[00:00:00] Christine: Welcome back to the MilSpouse Mastermind Show. Sometimes we sit there and we think, should I set a goal for my year? Should I make an intention or create a word of the year? Will I actually do anything with that? Maybe you said, You were gonna get less frustrated with your kids or become more patient, or focus on joy, and then life happened and you didn’t show up the way you wanted.

[00:00:30] Maybe you planned to start that Etsy shop, but then your spouse deployed and you weren’t sure how you would manage starting a business, and so you never launched it, or maybe you decided this was the. You would lose the baby weight and then you moved and instead gain the PCs 10. There are a million things that try to take up all of our brain power and take away from our ability to actually achieve our goals and up uplevel our life.

[00:01:06] And so we think in your goal setting, no thank you. What is possible for you and how can you begin to shift your thoughts from this stuff does not work for me to what is possible for me and my life. This year, in this super personal bonus episode, I’m. How I sometimes get trapped in these very same thought patterns and what I do about it and how I’m setting myself up for personal growth in 2023.

[00:01:47] If you are ready for a real life conversation about pursuing goals as a military spouse or you’re just curious what my 2023 goals. Then reheat your coffee and let’s get started.

[00:02:53] If you are new to our community, welcome. I am your host, Christine, a military. Marketing strategist, coffee connoisseur, and goal sitting nerd. I love this time of year. I love reflecting on my year. I love planning for something new. I love the start of something new. I love the possibilities. I love everything about personal growth and development and studying all of it.

READY TO PLAN YOUR YEAR AND UP-LEVEL YOUR LIFE?

[00:03:24] But I know that is not for everyone, and it is my intention with this show to make mindset and goal setting and personal growth and resilience, something that feels accessible for every single. Military spouse. Now, I do want to let you know before we get started with today’s episode that if you missed the plan your 2023 workshop, no worries.

[00:03:52] I totally understand. But the replay is available online and this is why I am making it available for you to. Anytime. I know for so many families, you get into the holiday season and it can feel chaotic and you’re just trying to make it through, and then you feel like you’re limping towards the end of the year as everybody is talking about goal setting and planning for your year.

[00:04:23] And then by the time you get around to like start thinking about what you would actually make a goal for the year, everybody has already moved on and you feel like you missed out and you think to yourself, well, if I didn’t do it by the bi first week in January, then it’s probably not meant to be. Or you start at the beginning of January and by the end of the second week, you’ve already missed your goal for the year and you.

[00:04:50] Okay, this is not working. I just need to give up. And that is not what I want you to do. I want you to set yourself up for success in the new year, and this is something that I like to break down and make this super easy so you could understand why so many people don’t achieve their goals. Why we set the wrong goals and how to actually.

[00:05:19] A goal that is the right goal for you and to make progress on your goal and what to do with your mindset and how to adjust when you feel discouraged that you’re not moving as fast as you would like to. I feel like this is a conversation that every single military spouse would benefit from. Whether you’re doing this in January, whether you’re doing this in March or April, or whenever it is, it is so valuable.

[00:05:51] I’ve shared the story before, but the one of the most impactful years of my life, I did not have time to do any goal planning. At the beginning of the year. It wasn’t. The beginning of February when I was actually able to carve out some time to reflect on the last year and think about how I wanted to grow in the year ahead, and I still had a very productive year.

[00:06:17] I still grew so much that year, and it was all things that I was able to actually think about in the month. February. So when you sign up for the plan your 2023 workshop, you also get the workbook to go along with that training, and it’s going to have questions to help you think through where you’ve come from, where you are, and where you want to go in the year ahead, so you can show up and live with intention and purpose for the rest of the year.

[00:06:53] So I just want to let you know that. Replay of that training is going to be available for a limited time, and you can get that just by going to mil spouse mastermind.com/plan your 2023, and I would love to support you and walk this journey with you. Which leads me to the fact that I decided we needed this bonus episode so I could share my dreams for 2023 with you, because I love to not only teach you why this matters, how to do that, I want to show you that I am.

[00:07:35] Walking through these very same steps, I’m going through these same questions myself, and I’m continually learning and growing and adjusting along the way. I never want you to feel like. Chasing your dreams building a life you love, that’s something that needs to wait for some futurist season. That you just need to exist where you are today until this is about making the most of the life we have today about embracing.

[00:08:08] Where we are and learning to love the season that we’re in, even if it’s not a season that you would have chosen. And on the flip side, this is about sustainably pursuing your dreams. You may not move as fast as someone else or make quite as much progress in the same amount of time. But I think it’s also important to say that there are so many people out there that will teach you to.

[00:08:38] After your dreams at any cost, to not worry about what demands you’re placing on your family or your spouse or anyone else to do whatever you can to make a dream a reality for you. And in many cases, you will burn yourself out in the process if you go all in. And so this is about living. And crafting a sustainable life with purpose.

[00:09:09] It’s about figuring out what lights you up, what is important to you, and how you do more of that in your life while still prioritizing the needs of your family and following this life that we call the military life. Let’s make this something that is doable for all of. And the reason that I am so passionate about this is because I have been on both ends of the spectrum.

[00:09:39] I have been in that place of pursuing a dream at all costs. About 10 years ago, I opened a coffee shop and I went all in to make this coffee shop success, and I did what it took to. Turn the numbers around and grow that coffee shop, and it took a lot out of me. I was working 70 hours plus hours a week for the longest time, and I was not able, I didn’t have kids at the time, but I was not able to pour into my relationship with my spouse.

[00:10:13] He was also working long hours and we didn’t have time to connect. I didn’t have time to pour into relationships, and I didn’t have time. To take care of myself, and I totally did burn out, and when I walked away from that venture, I had this sense of I want to help military spouses really live a life of purpose to be able to start businesses, to be able to work from anywhere, but I want them to do it.

[00:10:44] Burning themselves out because I know what it’s like to burn yourself out trying to make this thing a reality. And so this is about a sustainable life of purpose. But I’ve also been in this place where I’m trying to set these goals. I’m following all of the quote unquote best practices of how you actually achieve your goals and make it a reality.

[00:11:10] And it just doesn’t seem to be working. For the unpredictability of my life as a military spouse of trying to move and spend so much of my time getting resettled, taking care of my family and my kids, and saying, how do I make this work for me? And so over the years, I’ve continued to tweak my processes to tweak the questions that I’m asking and to say, okay, what can I.

LEARNING TO SET & PURSUE GOALS AS A MILITARY SPOUSE

[00:11:38] From this year, how can we do this better? How can we make this a sustainable method for more military spouses? So today I thought I would spend just a few minutes talking about how my thinking about goal setting has evolved over the last couple of years and what my goals moving forward are for 2023.

[00:12:05] So if we go all the way back to a few years ago when I found myself in this place of what I called being an accidental stay at home mom, I. Three kids under the age of four. I’m trying to figure out how to find myself again and really start living a life that I loved, one that allowed me to use my skills and my gifts to serve others while still being present and focused on caring for my family.

[00:12:36] And so, I’m reading everything I can get my hands on about business and about working from home and about personal development and goal setting and trying to figure out. How do I make this work for my life as a military spouse and so much of what was out there at the time and is still out there, you know, really focuses on having those support systems in place, setting smart goals for yourself.

[00:13:06] If you aren’t familiar with the smart goal method, it stands for specific, measurable, achievable. Realistic and time bound. So you wanna set a goal that you can actually measure, that you can actually make progress on, that you can actually track your progress towards, and that you achieve within a specific time period.

[00:13:33] And that’s great if you have the ability to do it. If you can track something and you can take the time and the energy and effort to move the needle on that, you’re going to make measurable progress. But what happens when you can’t control how much time you have or how much energy you can put into something?

[00:13:56] Or you think you are able to make a cer certain amount of progress and then you don’t. It can be very, . There was also the sense when I would listen to all of these personal development teachers, when they talked about pursuing their goals, there was the sense that they had all of the support that they needed, that there was either family nearby to help or their kids where older, or they had a system for.

[00:14:32] Who was going to take care of these other things so that they were able to just focus on the one thing they were trying to go after. And as a stay at home mom with littles, that wasn’t my reality either. And so I started testing out all these different goal setting. Methods and saying, okay, what really matters?

What Goals Should I Focus on As a Military Spouse?

[00:14:53] What should I be focused on and what do I need to do to live a life of purpose, a fulfilling life as a military spouse, and really ultimately learn to love where I am instead of just feeling like I’m biting my time until I can actually build a life that I. So along the way I came up with what I refer to as the flexible goal setting method and this idea of setting growth goals for your life.

[00:15:27] Now, if you go listen to be plan in your 2023 workshop, I will go into all of this in much greater detail. But the two main ideas behind this are, number one, that it is less about accomplishing a specific goal within a certain timeframe, and it’s more about that we are moving in the right direction, that we have the needle pointed in the right direction.

[00:15:58] In reality, life is full of two steps forward, three steps back, one step forward, two steps back. And what matters is if we are moving in the right direction and that matters far more than what we actually achieve. The second thing is that it is so important for us to set the right goals for us. The goals that other people set or the goals that we think are measures of quote unquote success in life.

[00:16:36] And what I truly mean by this is that all of the goals that we set really come down to the most important question for all of us, I believe, as human beings. And that is the question of who you want to become. Now, a link below one of the very original episodes I recorded on this podcast, but I go into much greater detail about why this question.

[00:17:05] Such a game changer for my life and how so much of what I share with you is based on this idea of asking the question who we want to be and why this question is so vital to us. And our identity in life. Now, this is not to say that I came up with this method. I follow this method and I never have any issues with it because as I have shared before, it is still easy to fall into the trap of comparing myself and my progress to others too.

[00:17:41] Wishing I could. Forward faster or accomplish more, and really continually having to work on my mindset to refocus my thoughts on what matters most to me and to my life and to the person that I am becoming. And that’s why I feel like mindset is so key to all of this. So this is not to say that this is the be all, end all perfect method and that you will never struggle.

[00:18:11] Because I do struggle and that’s why I’m continually also working on my mindset. But I also know that this method has given me so much freedom and really is leading me to who I am becoming. I am making progress towards who I wanna be. I am doing things that matter to me, and I. Ultimately living a life that I truly love and embracing each moment that I am in.

[00:18:42] That’s not to say I don’t struggle because I absolutely do, but I am able to truly live this life and to say, Hey, I am doing something that matters and I’m doing it while prioritizing the needs. My family, and I truly am able to find a way to use my skills to make a. In the lives of others and still prioritize what matters most and live a fulfilling life as a military spouse who moves every couple of years.

[00:19:51] And my word of the year has varied widely over the last several years. I’ve probably been doing this. For five years now at this point. And I do have an episode. I will link that below in the show notes where I, if you’re trying to figure out what my word of the year should be, an episode that I did last year, just about how to determine your Word of the Year.

[00:20:12] So if you’re struggling with, how do I actually do that, go listen to that episode. That will help you get. My word of the year for 2022 was joy, and I really wanted to dive deeper into exploring how to tap into joy on a daily basis, how to live filled. Fueled and full of joy. And that was the episode that I did back on the week of Christmas where we talked about really the five keys to tapping into joy.

[00:20:46] That kind of came out of my study for the year. So I have a new word of the year for 2023, and it took me a little while of sitting with it and saying, what word really represents what I am after? This year, and it is the word Kintsugi. This is actually a Japanese term. It. Really means golden joinery, but it’s this idea of taking these broken pieces of Japanese pottery and they put it together with this gold lac that fills in all of the cracks and turns it into an art piece.

[00:21:34] It’s, it’s something that. Take something that is imperfect, that is broken and turns it into something that is stronger, more unique, resilient, and beautiful. It’s not about. I, I’ve heard some people describe it as just embracing your per imperfections, but it’s not really about embracing the imperfections, but it’s a about what comes through the, IM imperfections.

[00:22:09] It’s about understanding the masterpiece that is created. That I can look at my life and the things that have not worked out the way I want, the ways that I am not in love with who I am, but knowing that when God comes in and he fills those broken pieces, it creates a masterpiece and I really want to celebr.

[00:22:38] That masterpiece to fully embrace who I am and the fullness of who God created to me to be, rather than focusing on my flaws and my imperfections. And so that’s the idea of the beautiful work of art that God is creating in me and being able to fully embrace and celebrate that. and that is the area that I truly want to grow in this year.

MY GROWTH GOALS

[00:23:11] So for me, it’s choosing that word of the year and then evaluating how I’m showing up in each area of my life and really where I want to place my focus And. What I want to accomplish in the new year, and that is why I really focus on what I call growth goals, because it’s about how we are growing into who we’re meant to be.

[00:23:40] And over the years I have taken these 10 areas of my life. And you can do this very same thing if you go download our free growth wheel. Divides life up into 10 areas and you say, okay, how am I doing in each of these areas and how can I grow in each of these areas? And over the years, I have identified.

[00:24:05] Several opportunities for growth and I have made a lot of progress, but it has also felt at times overwhelming because I have a tendency to try to put too much on my plate and to think I can accomplish all these things, and so I am really focused this year. On scaling down the number of new habits I want to implement in my life, and I really just want to hone in on what I am already doing and focus.

[00:24:41] On the way that I am showing up on a daily basis because it is truly the small choices that we make that truly matter in the long run. The more that I read, the more that I study, the more that I understand that it is our thoughts and our daily actions and behaviors that really determine the outcome of our lives.

[00:25:06] And I want to be showing up and making. Day matter. So basically I’m continuing to hone in on my core commitments, which you’ll learn about if you go through any of my courses and my routine stacks in my weekly schedule. But then I have three big goals for this. So I took all of the growth goals that I considered.

[00:25:36] I took all of my big vision and my vision planning and boiled it down to what are the things that. Truly, I feel like will move the needle in my life this year that will have long-term dividends on how I want to show up and who I am becoming. So are you ready to hear what those three goals are? Number one is, Running half marathon.

[00:26:07] And the interesting thing about sharing these big goals on here is that it is a form of accountability. I’m putting it out there so you guys get to hold me to this. But number one is running a half marathon. I’ve been saying I wanna do this for 10, 15 years now, and it’s time to finally make this happen.

[00:26:28] So if I can stay healthy this year, that is my goal for this year. I am obviously celebrating the fact that it’s a year that we’re not supposed to be PCSing, so I feel like I have so much more flexibility than on the years where we spend. all summer PCSing. So excited about that and really learning how to run a half marathon.

[00:26:54] I’ve never run that kind of distance before. I have a lot to learn. But you can be excited to be on the ride with me and see how I do at making this dream a reality in my. The second big dream is also a big one, but it has just really grown in my heart. Over the last six months. I, you know, six months ago this was not even an idea.

[00:27:21] Well, it was more of a long term idea in my head. And then it just kind of became more and more of a, oh, this is supposed to happen in the short term, but it is writing a book really. Mindset and resilience and how we get unstuck and fully embrace the life we have as military spouse, which is an exciting project, a scary project.

[00:27:46] A book is a big deal. It takes a lot of time and energy. And I have been reading about how to do this well. So that is my second big goal for the year. And then the third one is just making money in my business and I have a specific monetary goal that I am hoping to hit this year and do what it takes to get there and see if I can do what I can to move the needle while still.

[00:28:17] Prioritizing our family and making this work for our life and where we’re at in this season. So those are my three big goals. Just trying to parrot down and say, what are the things that are going to help me live into my purpose? Take care of myself and invest in the relationships that matter most to me in this season.

[00:28:44] And so I hope that this encourages you to spend some time reflecting on, number one, how you wanna grow. For the year ahead, if there is specific word that you have for your year, that is absolutely where I would suggest is a good place to start. Number two, if you are just wanting an idea of how you can improve your life, go start by downloading the growth wheel or sign up for the replay of the plan your 2023 workshop, where you will get my free workbook that guides you through all of the questions to plan out your year. 

I would love for you to do that. That way you can kind of see in much greater detail what I mean when I talk about flexible goal setting, how we set that up, how you actually turn a dream into a plan, how to choose what growth goals you’re going to prioritize in the next season, and then how you actually track your progress along.

What Goals Will You Set For Your Year?

[00:29:51] So here’s what I want to leave us with today as I have come up with my goals for the year. As you are planning out your year, I want us to be intentional with our energy, with our focus, to do the things that matter to us, that light us up, that make a difference, and allow us to truly. Be present and make the most of this beautiful life that we have, the, the one life that we’ve been given that, that we don’t need to waste.

[00:30:29] There is so much beauty, so much joy that is available to all of us, and I hope that you will embrace those moments, that you will choose joy that you. Choose to live with an intention to walk with us on this journey to remember that we are better together, that you are not alone. I would love it for you to come pop into our Facebook community, say hello, introduce yourself.

[00:30:59] We would love to have you as part of our community of purpose fuels. Spouses seeking to live with more joy and less overwhelmed in this crazy life. I hope you have an amazing week. I will see you back here next week. Until then, may you live filled, fueled. And full of joy.