[00:00:00] Christine: Hey friends. Welcome back to the Milspouse Mastermind Show. I’m so excited to be back with you today. It may not feel like a long time since we last chatted, but it feels like that for me, because life has been really chaotic for the last month. And I batched a whole bunch of episodes at the beginning of the month.

[00:00:23] So I haven’t sat down behind my mic to record an episode for you in a while. And I’m really excited to get back to it because today we are diving into my monthly real life recap. What does it look like to chase some dreams, pursue some goals, and live with purpose as a military spouse?

[00:00:46] Well, we’re going to dive into all of that. I’m going to show you what this looked like in my own life, and spoiler alert, it was definitely a chance for me to really put my money where my mouth is. This was an absolutely crazy month. So what do you say let’s get started with my March real life recap!

[00:01:58] So the funny thing about this episode is that I was actually supposed to have this go live first thing this morning, and that did not happen because this whole week has been way more chaotic than I anticipated. We had less than 24 hours notice that our packers were showing up. So I have been literally in the middle of prepping for our PCS, which if you listen to last month’s last month’s episode, it was supposed to happen several weeks ago.

[00:02:32] Long story short, it happened this week. And I was debating about whether I was even going to have time to sit down and record this for you, because I love to show you what this looks like to pursue goals as a military spouse in real life. This is the first time I’ve had just a few minutes to sit down and I want to talk to you about what this looks like for me this month.

[00:02:57] It’s the epitome of what I would say life as a military spouse is, when curve balls get thrown your way, when life gets crazy. It really just comes down to, what you prioritize, how you make things work and choosing to make baby steps in the right direction, in the midst of the craziness of every day life.

[00:03:18] So we’re going to get into what that looked like for me, what I did, what actually happened, how I pivoted, and what I learned through this whole process.

But before we get into the nitty gritty of all of that, I am so excited to announce that I am doing something special for you. I am opening up five free get unstuck coaching sessions in the month of April.

[00:03:48] It’s been on my heart for a while just to be able to offer this service to you. And I want to be able to sit down with you and help you move towards your goals. So I don’t know where it is that you might be feeling stuck right now. Maybe you’re not sure what that thing is that you want to do. You’re not sure what your next step should be, or you don’t know what direction you want to go.

[00:04:13] And you just know that you’re not loving where you are today. Maybe you know where you want to go. You’re just not sure how to get there. What those steps need to be to get you on the right path. Maybe you’re just stuck in this place where you’re frustrated with your life, and you don’t seem to be able to make the changes that you want make.

[00:04:33] Wherever it is that you are feeling stuck in your life, that you are not living a fulfilling life, a life of meaning of purpose and of joy, then I want to sit down and hash that out with you. And so I have looked at my calendar and I said, okay, we can do five free 45 minute coaching sessions this month. When they’re booked, they’re booked. That’s all that I have.

[00:05:00] So if you are listening to this and saying, yes, this sounds like something that I would benefit from. I need somebody to talk to about this. Maybe you don’t have somebody in your everyday life, that understands what you’re trying to do, what your goals are.

[00:05:20] You have this idea or this tug on your heart, that there’s something more and you want to be able to talk that out with someone. Um, I would love to be that sounding board for you to help you figure out what those next steps for you need to be. So, so all you have to do is send an email to hello at milpousemastermind.com.

[00:05:44] Let me know that you were interested in one of those five sessions. I will send you the link to book with me and we will get that on the books. But like I said, there’s only five. So first come first serve. And once they’re gone, they are gone. But I can’t wait to sit down with just a few of you and be able to talk to you about how to get unstuck in craft a life with purpose as a military spouse.

[00:06:07] So, that is available. So now let’s get into what my March looked like. And if you’re wondering why this sounds a little bit different today. It’s because we just had all of our stuff out of our house. It is now loaded on a moving truck. And so it’s very echoey in here and I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to work the sound quality.

[00:06:35] And I no longer have a desk to sit at. So I am literally sitting on the floor of my bedroom. This would probably be best in a closet, but we don’t have any walk-in closets in the house. So we’re figuring this out as we go, but I didn’t want to not record this episode for you today because I think it’s really important for you to see what this looks like in that in not all of us have an unlimited amount of time to be chasing these big dreams.

[00:07:05] And so what does it look like in the nooks and crannies and the cracks of life to keep moving towards our goals, to not give up when the going gets tough. So how we usually do these monthly recaps for the last couple of months is I talk about, you know, what my goals were for the month, what actually happened, and then how I pivoted and what I learned through the process.

[00:07:27] So, when I looked at my goals for the month of March, I knew ahead of time that it was going to be a crazy month because we were supposed to be having our movers come early in the month of March. And we were waiting for orders to come and waiting and waiting and waiting.

[00:07:51] And if you’ve been a military spouse for a while, you may be able to sympathize with me a little bit. But all of the preparations that I made and then the reality of military life are not always the same thing. So, we did not have orders when we thought we were going to have orders. And therefore we did not have moving trucks coming when we were hoping they were going to show up.

[00:08:17] But we didn’t have any real knowledge of when that timeline was going to be. We just knew that the timeline kept shifting. And we had this big trip that was planned several months ago. And so everything just stayed up in the air. I had no knowledge of dates or times, or what was going on other than not today.

[00:08:41] Every day was like, okay, not today. This is what we’re doing instead. And so it was just an entire month of, not being able to plan anything and having everything that I had taken time to plan, not go according to plan. When I talk about the goals that I set for the month of March, I didn’t set as many particular purpose related goals or even personal goals because I was trying to leave the space for PCSing and for our big trip.

[00:09:18] So when I talk about goals, it’s a little bit different. My big goals for the month of March were to be able to be consistent with the podcast, even while I’m not actively recording episodes and learning how to be a better podcast or in to serve you in new ways.

[00:09:44] And so basically it was this idea of how to be consistent when I have to take almost three or four weeks, almost a whole month away from the podcast. And so, that was a huge win for me. I was able to get enough episodes prerecorded and up in the queue so that they would keep delivering weekly content for you, even though I was all over the world.

[00:10:15] Let me just say up front that that was a huge win for me. So the other thing that we look at when we look at our goals for the month are those core commitments, those weekly or monthly things that we do to keep us living in a cycle of being filled, fueled, and full of joy. These are the things that keep us going, keep us caring for ourselves, connecting with others and pursuing our purpose.

[00:10:41] So, as you can probably imagine, because my schedule was all over the place and if you’ve ever taken a big trip, you probably know that there’s a lot of preparation that goes into it. Um, we have not taken this long of a trip, other than in the middle of PCS seasonwith our kids. We were going to be gone for almost three weeks.

[00:11:08] We went all the way back to the states to see family and, my husband and I had a conference to attend. And we were hoping for a little downtime in the midst of all of that. But there was so much craziness leading up to that. We in all of the changes that were going on with not having our orders and trying to figure out when all of the moving pieces were going to take place, and trying to get ready for our trip, and then being gone on a trip.

[00:11:36] And I had this idea that hopefully, you know, I’ll be able to get some kind of rhythm and, at least get some things done while we’re traveling. It’s this idea of, well, I’m a military spouse. I work from home so I can work from anywhere. And that’s a great idea in concept, but what it actually looks like to work from anywhere just means that you have to choose to be working.

[00:12:02] You have to be at a place where you can work. And when we’re traveling and seeing family and my kids haven’t seen extended family for almost two years, there was no time to be working. And when we were at the conference, we were at the conference for 12 hours a day and there was not time for me to get a lot done.

[00:12:22] And so it was definitely what I had to do was done in the cracks in the small moments of time, when there was a little bit of downtime. The majority was just, what did I get done? What did I prepare for in advance? And so, that was kind of my big goal. My core commitments really didn’t happen because I was unable to be as consistent.

[00:12:44] The one thing that was super disappointing for me this month was, as you know, I had some specific physical health goals I wanted to work on this year. And in February I got really sick. And if you listen to February’s recap, you’ll hear that I had walking pneumonia. I was kind of sick all month.

[00:13:06] And so I was really unable to do the running that I wanted to do. And so I had this great goal of, okay, I’m going to get back at it. And I ran my first time. I was like, okay, I’m starting to get back to normal. And then I ended up injuring my foot. And so now I’ve spent the last three or four weeks waiting for my foot to heal so that I can start running again.

[00:13:30] So that was another, it felt like a big step backwards instead of that step forward. So this is real life. This is what happens. And. The thing that truly, truly matters in all of this is what we do with that circumstance. Not that we can control our circumstances, but what we do in the midst of that season.

[00:13:52] And I definitely had that moment where I was super, super frustrated, and then it was like, okay, but what matters in the long run? To keep that big goal, that big dream of wanting to be physically healthier, of wanting to run that half marathon. And so we’re just going to keep at it. And as my foot gets better, I’m going to get back to it.

[00:14:16] But yet another setback that is just a part of life and learning to deal with all of the challenges that come with life on this planet, of being a human being. I’m trying to stay committed to becoming the people that we went to be, to show up, to serve others and to live a fulfilling and impactful and meaningful life.

[00:14:42] So what actually happened in the month of March? I talked about my foot getting injured. I talked about us putting together this whole plan for PCS and then having that torn apart. And then our three-week trip back to the states. Seeing family, going to the conference, and learning what it’s like to be on the road, take kids out of their comfort zone and send them 16 times zones away and help them get adjusted and then adjusting back.

[00:15:18] So, there was little to no downtime this month. You can see that it impacted how I was showing up in each area. And so it’s, you know, we can take our core commitments and we can stop doing them for a period of time, but we don’t want to get into living in that state of survival mode.

[00:15:47] When I did my monthly recap and I said, okay, how did I do it showing up in each of these areas this month, there was definitely a down turn. And it came from not having that time in my schedule to rest and to reflect and to show up as the mom I want to be, as the spouse I want to be, as the friend that I want to be.

[00:16:11] And so that’s why I just say it is so important to carve out that space on a regular basis. And even when you get into those seasons where life is crazy and you go into survival mode, we can say that we want to get back to having these healthy rhythms that are part of our weekly and monthly rhythm.

[00:16:33] Now it’s really important when I do these monthly recaps to really focus on the wins and ask myself, what went well this month? What did I do? What can I be thankful for? What did I make progress on? Because it’s easy for me, at least, to focus on everything that went wrong and how I didn’t live the way that I wanted to live. But it’s really important to have this time of focusing on what we did well, what we did make progress.

[00:17:08] And so I will say that when I looked back at my month, I was so impressed with how much work I did in preparation for the podcast and for preparing to travel for three weeks. Receiving all of the preparations that went into that, because Amazon takes like a month to ship stuff here, having to order all of that, a month in advance. So that I would have activities for my kids on the airplane and, everything that we needed for four different temperature zones. Everything from 14 degrees to 90 degrees. Trying to pack for that kind of temperature swing is really interesting.

[00:17:45] But I did all of that preparation. I did get podcasts episodes ready to go. I didn’t quite get as much done as I was hoping, but I still did really well at that. And I, you know, I really did before we left and especially before I injured my foot, I was taking that time to rest and to try to fuel my body with healthy foods. And meet my commitment of trying to see the ocean at least twice a month.

[00:18:15] So those were all good things. Those were all wins for my month of March. And then we talk about the challenges, the disappointment of injuring myself and not being able to prioritize my physical health the way I wanted to.

[00:18:53] Being on the go when you’re on the road, you’re trying to see family. You know, even though we were gone three weeks, at least seven or eight of those days were all travel days and that’s just exhausting. It’s wearing on your body. And, and then being at the conference and having that go all day long, , and just not having that time to rest and, time to do those things that help fuel your health.

[00:19:19] So, I guess if I can sum up the challenge of pursuing goals in the month of March, it was just how often my plans had to keep changing. How often what I did to pursue goals, to put dates on the calendar, all of that had to continually keep changing. And that was really discouraging. I’m not making as much progress as I wanted to make.

[00:19:46] I’m not staying on top of things the way I wanted to stay on top of things. All of that was super frustrating. And I really, again, I will say this probably every month, but it goes back to my mindset. I find myself comparing myself to people on Instagram that are making these big leaps in their business and they’re showing up and they’re engaging and they’re doing all this stuff.

[00:20:14] And I’m like, I can’t do any of that in this season. And that’s okay because these seasons happen. This is a part of our life as military spouses. And it’s okay that I’m not growing, that I’m not doing all the things that somebody else is. I need to be present in this moment, learning the things that I can learn in this moment and continuing to make progress on my journey. Because the truth is that while I was at the conference, I got so many resources to help military spouses.

[00:20:52] I learned a lot. And I’m not going to see the payoff on that for a while. But really focusing on where am I supposed to be in this moment? Can I be present in this moment? And can I not give up on my goals and my dreams when I’m not moving as fast as I want to be, or not moving as fast as compared to somebody else?

[00:21:18] When I can’t control my circumstances, how will I respond? What will I do? To do with what I’ve been given. I know this is the month of March recap, but, I really can’t just set aside March without including this first week in April, just because it feels like more like a part of March. So just to tell you what my own life has looked like for the last week.

[00:21:52] We flew back, we got home Sunday night. Monday morning I woke up. We had to take the car in to get a recall fixed on it because we can’t ship our car until the recall thing is fixed. Well, I guess I should back up and say we finally got our orders, and then I’m trying to call and set everything up. So this is all been on as we’re traveling backward, trying to make these phone calls and figure out what’s going on and what the order and sequence of everything is going to be. Because it’s still going to be three to four months before we receive our stuff after we ship it.

[00:22:25] All of this was up in the air. And so we find out Monday morning as we’re taking the car in. That’s when we found out that the packers were coming Tuesday. And so I am trying to unpack everybody’s stuff, wash all the laundry, get the car dropped off, and start sorting everything.

[00:22:47] So if you listen to our episodes on preparing for your PCS, when you are PCSing overseas, you have multiple shipments. So our household goods are the things that were getting shipped off this week. So I had to pull out everything that was going in our unaccompanied shipment. Everything that’s going with us in the suitcases to fly on the airplane, unpack from our trip, and sort everything in our whole house in really 24 to 48 hours.

[00:23:17] So that was just a crazy thing. Now I will say the biggest win for me is, because this was not my first time to do this, I felt so much less stress. Also because I’ve probably PCSed a lot now. I just had this feeling of less stress. There was definitely adrenaline kicking in, because I was like, oh my gosh, I don’t know if I’m going to get any of this done.

[00:23:43] I don’t know if I’m going to get through every room in the house. I don’t know if it’s going to work out. All I can do is what I can do right now. Keep taking the steps of action to keep moving towards the thing that needs to get done. And I can’t worry about what the outcome is going to be.

[00:24:03] All I can control is what I’m doing in this moment. And if I’m making progress in this moment, this is what matters. And, I will say, for me, it was a big win because I felt less stressed about what the potential outcomes could be. What could go wrong. And it was just like, okay, focus on the present moment. What can I be doing right now?

[00:24:25] I hope that this encourages you if you’re in this place where you’re frustrated, because military life is crazy and the dates keep changing and nothing’s going according to plan. We can’t control the outcomes. We can’t control our past. We can’t control the future.

[00:24:46] What we can do is live in this present moment and know what we’re supposed to be doing right now. And to keep taking steps of action in the right direction. So finally, as of this morning, everything is out of the house, and, I’ll hopefully have some time for the next few weeks tojust settle down.

[00:25:09] Well, we still are shipping our car, but, hopefully life returns to our normal life, you know, without our household goods, living in temporary furniture for the next several weeks.  But that means I will continue to get back to pursuing my goals.

[00:25:42] And as we are moving into April, this is quarter two. A quarter of the year is already gone! And so now we have three quarters left. And what I typically like to do is to look three months out and say, okay, what are my plans? What are my goals for the next three months. I honestly haven’t had time to do that yet. And sometimes that happens. And so hopefully in the next few days, I’ll have a little bit of time to start to think about that.

[00:26:04] And I know it’s not going to be the same as a quarter in which everything is pretty static. You know, we are prepping for a big PCS for when we actually move. I’m going to be working without any kind of desk for several weeks. We don’t have a place to live when we get where we’re going. So, you know, it’s just saying, okay, what am I doing?

[00:26:30] What is the direction that I’m going in? And how do I keep making progress in the right direction? Even if I don’t hit some big milestone or some big goal, I’m continuing to take action in a forward motion, in the right direction. As we move forward into April, I’m excited to get back into doing more to help grow the podcast, to serve you, and to serve military spouses and to show you that it’s possible to keep making progress on your dreams in the midst of the craziness of every day life.

[00:27:03] So if you are in this place where you are feeling stuck, and you’re not sure what you need to do, or where you want to go. What direction you want to head in? If you’re not feeling fulfilled in your life. You know something needs to change. Maybe you just don’t know how to get to where you’re going.

[00:27:24] You don’t know how to break the elephant down into bite-size pieces so that you can eat the elephant one bite at a time. Maybe you just really are feeling too close to it. You feel like there’s too many choices and you need somebody to be able to talk you through what the best use of your time is right now.

[00:27:51] Or you just need that encouragement and that kick in the pants to say, yes, it’s crazy, but life is always crazy. And it’s always going to seem like it’s not a good time to take action because life is out of control. And there are too many pieces that are moving right now.

[00:28:14] But I will tell you what truly, truly matters. Continuing to take action. And I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but I think it’s so, so important to just encourage you and empower you that you can take action even in the midst of the craziness of life. So I hope this real life recap does number one, show you that I’m not living in some other world where everything goes smoothly and where I don’t have any craziness happen to me.

[00:28:40] I am a military spouse, just like you. I’m going through all of the same emotions and experiences that you are; I’m just choosing to take action. And I want that for you too. And I want to be a support and an encouragement to you because we can do this.

[00:29:04] And if we will band together, we are so much better together. That’s why our Facebook group exists. If you’re not already in the Facebook group, just go to milspousemastermind.com/community. If you want that get unstuck session, there are only five for the month of April. And all you have to do is send an email to hello at milspousemastermind.com

[00:29:28] Let me know you want to claim one of those unstuck sessions. I am so excited to be back with you next week for another great episode of the Milspouse Mastermind Show. Until then, may you live filled, fueled and full of joy.