WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE TO PURSUE A GOAL AS A MILITARY SPOUSE?

I started this series last month. And my goal is to take you on a journey this entire year and show you exactly what it looks like to pursue goals, to chase a dream as a military spouse in your current season of life. It’s one thing to sit here behind my mic and tell you that it’s possible.

And it’s one thing to talk about showing up for your life and finding fulfillment and chasing your dreams with more joy and less overwhelm, but talking about it and doing it are entirely two different things.

And I realized that so many of you may be in this place of discouragement because maybe you’ve tried and you’ve failed, or maybe during this place where you just can’t see how it’s possible.

You’re scared to take a leap. You’re scared because you know how much is on the horizon. What’s wcoming up because military life is so unpredictable and you’re navigating a lot of change and uncertainty and the world feels really uncertain right now.

And you know that your spouse needs you. Your kids need you. And so you keep pushing these dreams, these thoughts, these feelings, the thing that’s on your heart, your passion, you keep pushing that off to the back burner.

And the truth is, I think we need more people that are modeling what this looks like in real life. The good, the bad, the ugly. Because it’s so easy to go to social media and see people’s highlight reels.

[00:01:55] Right? We say, oh, they are doing all of this and I can barely make it through the day. And we are all vulnerable to this. Even me, I can get on social media and I start scrolling and I see all of these things that other people are doing.

Even though I know this is somebody’s highlight reel and I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. I don’t know how they’re feeling, how much support they have. It’s still easy for me to start comparing myself.

WE NEED MORE MILSPOUSE MENTORS

I want to give you an honest look of what it looks like to pursue a life of purpose as a military spouse, because there are amazing parts of this journey and there are some really challenging parts of this journey as well.

[00:02:42] I think the more that we can normalize, this is what it looks like, the better. Yes, it’s challenging. Yes. There are obstacles in the way all the time, but it’s absolutely worth it. This is a journey that is completely worth pursuing. And so that is my goal this year to just take you month by month through this process of what this looks like in my own life.

[00:03:08] And that means like sharing victories and highlights with you, but also sharing those really challenging parts. And that’s what you’re getting to hear a lot about today, because we are talking all about my real life in February.

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of my monthly recap, there’s two important things that I want to share with you.

ACKNOWLEDGING UNCERTAINTY

[00:04:35] And the first one is just acknowledging the uncertainty and the added stress and anxiety that you may be feeling right now because of the world events. You know, we, we are living through history and real time and Russia invading the Ukraine. It’s been very interesting to watch and see just the distinction between how everyone in my military community is dealing with this information and how my civilian friends are taking in and absorbing this information.

I just want to acknowledge that this is an additional layer of uncertainty and heightened anxiety. How is this going to impact our world? How is it going to impact our family? Our spouses. The deployment tempo.

[00:05:30] There are just a lot of questions that we don’t have answers to. And so I just want to acknowledge that this can add another layer of stress and anxiety that makes us struggle with our everyday life. So if you are in that place, I completely understand. And it’s so important for us to take that time, and to be aware of those feelings.

[00:05:54] To acknowledge those feelings so that we can make room and give those feelings space. I just want to take a few minutes and really acknowledge that today. I don’t have wise words or answers except to say that this is something that we are processing together and it’s okay to have a lot of feelings about it.

CELEBRATING ONE YEAR OF THE MILSPOUSE MASTERMIND SHOW

[00:06:19] The second thing I want to tell you about, which is kind of a big pivot to something really exciting. And that is, it is now March and we are celebrating the one year anniversary of the milspouse mastermind show, which totally blows my mind. I have been coming to you from behind my mic for an entire year now.

[00:06:42] And I’m so excited to celebrate this big milestone with you! I’m going to talk more about this on Monday’s episode, but we are going to really celebrate together. And I asked myself, what is the best way for us to do that together? And really what I came to is we need to be able to share this information with as many military spouses as possible.

[00:07:12] How can I help more military spouses who feel stuck, who need to know that it’s possible to craft a life with purpose as a military spouse, to find fulfillment in their current season, and to live with more meaning and less overwhelm? It’s kind of a two-part answer. I have a huge favor to ask and a special surprise to offer.

WILL YOU HELP ME CELEBRATE?

[00:07:38] Number one, the huge favor is could you go and leave a review of this show on iTunes?This is how we get found in the feed. It makes a huge difference in whether the podcast is shown in the feed to more military spouses. It allows you to make an impact in the lives of other military spouses that you don’t even know.

Not sure how to leave a podcast review on Apple? This will tell you exactly what to do.

[00:08:07] It has to be in iTunes. You just go scroll to the bottom of the page. Or you can go to milspousemastermind.com/show. That will take you to the apple podcast feed, scroll to the bottom, and there you can leave a rating and just a short review of how this podcast has blessed you.

ENTER TO WIN ACCESS INSIDE MILSPOUSE PURPOSE PLAYBOOK

Now I mentioned the surprise part and anyone that leaves a review between now and March 15th will be entered to win an all-access pass to MilSpouse Purpose Playbook.

[00:09:02] This course is your guide to getting clarity, to reclaiming your life and dreams and discovering who you are meant to be. If you are in that place where you’re thinking, I need some clarity on what my purpose is. How do I live out of my sweet spot, how do I pursue my dreams in my current season of life and in preparing for the next season. How do I ultimately discover who I meant to be? And how do I do this in a sustainable way?

Maybe it hasn’t been in the budget for you to invest in this course, but this is going to give you the opportunity to get inside and learn how to do all of this, how to create your personal purpose statement and take those next steps of action. This is for anybody that leaves a review of the show between now and March 15th.

[00:09:52] Now, if you’ve already left a review for the show, you can get additional bonus entries by sharing the show in your social media feed. That can either be a post, or you can share it in your stories.

One thing I know is that if you have a friend that tells you to listen, then you’re going to pay attention because we trust people that we know. So you can make a huge impact on those who are in your life simply by recommending resources that are going to help them. This is all about helping military spouses thrive.

So, if you want to be entered to win an all-access pass, I just need to know that you left a review. And sometimes Itunes is weird about taking a while for the review to show up. So just make sure if you leave a review, especially if you’re getting towards that end towards that March 15th deadline. Take a screenshot of your review and tag me in some way you can post it in the Facebook group. You can post it in your feed and then just tag me @milspousemastermind.

[00:11:12] Make sure that I see it. Or you can even send me an email with your screenshot: hello@milspousemastermind.com. I would love for you to enter.. The more that you can celebrate with me and with our whole community, by leaving reviews on the show, I would absolutely love it. It is a win win for all of us.

MILSPOUSE REAL LIFE RECAP

[00:11:39] On Monday I’ll talk more about what it looks like one year into podcasting, into showing up for you, and some of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned personally in the last year. But right now we’re going to talk about my February real life recap.

[00:12:05] And it is very different from my January recap, but I felt like it was so important to share this with you because this is real life. And I want to normalize the challenges that are just a part of pursuing, well, really chasing any kind of dream, but especially chasing a dream when you are a military spouse, because it’s just that extra layer of challenge.

[00:12:34] So just to quickly recap in January, you can go back to episode 60, is all about my January real life recap, what my goals were for the month, what actually happened and what I learned through the month of January. But when you listen to that episode, the big feeling that I took away from that month was just this feeling of encouragement.

[00:13:00] I’m not killing it, but I’m on the right path. And I feel really encouraged by the way, things are going right now. And I’m making progress on the things that really matter.

And then February happened. And the funny part, to me, is that I almost in the January episode mentioned something about how we have stayed really healthy through the month of January. I decided not to throw that in, but it is ironic because I spent the entire month of February sick. I’ll get into some more details in a few minutes, just a really big difference from January to February. But let’s walk through this month together.

FEBUARY REFLECTION

[00:13:46] So first what I wanted for February, my big goals. And we’ll talk through a few of my core commitments. My question at the beginning of each month is what’s going to help me move towards who I want to be and how I want to show up. And we talked about how our goals are in alignment with our growth goals for our life, our arrow goals for our year, and the growth plan that we create at the beginning of the year, and for the particular quarter that we are in. Our 90 day goals. And our current month.

What am I focusing on this month? What do I want to achieve that’s going to move me in the right direction. And so here are some of the goals that I had for my February.

Number one was batching podcast episodes because I love coming to you from behind my mic, but as you’ve probably heard, we are PCSing this summer and it’s just a very big process.

MY MONTHLY MILSPOUSE GOALS

[00:14:59] There are a lot of moving pieces over the next few months. And so I wanted to work ahead so that I can continue coming to you and showing up and building this community in the midst of the craziness of life. So the one thing I wanted to do was batch some episodes that I can release at a later date.

 Number two was working on the workflow in my business to really start to streamline things, to make them flow more smoothly. Really optimize more of my time.

I’m also focused on our family calendar and, and just really doing more to make sure that everyone in our family is on the same page about where we need to be, what we need to do, and really make them most of the time we have. And then the next piece of that is looking at our weekly schedule and our routines.

[00:16:00] I talked in January just about our weekly schedule and trying to figure out how to fit all of the pieces in, because we added in activities for our kids. I’m still trying to take care of our home and all of the projects and things that need to get done ,while adding a new time commitment and really making that work for our family. And then I had a list of specific books I wanted to try to read this month. So those were my big goals

MY CORE COMMITMENTS

[00:16:25] And then my core commitments. Core commitments are the things that we commit to do on a weekly or monthly basis that help us care for ourself, connect with other people, and pursue our purpose or make a contribution. Care, connect and contribute.

[00:16:54] So we have these core commitments and what needs to happen in our current season of life, so that we’re sustainably able to live filled, fueled, and full of joy. And so some of my core commitments that I was really focused on this month were my health and fitness, because I didn’t prioritize that appropriately in January.

[00:17:17] Having a monthly date night out with my husband, putting that project and cleaning time into our weekly schedule, and then my morning routine before the kids wake up and the. So my health and fitness did not get prioritized again in February. And you’ll hear more about that in a few minutes. I also struggled to find a babysitter so that my husband could go on a date nights. And I, again, struggled with my project and cleaning times in the week. But I did stay consistent with my morning routine. So I want to celebrate that.

WHAT HAPPENED

Before you’re like, well, what did you do? Let’s talk about what actually happened in my February. Well, the first thing that happened is that I was sick for the entire month and I started having developing a cough at the beginning of February.

[00:18:17] And if you go back and you listen to some of my episodes from a couple of weeks ago, especially my conversation with Dr. Lindsey Cavanagh. You can hear that my voice wasn’t completely normal, and it’s still is not completely normal, but, it turned out that I had developed walking pneumonia. It was not related to the pandemic at all, but it’s been a very long process of recovery.

[00:18:47] So I’ve basically been sick the entire month, and it’s just a slow process of recovering. And when you do not feel a hundred percent, that just affects every other area of your life. And on top of that, my kids spent a lot of time in quarantine because of contact tracing.

I think we are currently on round four for this a month. And so my kids have been home a lot. aIt’s just challenging when you make a plan, you put together. The schedule, you have appointments and commitments and things that you’re supposed to be at, and you’re constantly canceling things or rescheduling things.

WHEN LIFE IS UNPREDICTABLE

[00:19:37] It’s just been frustrating to have everything be so up in the air. And you never know when you’re going to get that phone call and you’re going to be stuck at home even to the point of while my husband was gone and being stuck at home with my kids and running low on groceries. And knowing you need to call in support because I can’t take my kid to the store and we don’t really have a great system for grocery pickup. There’s been a lot of unpredictability this month. And then on top of that, my husband, as I mentioned, was gone a lot. He was TDY for a week. And even when he was just doing his normal job, it’s a very busy season for him, so he was home late a lot.

[00:20:26] It was just a season where he wasn’t around as much. And then on top of that, we were supposed to be getting ready to have our household goods picked up next week in preparation for our move and all of that got delayed.

So as of this recording, I still don’t know if we are having our household goods picked up this month, or if we are just going to be living without our stuff for a lot longer.

[00:20:58] There’s just a lot of unpredictability right now. I don’t have timelines. I don’t have the ability to plan in advance. I don’t know how that’s going to impact when we receive our belongings, because as I’ve shared with you, it is probably going to be three to four months for our stuff to get to our next location.

[00:21:21] And so we wanted to get it shipped out as quickly as possible. But that may not be possible. So we’re just living in the land of when are we going to receive that phone call. And we’re just really finding it challenging to plan the next several weeks out right now.

[00:21:42] So living in that season of unpredictability, having a spouse who was really busy at work, having kids who were randomly getting sent home, but thankfully staying mostly healthy themselves. And then on top of that, me being sick all month. So when I think about my February, It feels really discouraging. And so I hope that me sharing what was going on with us really helps normalize this life for you. I know some people have it a whole heck of a lot worse than we did. This is just real life.

CELEBRATE THE WINS

[00:22:14] And I did feel really discouraged, but let’s stop for a minute and talk about my highlights and wins. So what we’re going to do over the next few minutes is talk about celebrating the wins, talking about the struggles and challenges, and then focusing on the lessons learned and what we want to take for next month.

[00:22:47] So, this is why I think it’s so important that we are tracking our wins, that we are celebrating. We are taking time to focus on what did go well, and to really take that time on a weekly basis for reflect. When I think about what I did well in February, number one is keeping track of my wins and that all comes down to my weekly reflections.

[00:23:18] And this is something that I encourage you to do is to weekly, take time to reflect on what happened in your week and what went well and what went wrong and how you can improve for the next week. I’ve been doing this for a while, but I was inconsistent with it. I just let it go to the back burner.

[00:23:40] If I got busy, I didn’t do it. And one of my goals for this year has been to really prioritize that on a weekly basis, to take that few minutes and reflect on my week. And I’ve done that really well this whole year. I was amazed at what a difference it made. Because of the fact that I was reflecting weekly and I was keeping track of my wins, I was blown away.

[00:24:06] I was blown away when I looked at everything that I actually got done this month, despite all of the challenges. I was able to get some great interviews in, despite being sick. I was able to throw my daughter a birthday party in between all of the quarantines. I was able to reach a lot of my goals for this month. I batched episodes, I was able to make some steps towards optimizing my workflow, to work on our family calendar, our weekly schedule, and figure out what routines work for our family and which ones don’t.

[00:24:50] I accomplished almost all of my purpose-related goals for the month. It was actually a great month for the podcast. I was able to put a lot of plans in place for the next few months. I actually got a lot done.

When I’m just thinking about all of the things that happened this month, our brains often immediately go to the negative. We have to take time to celebrate those wins and really write those down, because I would just think about all of the challenges that I face this month and forget about all the wins that I actually had. So even when life feels overwhelming, we can actually still be making progress towards our goals and we can celebrate that.

WHERE I STRUGGLED

[00:25:50] So I actually had a lot of wins this month. But, as we talked about, as we get into the challenges…life was very unpredictable and I felt discouraged. And you know, honestly, a lot of that has to do with when you do not feel a hundred percent physically, that affects every other area of your life.

[00:26:15] There were so many circumstances outside of my control this month. I was not feeling well. I was home with kids. I was doing a lot of solo parenting. And I really wanted to have a PCS plan in advance and I wanted to have this all figured out. And I mean, it’s still falling apart as we speak.

[00:26:42] I don’t know what’s going to happen, what our timeline’s going to be. All of that is outside of my control. And so there were a lot of struggles with knowing that so much of this is out of my control.

[00:27:06] This is why I hammer this point home so often. We can’t control our circumstances. All we can control is what we do with what we have and really how we handle all of this unpredictability. Are we going to let it derail us from our goals?

WHAT I LEARNED

Moving into what I learned in February and what learning points I want to take with me into the next month, it really comes down to my biggest struggles.

[00:27:35] Really go back to this mindset issue and learning how to not get wrapped up in what is going on and not let myself get frustrated and discouraged by all of these forces that I can’t control. And to learn how to take my thoughts captive, to not stress about it, to not let worry over the future be the dominant theme in my mind.

[00:28:03] And really this is a continual learning process. It’s not just something that we go through one time and then you’re like, okay, I got this! I’ve got a plan to handle all this. This is something that, continually comes up and each time I’m learning more and more about how to create space and move through these thoughts and feelings that I have.

[00:28:25] And to ask these questions like: Okay, what is the story I’m telling myself right now? What are the actual facts? Not my opinions…not what I want to happen. What’s actually going on? What can I actually control, and what is outside of my control?

[00:28:56] And then what do I do with where I’m at? What do I do with these thoughts, these feelings, these emotions that are rising up and how can I act in accordance with my values instead of how I feel in the moment? Really it comes down to reminding myself of what really matters. Sometimes I find myself getting caught up in my frustration with the situation and really taking time to say, okay, what is it that I’m feeling right now? And what do I need to remember in this moment?

WHAT’S HELPING ME

The two phrases that have really been beneficial and helpful to me this month, and I hope they will be to you as well, are remembering that slow is the pace that greatness grows. I want to see these big victories and I want to live in alignment with the person I am becoming. To really embody this character. But I’m still in this place of a growth journey, and I’m still having all of these obstacles in my way. And I’m not responding the way I want to respond in this moment. And to recognize that it’s a journey, it’s a process. It takes time. Slow is the pace that greatness grows.

[00:30:28] And then the second thing that has been really important for me to remember this month is what I do today matters. I’ll have a day where I got frustrated. I let my emotions win. I didn’t show up as the person I wanted to be. And just to remember, every day is a new day. What am I going to choose today?

[00:30:54] What am I going to focus on and prioritize? And how am I going to live? It really comes down to number one, my mindset, and continuing to work on my mindset. And then continuing to hone in on our family routines and my core commitments that are going to help me sustainably keep showing up.

[00:31:25] And really, the other piece that I want to learn from this month, is to continue to hold all of my plans loosely. Because we don’t know what’s going to happen. We can’t control any of these circumstances, this situation. And, you know, give yourself grace for this journey, because some days you’re going to absolutely be killing it and other days you’re going to find yourself stuck in that hole again and you allow your emotions to win the day. That is completely normal.

[00:31:51] But the more that we can not let our feelings and our emotions win the day, the more that we can take back control, and remind ourselves of what matters. Knowing our why, knowing what we want to do, how we want to show up and just remembering that every day is a new day.

LIVE A LIFE THAT MATTERS

[00:32:25] Hopefully this shows you that, even in the midst of struggle and uncertainty, we can still make progress and live a life that truly matters. And still pursue those passions and chase our dreams. We don’t have to wait for some future season to chase our dreams. It’s not necessarily going to go at the pace we want it to go, but slow is the pace that greatness grows.

[00:32:52] And it’s really just about taking that next step, putting one foot in front of the other and making the most of every day. I hope that this episode was really what you needed right now to understand that you don’t have to let your circumstances derail you. If you have been on the fence about stepping out, into chase a dream, into pursuing a goal.

[00:33:18] But you’re just like, but, but all of these things could happen. Yes, they will happen. But you can keep making progress even in the hard seasons, in the difficult seasons, in the seasons of lots of unpredictability.

 So don’t forget, go over to iTunes, leave us a review of this show. If you leave a review between now and March 15th, you’ll be entered to win a, an all-access pass to MilSpouse Purpose Playbook.

[00:33:53] Pop into our Facebook group, let us know what you thought of this episode. Let us know what you’re currently struggling with and what your next step is. Let’s have a conversation about the everyday struggles of life as a military spouse and what it looks like to practically pursue our dreams. I hope you have an amazing week living filled, fueled and full of joy.