Hey friends. We are over here celebrating launch week of the Milspouse purpose playbook, and I am dropping episodes every single day this week. So today I thought I want to do something that’s really quick, really tangible. It is going to give you an actionable result that you can implement immediately.

[00:00:20] And so for today’s quick tip Thursday, the question I am answering is, how do I find time for myself as a busy military spouse with young kiddos? I’ve been there. I know how tough that is. And I really want to spend just a few minutes unpacking this question with you here.

[00:01:36] Okay. So the question is, how do I find time for myself? Because we know that when we are empty and we have nothing to offer, no one gets the best of us. And we find ourselves snapping at our spouses or yelling at our kiddos. And we don’t even like what’s coming out of our mouth sometimes.

[00:01:59] Life gets busy. Sometimes it can seem like there’s just not an exit strategy. How do we prioritize and intentionally carve out time for ourselves, for things that actually fill us up? And that’s what we’re talking about on today’s show.

[00:02:26] This episode is going to be short and sweet because I know that while my goal is to provide you with actionable, helpful content all week. That doesn’t mean you have a lot of extra time to listen to podcasts, right? There’s only so many hours in a week and I want to be a good steward of your time. So let’s dive into this concept of finding time for ourselves, especially if we are busy military spouses.

[00:02:50] And especially if we have young kiddos at home. The younger they are, the more they need you. I know how true this is because last week, my youngest, who is two, was sick and she needed a lot of time and attention. And it felt like the amount of time I was spending cuddling her, helping her, giving her things that would make her comfortable. I just did not get anything done. And then this week, my oldest, who is six, was sick.

[00:03:13] And somehow I still managed to get most of my stuff done, because even though she was sick, she was able to spend so much more time entertaining herself. So the age of your kids, if you have kids, is going to be a big factor in this. But I’ve been there. I know how crazy busy life can get, how hard it can be to find time for yourself.

[00:03:34] I had three kids in just under four years. At the time, my husband had a very time-intensive job where he was rarely home before the kids bedtimes. And so I know how hard this can be. What I want to talk about is this concept of finding time for myself. Me time.

[00:04:00] We feel like everyone out there is telling us, well, you need to take care of yourself. You need to practice self-care, you need to prioritize taking care of yourself. And the question is, well, how do I find time? Maybe your spouse is deployed, and you are solo parenting right now. How do you find time for yourself?

[00:04:18] I think the question we get stuck in is, where do I find the time for myself? So I want to offer you a new suggestion. Before we talk about where we find the time or how we find the time we first need to ask the question, why.

Why do we want that time for ourselves? Well, when we start to think about why we need that time, it comes down to things like being able to show up as our best selves, to be able to live filled, fueled, and full of joy.

[00:04:54] Because when we’re drained, we know that no one gets the best of us. But I think what happens is we get this concept confused with the concept of self-care. This term self-care gets thrown around a lot. But what does it really mean to care for ourselves? Is it just time away from our kids and our friends?

[00:05:19] Is it bubble bath? Is it girls’ night out? What is self-care? Well, for the longest time, I thought that self-care was doing the things that made me look and feel put together. The trips to the nail salon or the hair salon or the spa, or going shopping, or girl’s nights out. All of those things are great and they have their place.

[00:05:42] But when we are short on time, and most of us probably are, then we have to be able to prioritize what matters most and what gives us the result that we’re actually looking for. And what I realized in my own life is that so many of those things didn’t actually fill me and fuel me. Yes. They contributed to my self-confidence because I looked better.

[00:06:06] I could spend four hours at the hair salon getting my hair done. And yes, that was technically time for myself, but I still left there feeling just as stressed and anxious over everything that needed to get done. I was just as overwhelmed as before. It didn’t help fuel and fill me with life.

[00:06:32] Or I could go out on a girl’s night. And sometimes that left me feeling filled, fueled, and full of joy. Sometimes that helped me show up better for myself and for my family. But sometimes that just left me feeling more exhausted and tired and drained and frustrated with the way my life looked. So what I want to say is that it matters less what we do, and more about the result.

[00:06:58] What the outcome of that activity is. And how does that make us feel? What the specific activity is will be different for each of us. When I think about my life, what are the things that really fuel me and fill me with joy? What helps me show up as my best self for myself, for my family and for those around me?

[00:07:20] For me, that’s having that daily quiet time and morning routine. It’s getting up early before my kids. It’s taking time to rest each week. It’s making sure I have time blocked out on my schedule each week that I am not going to do anything.

I still have young kids, which means that they have naptime or, they’re not all sleeping anymore, but we tell them every Sunday afternoon, this is rest time.

[00:07:50] You have to go find an activity to do, quietly by yourself, if you’re not going to take a nap . Because our entire family is going to take time to rest. So it’s a matter of looking at your week and saying, where can I find time to do nothing, or to do things that fuel and fill me?

[00:08:13] Sometimes the best thing I can do for myself is not to go to the hair salon, to not go out with friends. It’s simply to have an hour to go down to the beach and just be alone and journal on my thoughts and unpack everything that’s going on in my brain. And once I get it all out on paper and get out all of the thoughts that are in my head, I call it my monkey brain, where there’s so many thoughts that get jumbled up.

[00:08:38] Until I have time to process those thoughts, life just gets more and more stressful and crazy. But having just an hour to stare at the ocean and to journal does so much for my soul. Now, I realize that most of us don’t live 15 minutes away from the beach. We can’t just drive down to the ocean and have it restore our soul.

[00:09:01] And, for some of you, the ocean will not do it for you. Before we moved to this island, my go-to place was getting away and going to a coffee shop by myself. I would go sit there and journal and process the thoughts inside of my head. That’s not always a consistent thing. It doesn’t necessarily happen every week or even every month.

[00:09:26] I am continually looking for those opportunities to be able to get away and to unpack my thoughts and to have that quiet space for assessment and for reflection. And it is those things more than anything else that really fuel me and fill me with life. So I have to ask the question. Am I using the time I do have wisely?

[00:09:53] Am I using it for things that fuel and fill me with life? What matters most in this season? If your spouse is deployed, if you’re getting ready or in the middle of a PCS, if you have young kids, you have to prioritize what matters most in the season.

[00:10:24] How can I regularly care for my mind, my body, and my spirit, so that I live with peace and purpose in life, rather than living in a state of overwhelm? No matter how good or bad I look and feel, am I doing the things that care for my soul? Now I explained how we really create a schedule, how we add more of these rhythms of rest, restoration, and how we establish a set of core needs that help us continue to live filled, fueled, and full of joy.

[00:10:51] We talk about that in the Milspouse purpose playbook. So if that is something that you are longing for and you are ready to take action towards living a life with purpose, then head over to morethanamilspouse.com and get that course at 20% off during launch week. Now I realize not all of us are ready to dive in and do this deep inner work.

[00:11:16] If you need help, figuring out how to find balance, go back and listen to those episodes on our show. Listen to the episode on our three fundamental needs. Listen to the episodes about how to have a morning routine, how to practice gratitude, how to do these regular rhythms that fill and fuel us with life.

[00:11:40] Because my hope and prayer for you is that I want you to find and pursue purpose and craft a life with purpose. And that means finding balance and learning to thrive, even in the midst of deployments and long TDYs and unpredictable hours, and frequent moves. What matters most is how we craft our lives, so that we live filled, fueled, and full of joy, so that we have healthy inputs, which lead to healthy outputs.

[00:12:10] And so that we can build a life that both lights us up and impacts the world around us. So just to sum this up, the first question that we need to ask is what am I trying to achieve through having time to myself? What is the outcome that I am looking for? And then what activities are going to lead me to that outcome?

[00:12:35] Is it having time alone? Is it having time with my girlfriends? What is going to help me get to that point where I feel like I am filled, fueled and full of joy? I hope that you have a wonderful day and that you find one way this week or this month to do something that will lead you to feeling filled, fueled and full of joy. I’ll see you next time.