Today, we’re going to dig into a simple question that could change your life. This concept is the foundation for the show, and it’s the idea that it is possible to build a life you love and make an impact today. As a military spouse, a life of fulfillment, of more peace and purpose, and joy and happiness and less overwhelm is possible.

THE HEART OF THE MATTER: IDENTITY

And it begins with this simple yet challenging question. When I first started thinking about the problem of military spouse, unemployment and underemployment, I realized there’s a lot of issues that contribute to this problem. But one of the outcroppings of this fact is that so many military spouses struggle with identity.

So many of us find ourselves either in jobs we don’t love, that don’t light us up, or we sacrifice our career and our dreams. And we settle for just being a stay-at-home parent. So few military spouses are actually living the life of their dreams. They’re not actually pursuing the things that matter most to them, that light them up, and that can most effectively impact the world for good.

The best way I believe to change this is by shining a light on this issue of purpose and of identity and help all of us as military spouses. You have something to offer the world. And when you don’t show up the world misses out. You don’t have to wait for tomorrow to chase your dreams…and it begins by asking this one question.

A MINDSET SHIFT

Hey guys, welcome back to the show before we get started. I just want to say that this podcast is all about helping you learn to thrive as a military spouse. [00:03:00] Sometimes life just doesn’t go the way that we planned. For example, I got up very early this morning because our power went out and my children started yelling at me to turn the night lights back on in their rooms.

So it was an early start to the day. My biggest problem was how am I going to get coffee? Because I need coffee. And then I looked at my list of all the things I needed to get done today. And almost everything involved using the internet, which is not possible when we have no internet. So I thought about what I could actually get done today that doesn’t require power, that doesn’t require internet.

I was like, hey, I’m going to sit down and recorded episode for you. And hopefully we get this done before my computer dies. But thank you for being here with me today and thank you for being a part of this. This is what real life looks like. [00:04:00] We just never know what’s going to get tossed our way and we just take what we’ve been given and we run with it.

So today I want to talk to you about something I hear gets mentioned in January when we’re all focused on new year’s resolutions and goals, but then I don’t hear very many people talking about it for the rest of the year. It’s a simple mindset shift that will help us learn to thrive regardless of our circumstances or season of life.

It’s a shift from doing to being. It’s time to discover who you are meant to be because together we can change the world. I truly believe that each of us was made with, and for a purpose, we each have something unique that we bring to the table. And when we fail to show up and use what we’ve been given the whole world misses out.

[00:05:00] And for a second, I’d like you to just imagine the difference in the world, if all of us were actually walking and living out of our strengths and our skills. If each of us were really living into who we are meant to be and making an impact in the way that we live our everyday life, the world would be a completely different.

But the truth is that many of us aren’t confidently walking in and doing what we were meant to do and being who we were meant to be. So many of us have lost sight of what it is that we bring to the table or how we do the things that light us up while taking care of all of our responsibilities as a spouse and as the primary parent.

We’ve traded in lives of meaning and purpose for just getting by day to day or for helping others achieve their dreams. And we find ourselves feeling that sense that something’s missing or that we feel a sense of lack. That there’s gotta be more to life than just making it through the day or making it to the weekend.

A LIFE OF PURPOSE

We want to be able to live lives full of purpose of meaning and of joy. And instead we feel stuck and it makes us a long for something in our lives to change. I think sometimes we think that the answer is there’ll be better at the next duty station, or it’ll be better when my spouse gets out of the military and we’ve just accepted this idea that we can’t chase our dreams right now.

We can’t prioritize the things that light our hearts on fire. Maybe you haven’t quite gotten to that point yet. Maybe you haven’t completely given up. Maybe you’re still searching [00:07:00] for a way that you can pursue the things that are on your heart in your current life, the way that your circumstances look right now.

So maybe you haven’t completely lost sight of the dreams that are on your heart. Maybe, you know that there’s this tug that you want to do. You’re just not sure how to do that. Or maybe, you know what it is that you love to do. You know what lights you up. You know what dreams are on your heart, but you haven’t figured out how to make them work in your current circumstances or season of life.You get frustrated because you feel like you are clear on what you want, but it doesn’t seem possible.

But here’s the thing so much of these issues are because we are focused on one. What we do in our culture. That’s what we talk about. We meet somebody new. And the first question out of our mouth is what do you do?

We are so focused on what we do, and we’re less focused on who we are as individuals. I know you’ve probably experienced a moment when you felt a sense of frustration because you haven’t accomplished anything that is deemed a sign of success in today’s culture, or you don’t have a job that sounds cool or impactful, or maybe you don’t even have a job at all.

And maybe choosing to stay home was what you always wanted to do, but maybe it wasn’t. Or maybe you’ve had success in the past. Maybe you were in the military yourself and got all the accolades and atta-boys that come with the job. And then you walked away to become a stay-at-home mom.

And you feel like something is missing. I would guess that every [00:09:00] person listening today, at one point or another, felt that pause that comes when you hear the question, “What do you do?” Because you’ve questioned what you do. You’ve questioned your identity. You’ve struggled. You’ve wondered if your life really matters and if you even like the life you’re currently living.

MY SEARCH FOR PURPOSE

I’m guessing this because this is my story as well. Growing up, I had dreams of changing the world. Maybe it’s because of my Enneagram one personality type, but I dreamed of being a part of something that truly mattered. And to be honest, I spent the first few years after college volunteering and doing a lot of community service in addition to my job.

So in many ways I felt like I was making an impact. Maybe not a huge one, but an impact on other people’s lives. But then came marriage and littles and frequent moves and all of a sudden I had no more spare time. And while I love my husband and I love my children, in many ways, it felt more like I was just on this never-ending hamster wheel than actually making a difference in the world.

And while I do strongly feel like the first priority in my life is to invest in my spouse and in my children’s lives, I still felt dissatisfied with the way that my life looked and I wasn’t sure what to do about it or what needed to change. So I started this journey of trying to figure out how do I change my circumstance or my attitude [00:11:00] or my mindset? What needs to change because the status quo is not okay.

WILL SETTING BETTER GOALS BRING ME PURPOSE?

So I started by looking at the definition of success. What is success? How do we achieve it? And I looked at what others were doing and how they defined success and what they were doing to make a difference in the world. And I would see these people and they set out very specific goals and then they would come up with the actions they needed to take to reach those goals.

They would create these affirmations and speak their affirmations and look at their goals daily. And so I thought, well, maybe this is the answer. I just need to set better goals for myself. But there’s two problems to this. Number one, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. And as a military spouse, I didn’t really feel like I was in [00:12:00] control of what happens in my life because life is constantly changing.

It felt very difficult to set a specific trajectory and move towards a specific goal. I kind of felt like as soon as I started to set a goal and started working towards that goal, I was going to move again. I don’t know how many times you have moved, but I have this mental image in my head that it is six months of preparing to move and purging stuff. Then we move. And we’ve got to find new hairdressers and dentists and get the kids registered for school and figure out what do they need. And they want to make friends. And I want to make friends. So much time and energy is devoted to moving. And when you move quite frequently, like our family does, that’s a good chunk of our life.

And so [00:13:00] I just couldn’t figure out how to move towards something that matters to me, and still be able to deal with all of the uncertainty of military life. I felt like we’re going to start over. We’re going to spend time moving to a new city, helping my kids get established and every move takes considerable amount of energy and effort.

I also realized as I continue to grow, my interests and priorities tend to shift. So the things that I was very passionate about five years ago, I might not be as passionate about today. So how was I supposed to set these specific goals?

Now, let me pause here and say goals are good things. Without goals, we tend to wander through life. We tend to live in a reactionary stance, [00:14:00] reacting to what happens to us rather than proactively moving towards something.

I actually want to take an episode in the future to really dig into how we set and move towards goals as military spouses. Because when I was looking into all of this goal setting and productivity, and researching all of these things, I really did not have any examples of military spouses that were doing this.

And I didn’t feel like there was anyone that I could turn to, to ask the questions that were on my mind. How do I do this as a military spouse? How do I move towards something that I want to do with the lifestyle that we live?

That’s part of the reason I started MilSpouse Mastermind, because I wanted there to be a community where we could come together and ask questions like these that are on our hearts.

If you’re struggling with these questions, how do I do this, or why do I do this? Or how does this apply to me as a military spouse?, then I want you to come over to our milspouse mastermind community on Facebook. This is where we can ask these questions where we can encourage one another and help each other on each of our.

But back to my story, I was asking all of these questions. How in the world could I set measurable goals and not get thrown off my game by every major life change? How could I accomplish something that I deemed to have impact? And so I was processing all these things and trying to figure out exactly what to do so that I didn’t continue to feel so.

FINDING PURPOSE AS A MILITARY SPOUSE

And it was at this point when I heard the statement, the true measure of success is the [00:16:00]legacy we leave behind. I’ll say that again. The true measure of success is the legacy we leave behind. And this got me thinking maybe my goal setting quandary was caused by me asking the wrong questions about success and accomplishment.

Maybe I should have been asking instead, What kind of legacy do I want to leave? And what do I want others to say about me after I’m gone? Now I’ll admit that this question is a little bit morbid, but it puts things in proper perspective. What do I want my legacy to be?

Now I’m not the only person to ask this question. In fact, and Donald Miller’s podcast, he talks about creating a life plan and starting your plan by actually [00:17:00] writing your obituary. Now, I’m not going to tell you that you need to go grab a piece of paper and write out your full obituary. I’ve only done this for a school project in college. And ironically, I had to write it the week before I was scheduled to go in for brain surgery, which is not the greatest time to be writing your obituary.

But I had some classmates, they were like, you cannot put brain surgery as the cause of your death in your obituary. Thankfully, I made it through surgery just fine. And I haven’t really thought about that obituary since then.  I’m not asking you to write your obituary, but I am saying, “What do you want your legacy to be?”

What do you want people to say about you when you’re gone? Think about that for a moment. For me, when I started pondering this question, It made me think, well, do I want people to [00:18:00] say? That I accomplished something great? What if that never happens? Do I want people to say that she worked hard at a job?

A BETTER QUESTION: WHO DO I WANT TO BE?

And I realized, at that moment, that it wasn’t about something that I accomplished. I needed to focus on who I wanted to be. What kind of characteristics do I want to display that people will remember me by? So I started to explore what values I had and the characteristics that define me as I was, and in that moment, and what characteristics I wanted to define me.

There are different ways that you could go about coming up with a set of characteristics. But what I did in that moment was I picked 10 characteristics that described the person that I wanted to be and the impact I wanted to have on others. This was a very important first step for me.

Then I took those 10 words and I printed them out so I could see them. And I hung a copy on my bathroom wall and I put one on my desk and I put several copies in my daily planner. So every time I opened my calendar or to-do list, or every time I sat down at my desk, or every time I went to brush my teeth, I could see those characteristics. Now, the more that I sit with this list, the more that I’ve tweaked it, sometimes I feel like, okay, there’s a better word that fits with what I want my life to be about.

But this is the exercise that helped me first move from a place of what do I do to who do I want [00:20:00] to be? I also want to say that I often fall far short of these qualities. And so I have to remind myself that this is about a journey of progress, not perfection. Many many days I don’t show up as the spouse, the mom, the friend that I want to be. But it’s about every day taking tiny steps in a forward motion.

It may be two steps forward and one step back. But that’s when I give myself grace to know that this is a journey. It doesn’t happen overnight. But when I am looking towards who I want to be, that is a much better place for me to live my life than focused on what I am doing. It’s a journey that we can all take, a journey that requires grace.

[00:21:00] And it’s a journey that requires progress, not perfection and a focus on the process. Not outcome. I often call myself a recovering perfectionist. And this is something that I have to remind myself often. We are all going to mess up. We are all going to fail and that’s okay. But day by day, moment by moment, we can choose who we want to be and the legacy we want to leave behind.

So I’ll ask you again, what do you want your legacy to be? And how can you shift your concept of living from what you do to who you are? Not that what you do doesn’t matter, but I believe the foundation for what you do has to start with how you show up day in and day out. So today I want to leave you with a challenge and a couple of thoughts.

These are things that I have to remind myself of [00:22:00] often, but they helped me on my journey. So these things that I remind myself are progress, not perfection, process not outcome. What I do today matters. And every expert was once a beginner. There’s a quote that I read a few years back that really resonated with me.

I believe Sally Clarkson wrote it in one of her books, she said I cannot change the world if I cannot incarnate God’s love in my most ordinary spaces and hours. Before we focus on what we do, what matters is how we show up today and who we want to be and what characteristics are displayed in our lives.

IT’S TIME TO SHIFT THE WAY THAT MILITARY SPOUSES LOOK AT LIFE

It’s not about what we do. It’s not about what others view as successful. We may never [00:23:00] be successful as the culture defines success, but changing the world begins with discovering who we are meant to be. And that begins with being not doing what we do must flow out of who we are and whose we are. So my challenge to you today is to take some time and think about what you want your legacy to be.

What characteristics do you want to define your life and how can you begin taking practical steps towards those characteristics in your ordinary spaces and hours of life? It’s a journey. And we’re here to support and encourage you in your journey because it’s time for military spouses to shift the way we look at life.

Forget how culture defined success. [00:24:00] Forget what we think we need to do. Start with being not doing who do you want to be? Friend. I pray that you find a sense of peace and joy, and that in listening to this, there was something that spoke to you and that you find freedom in this and that you choose to not hold yourself back, struggle with stress and anxiety and feelings of unfulfillment that you stop feeling stuck.

And you shift the way that you look at life, that you choose who you want to be and focus on that over what you want to do until next time. May you live fueled, filled, and full of joy.