerability has helped you on your mental health journey or your self-love journey kind of opening up about these sorts of things.

Nikki:

Transparency is is key and then you have to let you know say everything you know and and you know publicize everything out there but I think it it can be a blessing in the curse I I think if you're more private person I I think it's more you know you can get very scared of that and that's a big privacy situation some questions that founders on it but I think for me in my own personal life vulnerability and just being transparent with others has not only shown me other side of myself but it has shown me that I can relate to others and others can relate to me and that's that power that we can have for example for my podcast that podcast that I made it's all about being raw and transparent and being vulnerable and sharing those vulnerable stories that not many people wanna talk about not many people would wanna you know really here but it's that power of bringing people together you know I think again especially nowadays we seem so close together on social media right in the real life were so far apart and it's sad honestly because there's times where you know I know for a fact for me I there's been days where I felt super alone and I'm sure you have two and everyone has we've all along all kind of saying wow you know like what is this you know and you can't indent really know what's going on but I think if we can relate to somebody that maybe has gone through something similar not you know identically but similar to you it it'll kind of you know goes away and you can really feel like yourself again.

And it's that fulfillment of again being able to relate to one another but that also comes along with transparency more ability I think along with mental health especially not many people are gonna wanna talk about their mental health problems because they're afraid or they're ashamed or they're you know whatever they don't feel good about it but I I think that also comes along with you know that stigma or what what have you whatever it is but I think regardless of this Kidman and regardless of what anybody says about you or whatever or anybody for another for that fact I I think it really depends on again who you are and and really you know understanding yourself through other people you know but again that comes through being a little bit transparent and you know being being that way but yeah I mean again not everybody is you know I know a lot of people you know I asked my dear friend for example she number of years and I said you know go on the podcast and talk you know and she said to me she said no I'm scared you know I'm is different but if you can give be vulnerable and you can be transparent that's great, because you might open some doors to someone that you know you might be able to release you might feel better about yourself.

Shelby:

Yes definitely definitely that's something that I experienced as well as I opened up more. And even if you're not you know necessarily like being vulnerable on the Internet or on a podcast talk to someone close to you about what you're going through is also such an important skill and something that you know we just we need support as humans so I mean not bottling it up and being vulnerable with a friend or someone you know that you love it's really important to so that's good yeah. 

So well that's all the questions I have this was so wonderful chatting with you and where can our listeners find you?

Nikki: I love this conversation and I'm very very much appreciate you so you can find me at instagram which is @propertyofng and you can also contact me through my website rawtalkwithnikkigal.com so you can reach me for all those three platforms and yeah just reach me out there I will respond.

Shelby:

I will put all the links in the description and I'm about to be interviewed on Nikki’s podcast as well which will be out when this episode comes out so i'll put the link to my interview there so hop over there if you want to hear my interview as well it's gonna be a good one.

So thank you so much for being on the podcast this was wonderful once again and and opening up I really appreciate that. Thanks for listening everyone and have a wonderful week filled with self love and compassion and kindness. I'll talk to you next week.