I Didn’t Sign Up For This
Since becoming a military spouse, I have moved approximately every two years. The other night hubs and I were talking about just how much of our life is devoted to moving – prepping for a move, actually moving, or getting settled in a new place. In the last ten years, we’ve lived in seven homes. That’s a LOT of hours devoted to a hobby that is almost entirely outside of my control.
I’ve often had the thought: “I didn’t sign up for this.”
It can sometimes feel impossible to build a life we love when so many circumstances are outside our control and so many decisions are made in the best interests of someone else’s career or the needs of the military.
When Life Isn’t Aligned
Today I’m exploring the question, “What do you do when the life you lead doesn’t look like the life you want?”
While this question pertains to just about everyone on the planet, there are unique challenges that come with trying to balance the demands of military life with pursuing your own dreams and passions.
Unfortunately, too often military spouses sacrifice our own dreams and passions, and in so doing, lose sight of who we are and what we have to offer. We settle for becoming a shadow of who we are meant to be…and we struggle with anxiety, stress, and a sense of purposelessness.
It can be tempting to just put our desires and dreams on hold until some unknown future date. We tell ourselves, “Once we stop moving, once he stops deploying, once he gets out…then I’ll be able to build a life I love.” We start believing that life is better on the other side. If we can just hold out long enough, building a life we love will be possible.
But here’s the problem.
We were made to embrace life fully and abundantly now; not spend our days waiting for the right circumstances or season.
Taking Ownership of Our Lives
As we discussed in the last post, emotional agility is the process of unhooking ourselves from unhelpful thoughts, feelings and patterns and aligning our everyday actions with our long-term values and aspirations. It involves us showing up, stepping out and taking agency of our lives.
Emotional agility is built on the work of Victor Frankl, who advocated the idea that forces beyond our control can take away everything we possess EXCEPT our freedom to choose how we respond to a given situation. We talked about Frankl’s work back in this post.
As a military spouse, I have little say over where we live, how long we stay, or how much my spouse is around. I want hubs to pursue the jobs and opportunities that fuel and fill him with life and allow him to make an impact in the lives of others.
I also want those same things for myself. Sometimes those two desires work in tandem. But at other times, it can feel like my dreams and desires take a back seat to the needs of military.
I can craft a negative story in my head based on this feeling. Or I can recognize this feeling as unhelpful and choose a better response to my circumstances. I can recognize that I may not have the life I dreamed of in my early 20s. But that does not mean I have to place all my dreams, desires and goals on hold.
I still have ownership of my choices and my life. I can still live a rich, fulfilling and impactful life. I don’t have to wait for tomorrow to chase my dreams. I can still build a life I love.
Learning to Thrive
As Susan David writes in Emotional Agility, “Immediate gratification makes us feel good a lot faster than tiny tweaks and disciplined, steady work that can actually get us to higher ground. We will continue to self-sabotage until we unhook from the flight to the familiar and find the agility to show up, step out and take agency of our own lives. That’s how we’re able to continuously embrace the challenges that allow us to thrive.”
So how do we pursue a rich and satisfying life, despite our external circumstances? Here are seven action steps to help us move from where we are today towards a life we love:
1. Show Up
The starting point to a life of greater purpose is showing up with curiosity, courage and self-compassion. We must be honest about what we are feeling/thinking and what is right now. We cannot change ourselves or our response to our circumstances until we show up and accept what is right now.
Sometimes showing up means simply acknowledging the pain or disappointment we feel. Sometimes it means not holding our failures and our shortcomings against ourselves. Acknowledging our feelings is what allows us to create distance between ourselves and our emotions.
What story about your life are you currently believing? What thoughts/feelings are guiding that belief?
2. Step Out
Once we are aware of what we feel, we then have the space to step out and create distance between our thoughts and ourselves. We can’t control what we feel; but we can control what we do with those feelings.
There is power in facing our emotions head on, rather than trying to bury them or run from them. Sometimes we think that living a joyful life involves denying our negative emotions or just trying to “think more positively” about a situation or life event. Denying our pain doesn’t work. Chasing after a state of happiness doesn’t work either. In fact, it can be just as self-defeating as bottling our emotions.
So-called negative emotions exist to guide us and give us insight into our lives. These emotions can help improve our memory, encourage perseverance, make us more attentive, encourage generosity, and make us less prone to confirmation bias.
If you’ve never seen Disney’s animated movie, Inside Out, I highly recommend watching it. (Unless, of course, you are pregnant. I can’t handle pregnancy hormones and watching that movie). They do a great job of illustrating how emotions like anger, fear and sadness actually enrich our lives.
These so-called “negative” emotions can shine a light on what we value and what we struggle with. We can actually use these emotions to help move us to a life of greater purpose, if we are willing to lean into the discomfort of our emotions.
What are my feelings telling me about myself? Is there a more productive way to deal with my emotions?
3. Examine What is Important
Once we step out and create distance between ourselves and our feelings, we then have the freedom to choose a different response – a response that more closely aligns with who we want to be and what we value.
But in order to choose better responses and live a more intentional, purpose-fueled life, we first need to know what we value. We need to examine what is important to us and what truly motivates us.
Fulfillment and flourishing do not come from what others say we should be doing. They come from aligning more of what we do, minute to minute, with our deepest values.
It is easy to waste so much of our life, because many of us have never taken the time to know what we value and how we can best use our skills and abilities to make a meaningful contribution.
Our values can and should inform every decision that we make. Knowing our values helps guide us to make our greatest and most fulfilling contributions. It also frees us from getting caught up in comparison traps. “Look at what so-and-so over there is doing.”
When we are clear on our values and priorities, and when we seek to live each day according to those values, it doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing. We have the freedom to know that we are making the most of each day that we are given. It’s a huge weight off our shoulders.
What are your deepest values? What are you passionate about? What are your most important priorities? Do they influence the way you live your life?
4. Know How You Want to Show Up
The ultimate litmus test for any action should be this: Is it going to get me closer to being the person I want to be?
Susan David
I find it curious that, at least in the United States, the most common question that gets ask when we first meet someone is, “What do you do?” As a culture, we place a lot of emphasis on ways that people monetarily contribute to society.
When I first became an accidental stay at home mom, this was hard. My identity had always been “student, marketing strategist, business owner, etc.” The shift to identifying “just as a mom” was difficult.
I completely understand why some men and women choose to be stay at home parents. But because it was not something I intentionally pursued, I felt a little like my identity had been stolen from me.
The journey to find myself again began not with monetary contribution, but by exploring how I could use my passions, skills and experiences to help others, regardless of my employment status.
My contribution is not simply what I do, but who I am and how I choose to show up each and every day.
It’s about being, not doing.
Think about the type of person you want to be. How do you want to show up for yourself, your family, those you are in community with, and the world at large? Who do you want to be?
5. Start Tweaking
No, not twerking. Tweaking.
My guess is, if you’ve read this far, chances are your life doesn’t look exactly the way you want it to. And if you’ve taken the time to spell out your values and goals for how you want to show up, you’ve realized that there are a lot of opportunities for improvement.
Building a life we love begins by taking small action steps that move us closer to the life we want to lead. It begins with intentional thought and action.
If you want your life to look different than it does today, you must take action. Tweaking your life is about exploring what works for you…and what doesn’t. As you pay attention, you’ll learn more about what you love, what you value and the contributions that matter most to you. The goal is to find ways to make your life more engaging and fulfilling.
So often we get so focused on the big things, that we fail to be faithful in the little things. Transformation occurs when we choose to spend our time, energy and resources on the things that matter to us.
What is one thing you can do TODAY that moves you toward the person you want to be?
Maybe it’s checking in with a friend. Maybe it’s listening to a new podcast. Maybe it’s picking up a book to read. Or taking someone a meal. Maybe it’s filling out that application. Or signing up for a committee. Or maybe it is putting that load of laundry in the washing machine.
What small tweaks can you make to your life right now that will lead you to a more purposeful and fulfilling life?
6. Gain New Perspectives, Knowledge & Skills
Small tweaks aren’t the only changes you can make. Once you know what you value and what kind of impact you want to have, it’s time to figure out how to more effectively align what lights your heart on fire with what you do every day. This is how you build a life you love.
As you learn more about yourself, you’ll gain more clarity to pursue the knowledge, skills and connections that make life more meaningful.
What additional skills, expertise or connections do you need to develop? Do you need to invest in additional training? Go back to school? Volunteer for a specific organization? Start researching how you want to bring your skills to life. Then begin acquiring the knowledge and skills you need to turn your dreams into plans and your plans into action steps.
What additional skills, expertise or connections do you need to develop?
7. Own Your Everyday
You were made with and for a purpose. That purpose is already inside of you, regardless of your current circumstances, struggles or shortcomings. That big dream you have may not happen in this season, but every day is still an opportunity to show up, to connect, and to contribute.
Focus on what opportunities you currently have, right where you are.
Ask yourself, “How can I live out of who I already am?” You have the ability to positively impact someone else right where you are at, simply by showing up and being yourself.
Be faithful where you are, with what you have right now. Show up for your story, your life, even in the messy middle. Focus on progress, not perfection. Life will always be filled with bumps, unexpected curves and circumstances outside of our control. That’s part of the journey.
As author Jordan Lee Dooley writes, “You can’t make your story go faster. But you can decide if you’ll show up and live your story, even when it doesn’t go according to plan.”
A life you love may not happen today, tomorrow, next week or even next year. But over time, as we choose the big and small steps that align more closely with what we value, we will find ourselves living with greater joy, purpose and impact.
We may find that our original dreams have shifted. We may find that some doors have closed and new doors have opened. And that’s okay. Because the most important part of building a life we love is not what we do. It is how we do it and how we embrace the journey.
Whatever you do, make the most, every day, of what you have right now.
