It can be so tempting to just put our desires and our dreams on hold until some unknown future date. But then we wind up frustrated, restless. We tell ourselves that once we stop moving, once he stops deploying, once my kids are this certain age, then I’ll be able to build a life I love, but we have the choice to start living the life we love right now.

So today we’re going to dive into this topic. What we do when life doesn’t look the way we want it to, how do we handle it? How do we show up and how can we move from where we are today to building a life we actually left. So today we’re going to talk about a seven step process that will lead us from the life that we currently live to a life that we love a life that is filled with purpose, with joy. With showing up every day as our best selves and making an impact of having a vibrant, healthy relationship with ourself, with others and with the world around them.

Regardless of what our circumstances look like now, I realize for most of us, we may not be living the life we want to live and that’s okay.There’s nothing wrong with accepting that fact, but we’re going to walk through this seven step process. That’s going to help us get on the journey towards building a life we love regardless of our circumstance. It can be so tempting to just put our desires and our dreams on hold until some unknown future date.

But then we wind up frustrated, restless. We tell ourselves that once we stop moving, once he stops deploying, once my kids are this certain age, then I’ll be able to build a life I love. And we start believing that life is better on the other side. That grass is always greener on the other side, that if we just wait, life will be better. But we have the choice to start living the life we love right now.

We don’t want to settle for becoming a shadow of who we are meant to be. We don’t want to struggle less with anxiety and with stress and with the feeling of purposeless. We were made to embrace life fully and abundantly right now. So I want to dive real quick into this concept of emotional agility. It’s the process of unhooking ourselves from unhelpful feeling and patterns and aligning our everyday actions with our long-term values and aspirations.

Now I know that I just said a mouthful, [00:04:00] but basically it involves us showing up, stepping out and taking ownership of our lives. This idea of emotional agility is built on the work of Viktor Frankl. You’ve heard me mention him before who put forth the idea that forces beyond our control can take away everything except our freedom to choose our response to a situation. We have little say in where we live, how long we stay somewhere, or how much our spouse is around. I want my spouse to pursue the jobs and opportunities that fuel and fill him with life and allow him to make an impact.

But sometimes that conflicts with doing those same things for myself. Sometimes those two desires work in tandem. And at other times it can feel like my dreams and my desires have to take a back seat to the needs of the military. Now I have a choice in this situation. I can craft a negative story in my head, [00:05:00] or I can recognize that this feeling is ultimately unhelpful and I can choose a better response.

I may not have the life I dreamed of in my twenties, but that’s okay. That doesn’t mean I need to place all my dreams, my desires and my goals on hold. Maybe something even better is waiting for me. If I will take ownership as my choices in my life, I can still live a rich, fulfilling and impactful life. I don’t have to wait for tomorrow to chase my dreams.

So how do we pursue this satisfying life despite our circumstances? Here are seven action steps that we can take to move us towards building a life we love today. The first of these steps is to show up the starting point to a life of impact is showing up with curiosity, with courage and with self-compassion.[00:06:00]

We have to start by being honest about what we think and what we feel, this kind of toxic, I’m just going to be happy and I’m in it. Grin and bear. It is not ultimately helpful. We cannot change ourselves or our circumstances until we accept what is right now, sometimes that means just acknowledging that we feel pain or disappointment or less, maybe it means not holding something against ourselves.

It’s okay to have these feelings, but the feeling does not control our response. So I’d like you to take just a moment to reflect on your feelings. Is there something about your life that you’re holding on to that you feel frustrated by or bitter about acknowledge that feeling? That’s the first [00:07:00] step, accept what is.

Our second step is to step out and create distance from that feeling. There’s a line between, this is a feeling, this is not me. This is simply a feeling that I’m having. We can’t control what we feel. But we can control what we do with those feelings. There’s power in facing our emotions head on, rather than trying to bury them or run from them or let them fester inside.

Sometimes, I think we think that joyful living just means denying our negative emotions or trying to think more positively about the situation. We can’t deny that pain. And we can’t chase after. That’s almost as bad as just bottling our emotions. The negative emotions that we feel are actually there to help us and guide us and give us insight into our [00:08:00] lives.

If we stop to examine them without acting on them. Those things are going to give us clues to what it is that is actually bothering us, what it is that actually lights us up, what it is that we actually want out of life. These negative emotions studies have shown can improve our memory and courage.

Perseverance, make us more attentive, encourage generosity, and make us less prone to confirmation. If you’ve ever watched the Disney movie inside out, you can see this picture played out. There is joy. There is the feeling of sadness. There is fear and there is anger . All of these feelings work inside of our brains to help move us towards a life of greater purpose and joy.

If we are [00:09:00] willing to lean into the discomfort of our emotions, the negative emotions inside of us can actually enrich our lives. So what feelings do you have? Can you step back from those feelings and then explore what those feelings tell you about yourself? And is there a more productive way to deal with those things?

So now that we’ve explored and accepted what is now, we need to take some time for step three, to examine what is important to us. We 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 do that, we have to first know who we want to be and what we actually value.

What truly motivates us and how can we align what we do every day to [00:10:00] bring us closer to that? Confusion is the enemy of clarity. We waste so much of our life just getting by. Or just simply existing through the day, because many of us do not take the time to reflect and evaluate and explore what it is that we value and how we can use our skills and abilities to make the most of our life.

Our values should inform. Every decision that we make, knowing what our values are, helps guide us to make the contributions that matter most. And it frees us up from getting caught in comparison to. Look at what so-and-so’s is doing over there, or look at what so-and-so’s life looks like on Instagram.

When we are clear on our values and our priorities, and we seek to live each day, according to those values, it [00:11:00] doesn’t matter what anyone else else’s. We have the freedom to know that we are making the most of each day that we have, it’s a huge weight off our shoulders. So fulfillment, it does not come from what someone else says you should be doing from what is seen as making an impact.

The fulfillment comes when you align more of what you do minute by minute with your deepest values. It doesn’t necessarily equate to how much time you spend on something, because you may be working at a job that doesn’t align with that. Or you may be spending most of your time at home with kids, but it’s about how you choose in the mundane of whatever it is you’re doing to align more of that with your values and incorporate your values and what you do.

So, for example, I don’t love doing dishes. I don’t love doing laundry. They’re actually pretty low on my priority list, but I want to equate what I do with a Y and with my values. I know that my husband appreciates having clean clothes. I’m not sure if my kids do at this point, but I know my husband does, and I know that my family appreciates having food to eat and because I value my relationship with my family and because I value a clean and organized home, because I know that that’s going to contribute to me, being able to make more of an impact, especially working from home. If my home is organized, then I perform much better. If my home is a place of chaos and disorganization, then my mind is pulled in so many different drugs.

It makes a difference when we can connect [00:13:00] or what we do with a why and with our values. Last night, I was reading a book. It was talking about the concept of not changing what you do in a day, but simply showing up for it in a different way. How can I make what I do on a day to day basis? More pleasure.

Maybe it means turning on some music while you’re cooking dinner or listening to a podcast while you’re folding laundry. It’s those little tweaks and those little shifts in a day. That can make a huge difference in the way that we live our lives. It’s not about a big change. It’s about aligning what we do with our values, figuring out what we’re passionate about, and then connecting the, what we do with that why.

And making little shifts right now. Now you may be asking Christine, I get what you’re saying about aligning [00:14:00] your life with your values, but I’m just trying to survive. How do I actually do that? Well, what I’m going to do is put together a values worksheet for you, and that will be in the show notes or on our website.

You can download that sheet and it will give you specific questions that you can begin thinking through to help detect. What your highest priorities and your values are. And then think about how you can make little tweaks in your daily life to align your actions with your values. Now beyond just making little tweaks, knowing our values is important because it gives us a filter for decisions.

The best example that I have for this is after my third daughter was born. She was only about two months old. I got a job offer. It was a job offer that I had been wanting for a while. [00:15:00] I thought that getting a GS position was going to solve all of my problems because it allowed me to build a career that I could take with me when we moved.

I actually received two job offers at the same time. One was for a position that I’d been wanting. The second was working part-time from home. And I really had to sit down and think about which job do I want, which job is going to work for our family with a three-year-old, one-year-old, and newborn, and a husband who is about to start a very time-intensive position.

And so what I did was look at my list of values, my goals, and what our family’s needs were. And I ultimately came to the conclusion that while the GS position was something that I [00:16:00] wanted and had wanted for a long time, it wasn’t the right time for our family. And it did not align as closely with my values as the part-time working from home position.

Had I not taken the time to sketch out my goals, my values, my priorities, I might’ve come to a different conclusion. But knowing what I wanted and what I valued gave me that filter that helps me make the best decision for our family.

If you aren’t familiar with what a GS position is, it’s a federal job. GS stands for a general schedule. And one of the benefits to getting in the GS system is that you can stay in the system and apply for jobs and keep your current pay grade or move up a grade when you move to a new location. And if you’re a military spouse, You can apply for spouse preference, which helps you [00:17:00] get a job with whatever federal government agencies are in your local area.

But in going through this process, I realized that for our family and the season that we were in and what I wanted to ultimately do and what I was passionate about, taking a full-time GS position was going to keep me from doing some of those things that I was more passionate about. So it was still a great job.

And I’m sure I would’ve learned a ton through that experience, but every day, Every decision we have the option to align more of what we do with the things that ultimately use our passions, our skills, and our knowledge to make a difference and ultimately become the person that we are meant to be. Step four is how we put these values into action.

We have to [00:18:00] know how we want to show up. Is this going to get me closer to the person that I want to be? We talked about this in episode three, but I find it curious that the most common question that gets asked when we first meet someone new is what do you do? We placed a lot of emphasis in our culture on the ways that people monetarily contribute in society or.

We say, oh, and just stay at home mom as if it’s a less than. When I first became an accidental stay at home mom, this was really hard because my identity was so tied up in, well, I’m a student, I’m a marketing strategist. I’m a business owner. That shift to, well, I’m just a mom was difficult. And even when we talk about figuring out what you do and how you can pursue purpose, it’s easy to get caught in that trap [00:19:00] of identifying with a particular thing that you do instead of starting with who we are.

Yeah. What you do, and following your purpose may lead to monetary contribution. But I think we get so off track when we start with, okay, how can I make money. Because what we really need more than that is to know how we’re meant to show up. More than making a monetary contribution. How can we use our passions, our skills, and our experiences to help others, regardless of whether we get paid for it.

Now, I’m not saying you should give your services away and not expect compensation. But we can’t start with that as the end goal, because our contribution is more [00:20:00] than what we do. It’s who we are. And we, when we focus on that, Then the monetary contribution can come later. But when we start with the focus on how do I make money doing this, it’s going to lead us off track and not get us where we ultimately want to go.

It’s not about doing it’s about how we show up each and every day. So take some time. I know. I keep saying, take some time to think about this, but I have to say. Even finding an hour or two of reflection is going to make a huge impact in your life. And I know this is challenging, especially when we have, if you have young kids at home, because it feels like there is zero time for you and some moments of self-care.

I think the easiest thing to do is to. Get an hour and say, well, I’m going to use this to go do something for [00:21:00] myself. But honestly, I think one of the best things that we can do for ourselves is fight away just to get some space, to reflect and clear ahead and ask ourselves some questions that is going to help you far more than whether you got.

Your nails done. I know some people are probably going to be like, but I just want to get a pedicure. And I understand it’s actually been almost nine months since I got my last pedi care. Something that I thought I would just always do is something that I haven’t done in quite some time. But I feel like I get so much more value from.

Going and sitting by myself for an hour than I do from keeping up with what we would consider self-care regimen. Okay. And let’s say that we have taken the time to examine our emotions, to create some space from those emotions and figure out what those emotions are trying to tell [00:22:00] us. We’ve looked at what we value and how we want to show up.

No. The next step, step five is to start tweaking. No, it’s not to do some big, crazy change. Some big leap. This idea of, Hey, we know something is off and something needs to change, but it’s not going to be this massive shift over night. It’s building a bridge rather than a leap off a cliff. My guess is if you’ve stayed with me this long, your life doesn’t look the way you want it to.

That’s why you’re listening to this episode. And that’s why. You know that something needs to shift, but moving towards this life, we love begins with small, tiny action steps that move us closer to the life we want to leave. It begins with intentional thought and action. If you want [00:23:00] your life to look different than it does today, you have to take action.

You have to make a change. It’s about exploring what works for you and what doesn’t. Because you might take a step and realize, Hey, that doesn’t light me up in the way that I thought it did. The goal is defined little ways to reconfigure your life, to make it more engaging and more fulfilling. As you pay attention, you’ll learn more about what it is you love what you value and what contributions matter most to you.

So often we get so focused on this big thing. And we fail to be faithful in the little things. In episode four, I talked about habit change and about how, if we want to make change that lasts, it happens when we take small incremental steps of action. I was actually convicted when I relisten listened to this [00:24:00] episode after I recorded it because.

My health and fitness is not where I want them to be, but I, I keep going back to this idea that I need to figure out exactly what I’m going to do, and then make this huge shift in how I eat and how many times a week I work out and I realized. That’s great. And I can sustain that for a few weeks, but if I really want to change my approach to health and fitness, I need to start with deliberate decisions about what I snack on or what I eat for a particular meal, rather than making this huge life change and altering everything we do.

Now I want to say that when we start tweaking, it’s not always going to be comfortable because growth happens when we are willing to get uncomfortable. Think about what small tweaks that you can make [00:25:00] to your life right now that will lead you towards a life of purpose and joy. What is one thing you can do today that moves you towards the person you will.

Maybe it’s just checking in with a friend and seeing how they’re doing. Maybe it’s checking out a new podcast or picking up a book to read. Maybe you feel like, Hey, I need to reach out and take someone a meal. Maybe there’s a job that you’ve been thinking about. And you just need to fill out that application.

Maybe you’ve been thinking about serving on a committee and you need to take that step to reach out and find out how you can help and serve, or maybe it’s just, you know, you need to get up and put that load of laundry in the washing machine. What small tweak can you make right now? That’s going to lead you toward a more abundant and fulfilling life.

[00:26:00] Now, step number six, this is where we gain new perspective. Knowledge and skills. So we’re making these small tweaks that lead us towards who we want to be and how we want to show up that align our actions with our values and allow us to make an impact. And as we learn more about ourselves, we will gain more clarity on what knowledge.

And skills and connections that we’re lacking that we need to keep moving in that right direction. For example, when I came up with this idea of starting a podcast, I didn’t know how to start a podcast. I didn’t know the first thing about podcasting other than I see people’s podcasts pop up in my iTunes podcasts.

So I invested in gaining additional skills and knowledge and the connections that I needed to learn how to start a podcast. What is it for you? [00:27:00] Maybe it’s going back to school or maybe it’s volunteering with that specific organization so you can learn how they operate. Maybe it’s buying a course on a topic or just reading a book.

Maybe it’s just talking with a friend. Start researching how you want to bring your skills to life and then start acquiring the knowledge and skills that you’re going to need to turn your dreams into plans and your plans into action. And then finally, step number seven to lead us to the life we love is to own your everyday.

You were made with informed purpose and that purpose is already inside of you, regardless of your circumstances, your struggles or your shortcomings, that big dream you have may not happen in this season or for a very long time. But every day is still an opportunity to show [00:28:00] up, to connect and to continue.

What do you have, right? Where you are, how can you live out of who you already are? You have the ability to positively impact someone else, right? Where you’re at simply by showing up and being yourself, be faithful, where you are right now with what you have show up for your story, your life, even in the messy.

You are gonna face so many struggles and self doubts, but my encouragement to you is to keep showing up, to keep focusing on progress. Not perfection, not goal attainment. Life is always going to be a filled with bumps and curves and circumstances outside of our control. That is the journey of life, the life you want.

May not happen today tomorrow, next week, or even [00:29:00] next year. But over time when we choose the big and small steps that align more closely with what you value, we will find that we are living with greater joy, purpose and impact. Our original dreams may shift doors may close, but new doors may open. The most important part of building a life we love is not what we do, but how we do it and how we’ve embraced the journey.

We can’t make our story go faster. We can’t make our circumstances change, but we can decide to show up and live our story. Even when it doesn’t go according to plan. Whatever you do, make the most, every day, of what you have right now.

Now, [00:30:00] before you go, don’t forget, there is the values worksheet that is available on our website or through the show notes below.

Take time to download this sheet and take some time this week to think through what your values actually are and how you can align your everyday. With those values. I pray that you have a wonderful week, that you find more clarity than you ever have before, and that you live filled, fueled, and full of joy.