[00:00:00] Christine: Hey friends. Welcome back to the Milspouse Mastermind Show. I’m so excited to be back with you today for another episode. Today, we are talking about revisiting some of those goals you set back in January, maybe you had a new year’s resolution or you chose a word of the year, and maybe you even went through my free goal setting masterclass and you created some growth goals and you put together your plan for the year.

[00:00:27] Here we are six months later. And where are you now? Have you made the progress that you hoped for? Have you gotten frustrated? Maybe you’ve given up completely and you don’t even remember what your word of the year actually was, or maybe you’re still attempting to make progress on your goals.

[00:00:49] And you’re just really frustrated by how many obstacles seem to keep popping up and getting in the way. And you’re asking yourself, why is this so hard? If that’s you, you’re not alone. It is time for some encouragement and real talk about pursuing goals as a military spouse. So, what do you say let’s dive into the show?

[00:02:05] So what I wanna know first is, have you joined us inside the 30 day clarity challenge? This is going on right now, inside our free Facebook community. Each day, I pose one journal, prompt, a question to get you thinking about who you are and what you really want in life. It’s so easy to lose sight of ourselves and who we are as we’re moving frequently.

[00:02:30] We’re changing jobs, taking care of kids, prioritizing everyone, but ourselves. And we get to this place where we aren’t even. Who we are any more. And this clarity challenge is going to help you to start to reclaim a sense of self of your identity. Who are you outside of being a military spouse and a parent?

[00:02:54] What is it that lights you up and what do you really want in your life and how can you start to live a life that is in alignment with. Your values and who you want to be, where you will feel less stressed, less anxiety, because you are walking in alignment with who you are deep inside, and all you have to do to get inside.

[00:03:22] This clarity challenge is come be a part of our free community. You can just go to. Milspouse mastermind.com/community. Or just do a search inside of Facebook. You will find the milspouse mastermind community. Jump inside, say hello. Tell us about yourself and start taking advantage of this clarity challenge.

[00:03:45] Just write down the answer to the question. You can answer it inside the group. You can keep your answers in a notebook or a journal, but all of this is to help you get greater clarity for yourself. Now, if you want all of this in an easy to digest, Four back all the steps clearly laid out for you in a simple to follow way, a guide that will help you discover who you are truly meant to be and how you can begin practically to live a life that lights you up and use your skills and story to impact the world for good.

[00:04:25] The milspouse purpose playbook is for you. And this is a course. That’s going to help you master your mindset, uncover your purpose and help you craft a direction and figure out how to build a life that has room. For you to pursue your purpose in your current season of life. So if you are ready to reclaim your identity and purpose, but you’re not sure where to begin or what steps you need to take in the right order.

[00:04:53] Just go to more than a milspouse.com. You’ll get all the details there and you can jump inside that course today. Okay, let’s go back and talk about these goals that we set back in January. And those goals that you set six months ago might still be relevant today, or they might not even be important to you anymore, but here’s what I know.

[00:05:20] For absolute certainty. If you haven’t looked at those goals in a while, then you’re probably not going to reach them. We have to keep those goals front of mind if we want to move towards them. So if we haven’t looked at it, no shame there. Life happens. And we’re gonna talk about that today. How life gets in the way and how we deal with so many challenges and obstacles and what we need to do today to set ourselves up for success for the rest of the year, there is still six months to go in this year and you have.

[00:05:57] The chance to make the most of 2022 do something amazing with the time you have. So it doesn’t matter what has happened. What’s gotten in the way, there is still an opportunity for you to make the most of this year. So that’s what we’re gonna be talking about today. I want you to know that you are not alone wherever you find yourself, but there.

[00:06:21] Hope for you. So over the next few minutes, we’re gonna talk about the frustrations that come with not making progress, not making the progress you think you should make. We’re gonna talk about some of the obstacles that may have gotten in your way and the mindset shifts that you need to make to make the most of the rest of the year.

[00:06:43] So what I’ve done is come up with five things that you can do today to help you make the most of the rest of the year. And before we get into what these five things are, I just want to say that I know what this feels like. I’m not behind here saying, well, you should have done this better because I am walking through this myself and I know firsthand how hard life can be as a military spouse, when you are trying to make progress on the things that matter to you, when you are trying to live and walk in your purpose.

[00:07:23] In the midst of the craziness of military life. It’s not easy. If you are new to the show, then I, I want to let you know that we are in the middle of an OCONUS PCS. We are moving from one overseas location to another. You can probably hear my kids in the background. We have lost all of our social network, our support.

[00:07:50] I don’t have any babysitters lined up. I don’t have any childcare options. I don’t have any furniture or carpet or anything to help with the sound. So everything just travels and echoes through this whole house. So I’ve tried to get creative in figuring out how I can tamp down on some of the noises echoing throughout the whole house, but this is just what it’s gonna be until we finally get our household goods.

[00:08:20] Um, but these are all obstacles that come up that are just a part of life as a military spouse. When we are frequently moving. When we are dealing with our spouse being deployed or gone for long periods of time when we don’t have family nearby, when we haven’t yet developed the relationships to have help for what we’re trying to do, it makes it really challenging.

[00:08:46] So. I’m coming at this from a place of, I know what this feels like. I know what that frustration is like, and I know how hard it is. Um, and how there are just days when you just wanna throw in the towel and say, this is challenging. I’m going to give up. And that’s what I don’t want you to do. And so we’re gonna talk about what you can do.

[00:09:09] I. and the most important thing. And the first thing that we’re going to talk about when you are in the season of, Hey, I’ve forgotten my goals. I’m frustrated. I don’t feel like I’m making progress on those goals. I don’t even know how to move forward. The first thing that I want to encourage you to do is to revisit your Why.

[00:09:32] Now you may have heard people talk about knowing your why, and, and you’re not sure what we mean when we say know your, why. This is really about getting clear on who you are, what’s important to you and who you wanna become. And then you’re setting goals and objectives based on that. So everything that you are doing is about moving you towards.

[00:10:00] Who you wanna be. It’s about serving who you feel called to serve and helping in a way that makes a difference. So it’s really about living into your purpose and knowing why this matters to you. So many people never do this. So many people just live in this place where they have numb themselves to their dreams, to what matters.

[00:10:28] They’re not really happy with life. They’re not content, but they’re not willing to do anything to change it. And so they just go through life with this general sense of not having meaning and purpose and not feeling fulfilled and not really being in love with the life that they’re living. Um, but not really doing anything about it.

[00:10:54] And I know just by the fact that you are listening to this podcast episode today, that’s not you. You want to get unstuck. You want to live a life of meaning and purpose as a military spouse. So, if you are not clear on your why, if you don’t know why you are moving towards something, if you, why you are setting a goal, then that’s the first thing you need to get clear on.

[00:11:21] Why does this thing matter to you? A great place to start is with the clarity challenge. You can just jump inside our Facebook group and start answering those questions to get greater clarity, you can go download the values worksheet, just go to milspousemastermind.com/values. There’s a worksheet that will take you through what things are really important to you.

[00:11:48] What are your core values? And then you’re gonna start to set goals that align with your core values. So that’s there for you. Um, whatever you need to do to start getting. That clarity and putting together this understanding of who you are, what’s important to you and why you want to do the things that you want to do.

[00:12:11] I think it was Friedrich Nietzsche who said, “He who has a why can bear with almost any how.” So you can do hard things as long as you stay clear on why that thing matters. Because when that thing is important to you, you can put up with a lot of crap. Um, but you need to know why that thing is important. Now, what does this look like in my own life?

[00:12:45] Well, at the end of the milspouse purpose playbook, I have you create a summary sheet. All about me sheet. And this is where you have one place. That’s a summary of what your values are, what brings you joy, what your purpose are, what your core beliefs are, et cetera. And so the first thing that I do when life gets crazy and things start to get really.

[00:13:11] Hard. And I get frustrated and start to question what I’m doing and if it’s possible, I go back and I read through that sheet. I also read through that sheet. Anytime I sit down to do a goal planning session, I want to remind myself of who I am and what’s important to me, what problem I want to solve and why, what I’m doing matters.

[00:13:36] Okay. So then once I have sat down and reminded myself of my why the next step is to think about where I want to be six months from now. So when you sit down, I want you to think about the rest of 2022 for the next six months. Where do you want to be six months from now? What do you want to be true of your life?

[00:14:03] How do you want to grow? How do you want to be showing up six months from now? Do you want your life to look exactly the same six months from now? Now, if you’re not sure what needs to change in the next six months, a great place to start is by going and downloading the growth wheel. This divides your life into 10 core areas and allows you to analyze how am I doing in each of these areas and what do I.

[00:14:37] To change about my life. That moves me towards who I wanna be and how I want to be showing up. This is where we go to start setting growth goals for all areas of our life. So if you’re unsure of what kind of goal you wanna set, that’s another great place to start to say, what do I want my life to look like six months from.

[00:15:03] And then once you’ve kind of figured out, okay, this is what I want to change in the next six months, we need to start asking, is this a realistic goal? Frame for this,  period of time can all of this change in the next six months, maybe not, but what am I moving toward and what actions are gonna take me in that direction?

[00:15:27] And so then we start kind of assessing that out and saying, okay, the next 90 days, what actions can I take? What habits can I develop that are gonna put me in that direction, so that at the end of this year, I can say, what, what do I want to say happened at the end of this year? Look out six months in advance, then break that down and just say, okay, the next 90 days, what is my priority going to be for that 90 days?

[00:16:00] So that I’m moving in that direction. And then once we’ve thought about that next three to six months, it’s time for us to do a mindset shift and really analyze what is it that’s gotten in the way. When we look back for the last six months, what’s gotten in the way, what obstacles have arise? is it a health challenge?

[00:16:28] Is it, kids’ schedules? Is it a big move? Is it deployment? Is it a TDY? Is it the demands on your schedule, your volunteer commitments? Is it your job there? There’s a lot of things that can pop up and get in the way change is not. As simple as deciding you wanna make a change and then taking action. If it were that straightforward, everyone would do it.

[00:17:00] Everyone would be living the life they want to live, but obstacles are inevitable. Resistance is inevitable. There are things that are going to happen. And I think a lot of times. Even more things that are going to happen because of the lifestyle that we lead. We sometimes get this idea that life should move forward in a linear fashion.

[00:17:24] We we’re at point a and we wanna get to point B and we think it’s a straight line from a to B when in reality, that line is full of curves and scribbles and steps backwards and small steps forward. And it’s really a complex line that gets us from point a to point B. But I think you will find mindset coaches out there.

[00:17:49] You will find self-help coaches and gurus out there that make it sound like it’s the straightforward concept. You decide you wanna make a change, you set up the habit and then it just kind of happens. And you move towards the thing that you decided that you want. And in my experience, it’s never been that simple.

[00:18:09] So if you think it should be, then you’re probably setting yourself up for disappointment. If you could understand that there are going to be challenges, there’s going to be obstacles that get in the way, and it’s a part of life. But what really matters is what you are doing with those challenges and those obstacles.

[00:18:29] Are you allowing yourself to say this is too hard? Are you allowing yourself to give up? And if that’s the case, What can you do to move forward despite obstacles? Stop looking around at what other people are doing, how much they are accomplishing, and focus on you in your specific situation.

Are you making progress in the right direction?

[00:18:57] Are you continuing to take action and not give up because that is what’s going to lead you to success – your willingness to not give up and to continue to move forward and take action towards your values and towards your why. Um, despite what happens. So just take a pause and do a mindset check to say, Hey, what’s gotten in my way and how if I handled that and how can I continue to take action for the future, even if I’m not achieving those goals that I set.

[00:19:41] Am I still making progress in the right direction? Because what matters is progress, not perfection and our process, not outcomes. We, we focus on the end result, but really it’s about the journey. It’s about the direction that we are moving in.

So, number four, then we need to sit down and say, okay, what change do I need to make in my own life? Okay. I’m sitting down and saying, okay, what habits do I need to establish? What habits do I need to break? What do I need to change about my schedule? And we sometimes make it this whole big thing. And what I loved, I was reading this quote. I read the Compound Effect by Darren Hardy recently, and he said, you only need to take a series of small steps consistently over time to radically improve your life. And when we think about it, 95% of everything we feel, think do and achieve is the result of learned habits.

So it’s not about achieving the goal. It’s about the daily habits and actions that we take that move us towards that goal. And so when we start to break this down, it’s not a whole big thing.

[00:21:10] It’s just looking at what habits are bad habits that we need to break. And what habits do we need to instill in our lives to move. Towards where we wanna be go and who we wanna be. 95% of everything we feel, think do and achieve is the result of a habit. So what habits do you need to break? What habits do you need to make?

[00:21:39] All right. So then the last step in this process, If we are ready to move forward and make the most of the next six months of the year, is to create our 90 day action plan and our weekly schedule. So go back to those goals, go back to where you want to be six months from now and say, can this happen? What can I do in the next 90 days in the next three months?

[00:22:10] What’s possible? Look at everything that’s going on in your schedule right now and say, okay, let’s take this goal and break it down into action steps. And, and really again, and I will say this because this is what truly matters. If we are being intentional with the time we do have not. If we had more time, not if our lives look differently, but are we being intentional with the time we do have, and then putting that into action steps and putting it on your calendar, because if you don’t schedule.

[00:22:48] If you don’t take action, if you don’t make time for what matters, it won’t happen. You will not change. And you will wind up six months from now a year from now, 2, 3, 4, 5 years from now realizing that you’re stuck in the exact same place you are today, but change is possible. And it is an opportunity today to say, what do I.

[00:23:13] The next six months, how do I want to end 2022? So I hope that this provides a realistic look at what you can do. And some encouragement that obstacles are going to happen. It’s not always easy. This is true in my own life. It’s probably true in your life, but it is possible to pursue our goals and dreams.

[00:23:38] You don’t have to wait for tomorrow to move towards what matters to pursue the dream. Your heart. Now, if you are struggling to figure out how to make progress on those goals, the mill spouse goal setting masterclass takes you through the nuts and bolts of turning your dreams into plans, your plans into weekly and daily actions that you can take to make progress.

[00:24:04] On those goals and those dreams that along with my goal setting workbook is available when you purchase the mill spouse purpose playbook, because it’s not just about getting clarity on who you are. It’s about how you practically live that out. In the midst of the craziness of military life. And so I wanna make sure that you are equipped with the tools that you need to craft a life of purpose and live a meaningful life, right where you are today.

[00:24:33] And all of that is available to you. When you go to more than a milspouse.com. So just to quickly recap, if you are feeling frustrated by your lack of progress, if you’ve given up on setting your goals or pursuing your goals and dreams this year, you feel like you keep getting derailed. Change is possible.

[00:24:54] The number one thing you can do is revisit your why, remind yourself of what you’re doing and why it matters. Think about where you want to be six months from now and begin to set goals based on that. That’s going to lead you in the direction. You wanna go take time to evaluate your mindset. What’s holding you back.

[00:25:18] What’s gotten it in your way. And are you continuing to take action? Despite all of the challenges? Number four, what changes do you need to make? What habits do you need to establish or break, and then create your 90-day action plan and establish your weekly schedule. That’s going to lead you to end 2020.

[00:25:45] Making it matter, having it be a meaningful year for you and for the impact that you want to make in the world so that you can truly move towards becoming who you are meant to be and making the difference in the world that you are meant to make you are more than just a milspouse, your life, your story matters.

[00:26:08] And I want to see more military spouses getting unstuck, stepping into a life of purpose and really pursuing their dreams, their goals, their plans in the midst of this crazy military life. All right, friends, make sure you are hopping into our Facebook group taking advantage of our 30 day clarity challenge.

[00:26:32] If you have a friend who is struggling, invite them inside the group. So that we can all continue to grow and learn together. I can’t wait to hear what you are learning about yourself through this process. I hope you are having the best summer available to you today until next time may you live filled, fueled and full of joy.