Hey guys, welcome back to the milspouse mastermind show. Thank you to everyone who has been sharing and leaving review for this podcast. This is how we get found and how we change more lives and create more impact and help more military spouses come to understand that their life matters and what they do today.

[00:00:24] I say this a lot, but if there’s one thing I want you to take from this show, it’s the idea that while we can’t control or predict our circumstances, we can control how we respond to those circumstances. The idea that what we do today matters every day, no matter our circumstances or what season of life we’re in, we can make progress towards who we’re meant to be.

[00:00:53] You don’t have to wait for some future season to chase your dreams. And so today I wanted to share with you about this concept of seasons. Our lives are made up of different seasons, different challenges, responsibilities, and how much, or how little we take productive steps forward. Depends on what season that we’re in.

[00:01:18] So often we get frustrated by looking around us at what other people are doing. And what we don’t realize is what’s going on behind the scenes, what season of life they’re in, and what capability they have to be chasing their dreams. What matters is what you are doing in your life and how we can support one another in whatever season we find ourselves in.

[00:01:49] Today, we’re going to talk about four types of life seasons that you might find yourself in.

[00:02:51] Okay. So the first season you might find yourself in is what I call a Season of No. When you say no to one thing, you say yes to something else. And when you’re saying yes to something, that means you’re ultimately saying no to something else. This is where we find a healthy balance that allows us to focus on what matters and make our highest contribution.

[00:03:19] The best explanation of what I’m talking about here is the book Essentialism. Essentially, we are setting boundaries for our time and energy so that we can align how we actually spend our time with our values. Saying yes to something always means saying no to something else, whether we realize it or not.

[00:03:43] And often the unintentional no is to our family. When we say yes to volunteering at the kids’ school or yes to the cookie drive, or yes to helping plan the squadron party and yes to afterschool activities, there’s something that we’re saying no to. Because we all have a finite amount of time. So we might be saying no to more time with our spouse or time with our children, or no to doing the thing that is really on our hearts, and what we feel called to do.

[00:04:20] If we want to spend our time on the things that really matter to us, and light us up, and allow us to make our best contribution, not a contribution in general, but one that uses our gifts and our skills, then we have to be willing to put boundaries in place and say no to things, even good things.

Yes. You are making a difference when you volunteer at your kid’s school, but is that really a thing that lights you up and uses your unique skills to make a difference?

[00:04:56] Maybe. Maybe not. You have to figure out what that thing is for you and what you are saying yes to. And what you’re are saying no to. And just a caveat here, not everyone will understand when we say no. And no might not be forever, but in this season we might have to say no, and people might not understand that. They might not get why we would say no to something that is a good thing.

[00:05:22] But I want you to know that you cannot do everything and do it well. I know this from personal experience because I am a chronic over committer. I think that I can do everything and do it. And it’s taken me many, many years to learn that I cannot say yes to everything and do a great job.

[00:05:48] I ended up giving half-hearted approaches to everyone because I think that I can do more than I can actually handle and the amount of time that I actually have for something.

The next season we might find ourselves is a season of go. Now our season of no might align with a season of. A season of go is when you are all in. It’s a season where you have something specific, a specific goal that you’re trying to accomplish and something that requires additional time and energy and effort, it requires you to make sacrifices.

[00:06:30] It’s usually a season that is needed to start something new or make a big change in your life. But it’s also not usually a season that’s sustainable over the long-term, especially if you want to have a healthy, well-balanced life. The challenge to a season of go is that we can become addicted to the go.

[00:06:55] Especially if we find success in this season, it’s easy to think that we have to stay here, that we have to keep putting in this much energy and effort to sustain that success. But I’m here to tell you that it is not healthy for your life as a whole or for the lives of those around you. It’s easy to look at others who are in the season and be in awe of what they’re doing or accomplishing.

[00:07:23] But the important thing to remember is that you don’t have an accurate picture of their whole life. And if they are maintaining healthy rhythms in all areas of their life. Because if we are ultimately going to live lives of impact, we have to do it from a place of sustainable health and rest. So seasons that though are sometimes necessary, but they should not be the norm.

[00:07:50] The next season, often comes on the heels of a season of go. It’s a season of WHOA. When either you or someone you love comes to realize that your life is out of balance, that while you’ve given more to one particular area of your life for a specific season, it’s not helping you become the well-balanced person.

[00:08:17] You need to ultimately live a sustainable life of impact to ultimately live with purpose and with joy for the long run. One of the best ways we can know this is by taking regular time to reflect on how we’re doing in all areas of our life. I’ve put together a life balance worksheet, and I’ll link that in the show notes, or you can find it on our website, milspousemastermind.com.

[00:08:48] I call it the growth wheel because if we are actually going to grow as individual, we need to be focused on our health and every area of life: spiritually, mentally, physically, relationally, and vocationally. Sometimes we need help recognizing when we’re out of balance and we need to shift how we spend our time and how we prioritize what matters so that we are able to live a life of health, wellness, and vitality in all areas.

[00:09:23] Seasons are important. They allow us to recharge and recalibrate. But the challenge with this season is that we have to force ourselves out of this season and into taking action. Again, it’s easy because we have this built into drive to crave comfort, to crave what’s easy. And once we get into that rest, we find that maybe it’s enjoyable and we want to stay there.

[00:09:52] We have to push ourselves so that we start moving forward again, taking steps outside of our comfort zone that lead us to that person that we want to be.

The fourth season that I want to talk about is perhaps the most important season of all, because it’s the season that we spend the majority of our time in it’s the season where we don’t feel like anything is happening, that we don’t have anything to show for it.

[00:10:23] And honestly, it’s a season that too many of us allow to go to. It’s a season of slow. We all have seasons of slow. We have seasons where our circumstances prevent us from taking big steps of action. We might be dealing with a big PCs or a deployment. Or a health issue, or we have a newborn at home, or our spouse has a demanding job and we have to pick up more at the slack in this season.

[00:10:55] It’s a season that we can let go to waste, or we can view it as a season where the hard work of becoming who we’re meant to be actually. This is the season where, what we do today and every day really matters. It’s this season where you come to believe that you have something to offer, that we are all called to something that we all have stories that matter, that we have gifts to share with the world, that we have something unique about us, that the world.

[00:11:32] And it’s a season where we start taking the messy steps of action, where we start leaning into clarity on who we are, who we want to be. We start learning, we start growing, we develop practices of awareness of intentionality of action. It’s where we take those baby steps forward. It’s where we choose courage over.

[00:12:00] That’s where we build our skills, the skills that we know we need for where we want to go, that we don’t possess today. That character traits that are going to serve us for the long-term, all of the things that we need for a season of go. We learn when we have the opportunity to be developing in ourselves, in our seasons of.

[00:12:22] I think one of the biggest misnomers out there is that your purpose or your calling or your life’s work, whatever you want to call it, that it happens. And that we get this burst of clarity and we know exactly what we’re meant to do with our lives. And then we just take this giant leap forward, but that’s rarely how it happens.

[00:12:45] The best example I have for this is the other day I was looking through some old files and I came across. Some things I had journaled about almost three years ago, I was probably six months pregnant. And I wrote out all these things that lit me up inside the impact that I wanted to have, how I wanted to show up what I wanted my life to look like, how I wanted to serve all of those things that are wrapped up in this podcast that you are listening to today.

[00:13:17] I was writing those out. Seeking clarity on that three years ago, but I didn’t launch a podcast three years ago. In fact, I didn’t even know it was supposed to be a podcast. All I knew was these are the dreams on my heart, and I don’t know how they’re going to come to fruition for the last three years.

[00:13:38] There’s not a. That you would look at my life and say, oh, she was taking steps towards launching that podcast. Now I will say I did start a blog in that time. And that was really me trying to find clarity on my voice and what I wanted to say and how I wanted to show up. But honestly, after I wrote those things in my journal, I had a baby and I focused on just trying to survive.

[00:14:08] Three kids under the age of four and a spouse with a very busy job and starting my own job and all the things that are easy to let sidetrack us from what we know we are called to do, and the impact we are called to make. If you’ve ever had a newborn before you know that you are no longer in control of your schedule and having three kids under the age of four multiplied the bad.

[00:14:36] My time was not my own. What you don’t see is three years of me using the moments and the cracks in my day to move towards who I wanted to be, to gain more clarity on how I wanted to show up how I wanted to serve and what I wanted to say. It was three years of figuring out when I have the opportunity to go, what will I do my season of.

[00:15:05] What will I say, how will I serve? What is it that lights me up and how do I use my skills and gifts to make a difference? What can I do today? And every day that moves me toward who I meant to be. What can I learn that will help me grow? What skills do I need to develop? What character qualities do I want to develop in me?

[00:15:29] What do I need to read about what do I need to study? And all of that. You never see. So the challenge of our season of slow is that we do one of two things. We don’t see any change. And so we give up, we tell ourselves that life is what it is and there’s nothing we can do about it. We settle, we numb ourselves.

[00:15:54] We convince ourselves that maybe in a future season life will be different. And then we can think about what we really. And how we can show up. Or the second thing that is tempting is for us to get caught up in feelings of FOMO, fear of missing out. We see other people doing things and taking action, and we still feel stuck.

[00:16:19] This is simply a shift we must make in our perspective to believe that not a day has to be wasted, we can move forward and take baby steps to become. Who were meant to be, doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing, how quickly they’re progressing, what kind of success they’re having, what matters is you?

[00:16:44] And I choosing to show up each and every day with intentionality to be focused on how we can serve others and become who we’re meant to be. And the next episode, I’ll give you some practical tips for how to begin moving towards that clarity and using your season of slow to figure out what it is that lights you up and how to align your day-to-day actions.

[00:17:19] Your values, but until then I would encourage you go to the show notes or go to the page on our website and milspousemastermind.com. Download that growth wheel. And take a quick assessment and how you’re doing in each area of life. Which area are you struggling the most width right now? Do you have a healthy balance?

[00:17:44] If there’s a particular area that you’re trying to figure out, how do I improve this area? Send me a den. And on Instagram @milspousemastermind.. Or you can email us on the website, let me know what it is that you’re looking for, that you’re struggling with so that we can provide some helpful resources to help you find that balance in every area of your life.

[00:18:10] So which season of life are you currently in a season of No. A season of go. A season of whoa, or a season of slow. Whatever season that you’re currently. No that what you do today matters you matter. And I am praying for you and cheering you on. If you haven’t yet joined us in the milspouse mastermind Facebook group, you’ll also find a link in the show notes or on our website.

[00:18:41] This is another great place where you can talk about. How we find balance in all areas of our life and discuss, what season are you in? What are you struggling with in this season? And what tools do you need to help you move forward in whatever season your end. We are better together and we can continue to support each other in every season of life.

[00:19:06] Until next time, may you live filled, fueled, and full of joy.