Day three of MilSpouse Purpose Playbook launch week! I am so excited to be back with you today. We are dropping episodes all week long, celebrating the launch of the milspouse purpose playbook course, your step-by-step guide to find purpose, reclaim your life and dreams, and discover who you are meant to be.

[00:00:24] And then celebration of lunch week. I am sharing some of my most valuable pieces of content I can, because my goal is to help you thrive as a military spouse. I know if you are in this place of being frustrated with military life, then, you know, it’s time for something to change. And as we talked about on Monday show, there are two big obstacles in your way.

[00:00:49] Number one, not living with purpose. If you do not have a contribution that lights you up, if you do not have a way, something in your life that is allowing you to use your uniqueness to serve others, you will start to struggle. Because we all struggle, especially mentally when we don’t have a purpose. We need a purpose to thrive and to find fulfillment.

[00:01:15] And number two, we don’t thrive because we feel pulled in all directions. Because there is too much on our plate. We end up in this cycle of stress, overwhelm and exhaustion. We are headed towards burnout because we’re trying to manage all of the things. We’re trying to pursue our own purpose, our own dreams and passions, and it’s not working. The course we’re on is not sustainable. And so we’re not thriving.

[00:01:41] Monday we talked about why it’s so important for us to find purpose, and how we need to know that you are more than a military spouse, that you need to start stepping into your purpose. And today we’re going to talk about these second problem, what to do when you’re in this place of overwhelm, when you are trying to live with purpose.

[00:02:06] When you are trying to pursue your own dreams and passions, and yet you feel stuck, because there is too much on your plate and you’re not sure what to do about it. Is it really possible to make a contribution as a military spouse, without exhaustion and overwhelm, without burning yourself out?

Friends! Have you jumped inside the Milspouse purpose playbook? This is your step-by-step guide to reclaim your life and dreams, to say goodbye to frustration and hello to fulfillment and a life of impact. And when you jump inside by Friday, you get the course at 20% off.

[00:03:40] Plus there’s an exclusive opportunity to get coached on your next steps. You’ll also get the bonus goal setting masterclass. I’m going to take you behind the scenes of how this course came to be, and my process of creating it and chasing a big dream. And a huge part of what helped this course become a reality was my flexible goal setting method that works for your life as a military spouse.

[00:04:08] We do a deep dive into this in the bonus masterclass, and that training is yours free when you jump inside the course today. All right. So today we’re answering the question, Is it possible to make a contribution as a military spouse without feeling overwhelmed? And you probably know what I’m going to say.

[00:04:32] Yes, it’s possible. Spoiler alert. But the question is how? How do we do this? If you are in this place where you are working full time, you have kids that you’re trying to get to school, or they are in daycare, you’re trying to get meals on the table. Your spouse may be gone TDY or deployed. They’re not in the picture or they’re not available to help.

[00:04:57] You don’t have family members nearby. You don’t yet have a sitter that you can rely on. You feel like you’re pulled in all directions, trying to make it work. And you’re just exhausted. I have been there. When I was pregnant with my second child, my first one was in daycare.

[00:05:19] I was working full time. I had an hour long commute each way. And so I would wake up in the morning, get my daughter and myself dressed and out the door, off to daycare, over to work all day long. And as soon as work was over, everybody else in the office was working late and I had to leave at 5:00 PM so that I had time to drive all the way to the daycare, pick up my daughter, get home in time to throw dinner on the table.

[00:05:44] Get her through the bedtime routine into bed and then collapse, exhausted on the couch because I was also pregnant with child number two. And she was zapping all of the remaining energy I had left. I felt like I was simply making it from day to day. And I only had the weekends to really enjoy life. It was not sustainable.

[00:06:10] I did not love my life. And that was a real challenge. The thing that really made me say, Hey, this isn’t working. What needs to change? How do I change my life? Because I don’t like the way my life is looking. And this is what it means to pursue purpose as a military spouse. So today I want to talk to you about rethinking your life. Let’s talk about how it’s possible.

[00:06:43] We need to get really getting on what we want. I am all about not taking anything for granted, thinking about why we assume certain things have to be the way they are. So often we just accept what’s normal as truth. This is the only way to make a contribution. This is the only way to do life. And really, we have to be able to think bigger. Think outside the box.

[00:07:12] In the Milspouse purpose playbook, one of the modules is all about alignment, how we make today matter. How do we make our life and our schedule work for us? And there’s three key parts. Number one, we have to prioritize what matters most. We get clear on what matters most so that we can prioritize that.

[00:07:36] Then we optimize our schedule. How do we make the most out of the time we have? And when you talk about all the things that need to go into optimizing our schedule, and then the third piece of that is. Systemizing our life, the rhythms and habits and systems that we put in place to support who we want to be and how we want to show up.

[00:08:01] And those are all great things to do, We want to prioritize, optimize and systemize. It’s all about alignment. But until we are clear on our purpose, then we can’t really align our life and our schedule with our priorities. So I want to bring three ideas to you for consideration today, depending on what your life looks like and where you are at the moment.

[00:08:32] I think one of these three things is going to help you get started on this journey. To learn how to make a contribution without the exhaustion, overwhelm and burnout. So the first thing I want to talk to you about is prioritizing what matters most. We’ve talked about how we really need to get clear on what we want, what we want life to be about, what our values are and how we prioritize what matters.

[00:09:02] Now our highest, best contribution comes when we do the right thing, for the right reason, at the right time or season. So an easy way to look at what you’re doing and saying. Is this the right thing? Is this what I should be doing? Am I doing it for the right reason? And is this the right time or season to pursue this thing?

[00:09:32] So you may have a dream. It may be the right thing for you. It may be an alignment with who you are. It may be your sweet spot. It may be the perfect thing. You have this great dream for your life. And your reasons are the right reasons. You know that this is how you’re supposed to live your purpose, but maybe doing that big thing, chasing that big dream, isn’t going to look the way you think it should look.

[00:10:05] And this season, because it might not be the right season to chase your dream in the way you think you want to chase it. Is this the right season or is there a different way you can pursue purpose in this season? So we need to ask ourselves, this is a great starting point. Is this the right thing for me? Am I doing this for the right reason?

[00:10:29] And is this the right time or season? The second thing that I would encourage you to do is to take some time with a piece of paper and really craft a vision for your life. What do you want your life to look and feel like? So often we think that we need to do the things that perhaps our parents did or that we see everyone around us.

[00:10:57] We accept that as a normal. If my best friend growing up has stayed in her hometown. She is climbing the career ladder. She is getting promoted. She is working full time. She is getting all these accolades.

If I want to make a contribution out of my sweet spot, then I think I need to pursue life the same way that she is pursuing life. But I’m not taking into consideration that fact that grandma is watching the kids several times a week. That she has so many friends and family, so many people that she can call if something goes wrong. And even if her husband is traveling, she still has a huge support network that is helping her achieve her goals and her dreams.

[00:11:46] You need a vision for what you want your life to be about. What do you really want your life to look and feel like? Is it pursuing a traditional eight to five job? What does that look like? If you are doing an eight to five job and if your spouse is working crazy hours or gone a lot, and if there is no support network. What is that going to look like for your life and for your family?

[00:12:12] Ask yourself, is what I want to do now going to be something that happens long-term or is this, Hey, I need to do this for a season? I want to go back to school and it’s going to help me do the thing I really want to do and craft a life that is going to work for our family. And it’s going to take more time for a while.

[00:12:34] Or perhaps there is this skill I want to learn, and it’s going to take extra time and energy. In that case, I need to create a schedule that’s going to allow me to gain that skill. That’s going to help me, later on, pursue the things I want to pursue and live the life I want to live.

[00:12:54] The first thing that has to happen is for us to figure out what we want out of life. What do we want our life to look and feel like? How much do we want to be present in our kids’ lives? What kind of impact do we want to have in their lives? What kind of legacy do we want to leave? What do we want? There are so many questions that we can go through to say, you know, is this really the life I want? If I was pursuing a traditional eight to five job and having, you know, a 30-minute or hour-long commute every day. There’s only so much time in my schedule. And is that really worth it to me in this season?

[00:13:30] If I do nothing pertaining to my career for the next 10 years, I’m going to be wildly out of date in what the current marketing techniques are. In the last 10 years, so much about marketing and advertising has drastically changed.

[00:13:55] We have digital marketing, which wasn’t even talked about when I was in college. We had a basic class of how do you create a website. This was the new thing that businesses were jumping into. And now we have a whole field of digital marketing. And so if I don’t do any marketing for 10 years, then I’m going to be wildly out of date, and not really be relevant to my job. But do I need a traditional eight to five marketing job to pursue my dreams? Maybe yes, maybe no. What is it that’s important to you?

[00:14:30] Before we say, well, it either has to be A or B – we make it a binary – let’s talk about what we actually want. And then once we know what we want our life to look and feel like, how much we want, how much time, how we want to spend our time and our resources and our energy, then we start to say, okay, Is there a different way to do this?

[00:15:03] Is there a way that works for my career and helps me achieve my big goals and dreams? If we just stay stuck in either work or not work, then we’re never really going to learn how to make a contribution that matters, without burning ourselves out because we are stuck in the either A or either B, either work full time and never see my kids and feel exhausted all the time, or stay at home and be completely unfulfilled.

[00:15:38] It doesn’t have to be an either or option. You can find a way to pursue purpose, to chase your dreams and build a life you love, but to have to be willing to first examine what you really want out of life, what you want your life to look and feel like. And then we can start talking about avenues to pursue purpose.

[00:15:59] Now, if you are sitting here saying, I feel overwhelmed. I don’t love the way my life is, but I don’t have time to really think through what I want. How do I prioritize what matters most? The very first step you can do, the one thing that you can do today is just take an inventory of your life.

Now we’ve mentioned the growth wheel before. I’m going to link the download in the show notes, but the growth wheel is simply a framework to help you start thinking about your life as a whole, instead of thinking about it in terms of work and life.

[00:16:37] We think about our work, our purpose as one element of the 10 pieces of our life puzzle. And the first question we ask ourselves is how are we doing in each of these areas? Number one, rest. Am I taking time to rest? Am I taking time to do the things that fill me and fuel me with life? Number two, how’s my mental and emotional health?

[00:17:05] Am I nourishing my mental and emotional health? Number three, my physical health. Am I caring for myself physically? Number four, our spiritual health. What am I doing to prioritize my spiritual health? Number five, our home. How are we caring for our home? Do we have a life-giving home? Are we feeling stressed and overwhelmed by the chaos of our home? Or do we have an orderly home that brings life to ourselves and to others?

[00:17:27] And then we look at our relationship with our spouse, our relationship with our family, our relationships with our friends, how we’re caring for our finances, and finally how we’re pursuing our purpose. So there’s 10 elements to our life as a whole.

[00:17:46] And the first step is just sitting down and saying, how am I doing? In each area, where am I doing really well and where am I really struggling? Once we get an idea of where we’re struggling, then we need to start looking at how we want to grow and what we’re doing to pour into our life.

[00:18:10] In the fundamental needs episode, we talked about how all of these 10 areas of life, fit into three major buckets. Our bucket of caring for ourselves, our bucket of caring for our relationships and our bucket of caring for and stewarding our purpose or work. If one of these three buckets is empty, then we’re not going to fill fulfilled.

[00:18:32] The other thing about the growth wheel is that it revolves. It’s set up with arrows, moving in a clockwise direction, which means we have to have healthy inputs to have healthy outputs. If we are not pouring into ourselves, then we are not able to show up and pour into the lives of those around us. We are not able to fully live out of our purpose. We have to take time for a healthy impact and that number one most important starts from a place of rest.

[00:19:02] We cannot get where we want to go. If we start from a place of hustle and grind, we have to start by taking time to rest. Our bodies were designed to rest to have times when we are not doing all this. So I can’t tell you what in your life is off. I can’t tell you what needs to change. I can’t tell you how you squeeze more out of your schedule.

[00:19:28] I mean, I can help you, but I don’t think it matters until we get clear on what’s really going on what we really want. And then we can see. To prioritize what matters most, we get clear that we are living in alignment with who we want to be. And then we start prioritizing what matters most, optimizing our schedule, and systemizing our life.

[00:19:53] So my encouragement to you today is if you are living in this place where you feel. Like there is too much going on on your schedule and you don’t know how to make it work because you’re working full-time, you’re caring for your kids full-time, you’re trying to manage the home and carry the mental load of your family, and you just feel overwhelmed.

[00:20:15] My challenge is to just do one thing to care for yourself. To find a place and time when you can rest, when you can do something that fills and fills you with life. Then sit down with the growth wheel and take the assessment. Which areas am I doing really well in? And which areas am I not? What is one thing I can do to help this area where I feel we can? Am I doing things that give me healthy imputs? So that I can show up with healthy outputs.

[00:20:38] As you have time, sit down and say, okay, what do I really want out of life? What do I want my life to look and feel like? And is there a different way to make a contribution? If what I’m doing today isn’t working, what do I need to change? Or, is this overwhelm for a specific season? Is there an end in sight?

[00:21:10] We want to be moving towards a life with more margin. Am I moving towards this place where I’m living filled, fueled and full of joy? And how can I prioritize the things that matter most and learn to set boundaries and say no to the things that are not moving me towards who want to be and how I want to show up?

[00:21:35] If you have questions about any of this, if you want to schedule a session to say, Hey, I’m stuck and I want to start moving to this place. And I need someone to sit down with me and say, how do we make this possible? How do I find more time in my schedule? What I do with who I want to be so that I can stop feeling pulled in all directions?

[00:21:57] So I can get out of this cycle of stress, overwhelm and anxiety and into the cycle of living filled, fueled, and full of joy. Then I would love to sit down with you and get unstuck session. If you’re interested in that, you can just send an email to christine@millsspousemastermind.com. And we can start working on this together.

[00:22:17] If you know that you need help getting clarity on what you really want and what your purpose is, and then jump inside the milspouse purpose playbook. 20% off this week only, and whatever you do just remember. You are doing the best you can with what you have right now. And that is what really matters. Simply by listening to this podcast today, you are showing that you want to thrive. And a little progress each day adds up to really big results.

[00:22:51] I am cheering you on. I am supporting you. Pop into our Facebook group. Let us know how we can support you. And until next time may you live filled, fueled, and full of joy.