Welcome to my Real Life recap series where each month I show you what it actually looks like to pursue goals and live a life of purpose as a military spouse, the good, the bad, and the unexpected. What does it really look like to try and balance it all? I’m pulling back the curtain to show you what.

Actually happened in my life as a military spouse and a mom, how I made progress on my goals and the biggest lessons I learned along the way. Lessons that I believe are applicable for all of us as we seek to try and live with purpose in the midst of the unpredictability of military life. So what actually happened in my life in November, and what can we all learn from it? Stay tuned to find out.

Friends, it is so crazy to think that we are. Almost to the end of another year, and when I started doing these recaps back in January, I wasn’t entirely sure where we were going to go, and all I knew was that I didn’t feel like there were enough examples of what it looks like to pursue a dream in real life.

As a military spouse, we hear from people who have reached the other side, who have done something big and are reflecting back on their experience. Or we hear from these experts in the field of, here’s how you’re supposed to do this, but what does it look like? To be in the messy middle of trying to pursue a dream to build something as a military spouse, with everything going on in the middle of a PCs with young kids at home with a spouse who is gone a lot or working long hours, what does this actually look like and what are some of the unique challenges that we face and what do we do when.

Don’t go our way. And so that’s why I started doing these monthly recaps. And here we are for the November. Recap. And before we get into what actually happened in the month of November, I have something a favor to ask of you. I want some feedback on what you think about these monthly recaps. Have they helped you, have they encouraged you?

Is it something that you feel like is beneficial for us to continue? On the show I would love for you to give me some feedback as I start to think about 2023. We’re going to do here on this show, what guests we’re going to have on what topics we’re going to cover, how I can help you thrive as a military spouse.

So two things you can do to help me out. Okay. Really, three. Number one, just send me a message or pop into our Facebook community and say, yes, this was something that I really enjoyed, these recaps, or, you know, that those were not my favorite episodes. Or Here’s how we could tweak this to make. Better. So yeah, you can send me a DM on Instagram at MilSpouse Mastermind.

You can pop into our free Facebook community. Let me know. Just go to milspouse mastermind.com/community. It will take you right there, but I would love your feedback that way. Number two, we now have the MilSpouse Mastermind Survey Live, and this is just a another way for you to give me some feedback on the show as I am planning for 2023.

If there’s particular guest that you would like to see interviewed on the show, if the. There are conversations you would like us to have together. I would love that information because I am here for you. I am here for these conversations that are really about how we can show up as military spouses, how we can actually make progress towards the things that really matter to us to pursue those dreams and all of the things that try to get in our way to that.

Try to keep us from living. With purpose. So whether that is limiting beliefs that we’re trying to overcome, or whether it’s trying to figure out our time blocks and our schedules, or not knowing how to get started, goal setting or just the basics of how you set up a business, whatever it is that you are struggling with the more feedback you can.

Give me the better we can create content that really serves you and serves the entire military spouse. Where do you go to find this? Just go to milspouse mastermind.com/survey. That is where it is at. If you would just take two minutes of your time, answer as few or as many of the questions as you want, and send that over to me, that is going to help me as I am planning.

For us for 2023, that would be a huge help. And then the last thing, the greatest gift you could give as we are entering into this Christmas, the holiday season, a season of giving, if you would consider giving the gift of a review. Apple Podcast. That would absolutely mean the world to me. It only takes 30 seconds of your time if you scroll all the way to the bottom of the Apple Podcast feed, click on rating and review and just leave us a couple of words of an episode you enjoyed.

Some way this podcast has blessed you. It blesses me so much when I get to read that and it helps the algorithm and in reaching more military spouses. So those are the ways that you can give back to the MilSpouse Mastermind. Show A help me out as we are entering into this new season. Okay. Let’s get into talking about November and really being in the holiday season.

The reason I say that is because my personal thinking about what is considered the holidays has changed a lot in the last few years, and I’m, I’ll get into more of that in a minute, but, so I’ve kind of started way backing up when the holiday season. Actually begins, and I’ll get into the why of that a little bit more in a few minutes.

But just to give you an overview of where we’re going today, if this is your first time listening to one of our monthly recaps I like to give you a big picture of my month, what my goals were, what actually happened. What I learned through the process and the big takeaways that I think will help all of us as we navigate this military lifestyle and try to pursue our goals and our dreams and live with purpose in the midst of a crazy life.

I am a mom. I am a military spouse. I have a husband with a. Busy job and three children. And so I totally get that. Life is sometimes crazy. We PCs, this summer, it took four months for our stuff to arrive on the boat. So it’s been a lot of transitions in this last year and this is what it looks like.

Real life and, and what I have been able to do and where I have struggled, and I just want to kind of highlight my own journey because I know it’s. The same for so many of you, and the struggles that I’m going through are also the struggles that you’re going through. I did not start this podcast as an expert, as somebody that’s already done all the things, accomplished, all the things, and now I’m like going back and reflecting on that.

I’m showing you what this looks like in real time. So I would say, let’s start here. The the theme for me this year as I am beginning to think, Not only November, but reflect back on the last several months. But mindset has been a huge theme in my life over the last several months, and I’ve really become aware of.

The fact that mindset is everything and that good things are happening, bad things are happening, life is happening, we are human, and it’s really how we are approaching what happens, how we are responding to what happens that truly matters. And there are so many ways that we can get caught in these unhealthy thought patterns that aren’t serving.

Our thoughts have the power to either move us forward in a way that allows us to tap into joy or our thoughts can keep us dwelling on what’s wrong, what we don’t like about where we’re at, and why we can’t move forward and do the thing that we feel like we’re supposed to be doing. They. Propel us or they can keep us stuck, and this theme was true for me in the month of November as well.

And I’m gonna tell you this story because I think it’s important for us to be vulnerable and be honest about what, what actually happened. So here’s what actually happened for me in November. I typically talk about setting big. Long term goals, getting that vision of who you wanna be and where you wanna go in the future.

And then we kind of look at that long range vision and start taking steps towards that so that we are setting goals, but we are using a flexible goal setting method that is not as much dependent on a specific timeline as it is the direction we are trying to move in. We, we know. The place we wanna go.

We’ve been able to set that vision, but then the, the timing doesn’t always work out in the way that we would like it to do. And I’ve never really subscribed in this, okay, you’re going to set one year goals. You’re going to look at one year from now what you want to be true of your life, and then you’re going to make that happen.

So this change your Your life in one-year philosophy is not something that I have been a big proponent of. But last year I decided to try it. So last November, I wrote the one-year letter to myself of this is what my life looks like a year from now. And I know a lot of people suggest doing this and there can be some value in doing it, but I decided to try it for whatever reason.

And that’s where the, the good idea. Stopped because it wasn’t actually something that I used to set my goals for this year. It wasn’t something that I was looking at on a regular basis. I didn’t set smart goals based on what was on that sheet. I just wrote that sheet. So don’t do that the way that I did it, but that is what I did last November, and then fast forward a year, I find the letter and I read.

To myself and realized that almost none of the things that I wrote about that I wanted to be true of my life a year from now, from last November were actually going to happen. There were so many things that I did not anticipate happening this year especially with our PCs and trying to rebuild a lot of the social networks and, and those connections that.

Already had in placed a year ago that I’m still in the process of rebuilding in our new location. So, and, and like I said earlier, we had four months without our stuff this year. It was just a challenging PCs for us and getting established in our new home. So there was a lot of things that I wanted to focus on this year that I just did not have the bandwidth to focus on.

So I go back, I find this letter that I wrote one year ago, and it is super discouraging to read because I’m not where. I want to be. And so it really went back to this mindset thing of feeling discouraged that I haven’t accomplished all these goals that I wanted to set out and accomplished for myself this year.

And then the question is, okay, where do I go from here? What do I do with this information? Am I going to just. While in it, am I going to just say, well, I can’t actually do anything I set my mind to do, or am I going to say, okay, what can I learn from this? How can I grow from this and how can I. Move on from this because I legit fell into the trap of comparing myself to people that were able to accomplish everything that they wrote in their one year letter.

So, I, I just want to let you know I did that. I tried it. And this is why I don’t really love that method because as a military spouse, we have so much happening in our lives that we cannot control and. I think it’s hard to say, okay, a year from now I’m going to be able to make all these things a reality for my life, especially when I’m having to take these significant steps backwards and start over in a new place.

So the. Here’s what I did. I had to have a sit down with myself and say, okay, what am I gonna do with this? Where do I go from here? What is important in this season right now? What really matters? Where am I really stuck? What are all of the things that can have contributed to me not being able to be where I wanted to?

This November, what do I need to accept and release and what is possible for me for the rest of this year? And the ability to say, okay, I, I realize that I am getting all caught up in my thoughts and feelings right now, and let me take a step back and process. Through all of this. This is something that is so valuable to do because it is so easy to stay there, to get caught up, and then to get stuck in these negative thought loops and say, I can’t do this because I haven’t been able to do it.

Up to this point. There are so many things that I cannot control, so I’m just gonna give up and that is what I do not want you to do. And so that’s. Telling you the story, I’m telling you what I did and what I had to do to have that talk with myself, to say, okay, here’s what is true in my life right now and let’s look forward and where I need to go from here.

So how do I address these feelings of discouragement, release the things that are outside of my control, and how do I focus on what’s important right now? So that kind of frames the big picture of where I was at in November. So let me just go and. I like to start with what was good in this month. We want to start with gratitude, with joy, with celebrating what went well, celebrating the wins, the big wins, the small wins.

Whatever that puts us in the right mind space to be able to look at what did not go well and what we can do to, to change about what the, the things within our control moving forward. So my highlights and wins. We’re in November, number one. Okay. I did two freezer meal sessions, one in October, one in November.

So I did an additional 31 meals into our freezer in November, and that has been a huge help just in getting through the weeks and especially the days that are kind of crazy and you’re trying to figure out what to throw together for dinner at the last. I highly recommend freezer meal sessions. It just makes everything else go way more smoothly.

I will link in the show notes below the episode I did last year on starting freezer meals and a guide that you can download to help get you started if you want to do a freezer meal session. But I did one session in October, one session in November. Totally. We have a extra freezer, totally packed it full of meals that I can either throw in the oven or throw in the crock pot.

And that has made a huge difference. I actually made. A lot of progress on things that have just been sitting there on the to-do plate for forever and just were not getting done in the middle of a PCs season. I’ve had files that needed to be organized for a month. That finally got done. So that felt good just because when something like sits on your list that needs to happen and you just cannot find the time to do it, that kind of gets old.

And so being able to clear some of those things off my plate felt. Really good. Also, it was really good to just get to celebrate with some friends. This year we had two friendsgivings that we were able to attend with people that we have met since we got here this summer. And you know when you are living in a place where it’s just hard.

To travel. It’s very expensive to travel to go see extended family and you just, you know, you move somewhere new, you’re like, oh, am I, am I going to find people that I can even have a celebration with? Are we going to just be doing a meal on our own? It’s, it’d been different every time we’ve made a new move and so, It was really fun to get to celebrate with friends and do that.

Our second Friendsgiving did not go according to plan. My oldest had to end up leaving before they sat down to eat. My husband took her and she was running and got what we thought was a, just a little splinter stuck in her foot, and we couldn’t get it out. It ended up being a couple of inches long, thankfully.

It did not pierce anything and she was fine. But yeah, it, it did not go quite according to plan. But again, that is just a part of everyday life. But those were all things that went really well in this month. And then I guess the last thing that I will say that I can celebrate for the month of November is getting a head start on our holiday plans.

Over the last several years, I’ve started moving. The to-do list, the planning, the executing, all of the things for the Christmas season earlier and earlier, because I have found that the earlier I start this process, the less stressed I end up being in December. And the more that I’m able to just enjoy the season without feeling like there’s so much extra stuff on my plate.

And I used to be the person that. Hey, I’m not gonna like think about Christmas. I’m not gonna think about anything else. We’re not gonna decorate anything until after Thanksgiving. But really letting that go and saying, starting at the beginning of November and saying, okay, let me break up all of the tasks that have to happen between here and the end of the year and start working.

At the beginning of November, it just makes life so much less stressful. So I highly recommend that if you are feeling stressed by everything that needs to happen and everything that needs to be purchased and everything that needs to be decorated and everything that needs to be baked, the earlier you start, the less stressful it will be.

So I actually have gotten a. Done for December, and I am already feeling less stressed overall. I know there’s going to be lots of things that still pop up and are a little bit crazy, but I’m doing my best to make this a sustainable rhythm and a sustainable pace. So where did I struggle this month?

Number one, with trying to force things to happen that I really did not have control over. There are times when things are within my power to control, and there are times when, because of the circumstances or because of the amount of time we have or because of what other people are doing or saying or being.

The choices that other people make what I want is not available to me. And so going back to what can I control? What is within my power? What choice can I make given the circumstances that exist right now? The second area where I really struggled was just my desire to be on top of all the things, to be farther along in my journey.

To get our systems and routines and make those changes and, and just have everything working, functioning well for our family and making those changes and developing those rhythms and routines that work for our family is just something that takes time. And so it’s easy to. Impatient, but I know that like we are on the path, headed in the right direction, and it’s just this process of, okay, we tried this, this did not work.

Let’s try this. Let’s get everybody in the family on the same page about this and all work together. To make our home function smoothly, and that’s just a process. Every time we move, it feels like, okay, this house, these rhythms, these routines are different. And I’ve talked a lot about this on the monthly recaps of just trying to find the rhythms and the support systems that work for us in each location.

Again, just with me being impatient and wanting things to be set up and functioning well, and it just taking time to make all of that happen. So the last thing I, I would say probably was a big struggle this month was just that realization and, and I kind of. We talked about this a little bit last month, but just the realization, Hey, a lot of things happened.

You’re probably not going to hit all the goals you wanted to hit, and what are you gonna do with that? And so we’ve kind of talked about that, and that is why I’m such a big proponent of flexible. Goal setting because at the end of the day, it’s not about the timeline. It’s not about hitting it at a particular time or at a particular number.

It’s about our journey and our process, and it’s not about the result as a much as it is about how we are showing up. If we are moving in the right direction. I love checking things off a list. I love setting a goal, reaching that goal, feeling that sense of accomplishment. I love those big wins, but. That isn’t what truly matters in the long run.

What truly matters is if we are moving in the right direction, if we are living in alignment with who we wanna be, if we are moving towards that big vision and creating the legacy that we want to live with our. And when you realize you’re not gonna hit the goal, you’re not going to accomplish the thing.

To be able to say, I’m okay with that. To release that sense of, okay, that is not what actually matters in the long run, that would’ve been nice. But what truly matters right now, what can I focus on right now? How can I continue to show up well and move in the right direction? What are the habits and routines that I need to be focused on and that truly matter in this?

Season. So I, I really started struggling with all of this towards the end of October. As I’m realizing we’re moving into the last quarter where we only have a couple of months left. And then reaching November and saying, okay, what is it? This is where I’m at, what really matters? And, and for me it was to say, okay, I need to be able to release the fact that I’m not going to hit all of the goals that I wanted.

But what really matters in this season is that I am able to be present and to live with joy and to be at a place where I am able to show up not from a place of stress and overwhelm and burn out because I have tried to pack too much into the last couple of months of the year. But to be able to say, I want to show up, I want to be able to speak life to those around me.

I want to be able to approach the season from a healthy place and to be able to walk in gratitude and joy and to enjoy this time of year. And then I can start. I think ahead to next year and what those goals are going to be and, and the fact that I am still moving in the right direction and so I feel like I am making progress and.

Being able to release that so that I can live in the present to find joy and to embrace where I’m at in life. And that’s really what I want for all of us to not get caught up in all the things that we wanted to happen that didn’t happen, all of the goals we wanted to hit that we might not hit, but to be able to be present.

and to enjoy the process, to enjoy the journey, and to be able to live life to the fullest. So if you are in this place, Where you are feeling overwhelmed, you are stressed out, you are caught up in gotta do all the things. Gotta hit those goals, gotta do and be and accomplish, and it’s not serving you. Take the time to say, Is this what matters most in this season and how can I fully live and still be intentional about my life and my time and pursuing those big dreams and goals for the future?

So that’s what I want for all of us as we are ending this last few weeks of 2022, and that’s what we’re gonna be talking about this month on the podcast, really about boosting our mental health in a difficult season, finding joy in the midst of everything going on, and how. To embrace and end our year well.

And then as we move forward into January, we’ll start talking about goal setting and why I’m such a big proponent of flexible goal setting, how it can work for you as a military spouse, and how it can help propel you towards your big goals and dreams for the future. As we wrap up, I would so love it if you would take a few minutes to fill out our milspouse mastermind survey just by going to milspouse mastermind.com/survey.

Like I said, answer as many or as few questions as you would like because every single response just helps me as we are creating content for 2023 and making sure that I am giving you what you need, resourcing you so that you can be successful. In the new year, I hope you have an amazing, weak friends.

Until next week, may you live filled, fueled, and full of joy.