#369: Three Game Changers for Me from 2023 (in hopes that they help you too)

Hello, hello, my friends. Welcome to today’s episode, thank you for joining me, we’re just gonna have a little chat to let you know, a couple of things that weren’t really great for me this year. Next episode, we’re gonna be getting into goal setting and looking ahead to a beautiful new year, and planning to make it productive and a time of growth and all of that without making ourselves crazy. I’m not about that or about hyper productivity for the sake of productivity. But I am into the idea of turning a profit on our time. And I’m trying to do that myself. So I wanted to share with you first just kind of a couple things that worked well for me this past year in hopes that maybe it is something worth considering how to work into your 2024 if you’re not doing some of these and think maybe it would benefit you as well. I do want to say now and also this is the first episode after Christmas, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, all over the place on my dates, because I am pre recording these before the baby comes. So hopefully, I just hope all you had a wonderful Christmas and I know is probably crazy and moms do all the things. I hope you had a joyful one with all your people. So also because that what made me think of it looking at the date here. I know I told you all about the options of the upcoming programs available in an episode that dropped December 15th. So if you want to know that just what’s ahead, the fat loss programs, the monthly workout programs, you can go back and listen to that I just wanted to let you know since I glanced at the date that this is coming out that a lot of those early bird pricing options are bonuses for for the eight week program. There’s bonuses that expire if you sign up after January 1. So I want you to be aware of that you can still sign up the program kicks off January 15. So as long as there are still spots available, you have time to join. But bonuses expire January 1. And then in the chasing greatness group, you only have until January 15 to get a whole month FREE when you sign up, which is a really great deal that I can only offer until January 15. So go check those out on the website or an email came out December 21. And I believe December 28. Another one should be coming out just giving you another reminder. So that’ll come out right after this too. If you need those reminders, but Alright, on to the things that really did. I am calling them game changers for me they were game changers. Okay, number one is the daily family rosary. And I am not sharing this with you like you when I made this list. I was like okay, Bernie, know the whole scripture verse about when you pray in secret like pray in secret your father who hears you and is eager overpay and secret. So yes, I’m not here to be like, This is what we did. And it’s so great. I just have talked about this. So I’m not telling you so that you can pat me on the back, because that’s not my intention behind this. But we have struggled with this for a long time. And I have shared on the podcast if you’ve been here a while and some of you’ve been here right from the beginning. And know my life story, unfortunately, fortunately for you to have to know my life story. But this is something that my husband I used to struggle with, I used to struggle with, it was always on my goal list. So when we did talk about goals, a lot of times it was like pray the daily rosary. And I shared that back in college like I had a really good groove going of praying a daily rosary praying a daily chaplet like going daily Mass a lot of days, you know, that was a good spot for me. And then I had fallen so far away from saying it daily that I’m like, Okay, I really need to get back to just like praying daily rosary like Our Lady of Fatima, if you are not familiar has asked us to pray it daily. Right? So that’s a good enough reason for me. But yet it wasn’t good enough to actually get this going. Now, I’m definitely not here on this podcast to tell you like I prayed every single day between 23 and actually this change didn’t even happen till midday. I think it was about me. But I just share with you that before this, we were struggling to figure out how to make this work. I was trying personally to do it, that my husband and I were trying to do it together. We’ve tried lots of different things. I’d hear different suggestions on different podcasts that I listen to like that she like I can’t remember a podcast but I remember the host saying like she and her husband were striving to do for decades on their own throughout the day and then come together for one deck at the end of the day. So that they could close it out together. So we were trying to do that for a while but that got messy Susan well, did you get yours in yet? No. Okay, well, I already got my four into like a whole thing. And then when it was just personally like okay, let’s just try to do it separately on our own sets easier and more convenient. Like you do it on your commute to work I’ll do it when I work out or whatever. And then a lot of nights it just left me trying to pray before I went to bed. And then I I remember chatting with Melissa from the saints live podcast too. And she said that she and her husband do it. Pray every single night before they go to bed. That logistic just seem hard for us to have like but what if we’re watching football on the couch And then we’re like, Okay, well, we’ll watch a ball animal prayed after. Or obviously we could do it first. It’s just a whole weird thing. Where we’ve come to the tip that I have to share with you of what change is we decided to start praying it as a family. And honestly, my six year old, see, this is what happens. Your kids get older and they start asking you questions you like, oh, we had watched the Lady of Fatima video, there’s a cute little if you do not know what the CCC videos are, that’s a productions of it. We have the formed app on our Roku. And they have a video called The Day The Sundance, you actually can get the really oh gee, it’s the DVD I watched as a kid. But I watched it on VHS. There’s a DVD of it as well, and all that stuff. But it’s about Our Lady of Fatima. And my six year old was like, so Mary asked us to pray the rosary every day. I was like, like, so why don’t we only do it on Sundays. I was like, oh, man, because I think you guys can’t sit still enough. Like, honestly, I had to sit down and be like, Why don’t we do it as a family. And truly my reasoning, and I think my husband’s to probably don’t wanna put words in his mouth was like, we just assumed that our kids were too little for it, honestly. And then, like scheduling is a whole nother thing that we’re like, well, if kids have extracurriculars are this that, like, how’s this gonna look? Some nights I’m, you know, usually one night a week, I try to work when he comes home. So you hand off the reins, and I either go to a coffee shop or I disappear. And then you know, one night a week, he works late. So, you know, what, I just honestly was like, wow, but But why aren’t we because, and I had a million reasons for it, reasons for it. And at this point, we were in a little groove to of giving the kids a show before nap, and then giving the kids a show before bedtime. So it’s always like a 20 minute show, you know, whether it’s Wild Kratts, or Super Book or something, about 20 to 30 minutes before nap. And then 20 to 30 minutes for bed. And then like the whole bedtime or naptime routine. So that was just what we did. And I think that the idea of praying the rosary at night, I was like, Oh my gosh, like we can’t, this is going to prolong everything if we’re gonna get a show and the rosary this that. So basically, we restructured to just one show a day, somewhere between like one and 4pm Usually, it’s usually like that quiet time kind of a thing. And then, at night, we’ve been praying those who just whoever’s home, so maybe one night a week, I miss it, and maybe once a week, he misses it. But, or if you know, we have other plans or whatever, we, if we’re in the car altogether, somewhere, we’ll pray it on the way home, that kind of thing. And this is something obviously, we’re gonna have to revisit through the seasons of if it seems like our kids are all running around, eventually, after dinner, like there’s not that right now. They’re all pretty much going to bed at the same time. But, you know, maybe we need to reassess and do it. Like around dinner time, if we’re all eating family dinner together, but people have other things going on at night. You know, I don’t know what this is gonna look like, to the ears for our family. I do know that once we made the decision to do it, made the equipment to do it. It was in about May. And the first month was terrible. I do know that. I’ll tell you that up front. This reminded me of actually when clients say like, how do you work out around kids and like you just do it and they get used to it? And I’m like, know what the climate me or no, but they will leave me alone or no, but this, like, no, just like, keep pushing through it. And eventually they get used to it. And then I’ve got all the tricks like you can listen to episodes on that. So I do advise certain things like letting them start with you not saying no go away, no, go away. Like let them just start with you. And they’ll get bored and they’ll go away. Those kind of little tips and tricks, but then they do just get used to it. Same thing with the rosary that honestly the first month it was like a revolving door of people getting sent to the rooms. And like a month later, my husband I were talking about when I were like wow, it’s been fine now like can you do you remember how terrible it wasn’t like we all were just mad? thinking this is the worst. And now it’s like so beautiful and so peaceful. Our kids are six four and two and then the baby and we all just snuggle together that like right now it’s winter too so we just like keep the lights off. I just light some candles and like a really calm peaceful way to be together as a family before the bedtime routine and it’s just been so lovely like it’s such a weight off my mind to knowing that I’m praying it every day most days and not trying to fit it in and like have that whole scramble of like why this take us like seven years to get to consistency point
I don’t know God was probably thinking the same thing up there like why is this taking us so long but it we’ve just really seen the fruits of it and our kids and ourselves like even just feeling the you know the grace is not like oh wow instantly holy but if definitely feel the support of grace throughout the days that’s come with it and all that so I can’t recommend enough because my only reason before it was like yeah, what is I reason I just have these preconceived notions in my head, like our kids are too little, well, if you if we don’t start ever, like when are we gonna start so maybe let this be your little nudge to maybe start that. And we again just started with one day a week and then eventually did that. But that was the first thing that really was a good game changer for us in 2023. The second thing was me prioritizing outside time. So I’ve always prioritized it for the kids and I’ve shared on here before the goal of hitting 1000 hours outside and all that kind of stuff. But for me personally think this was the year that I most prioritized getting outside to the point where if it was like between me going for a walk by myself or me doing a workout, or even like, I mean, you obviously can always work outside, but sometimes when it came down to just being outside on the deck or outside somewhere for five minutes, versus doing something more physically demanding or that might quote unquote, like promote fat loss. I prioritized being outside. And the mental benefits physical benefits of this is like unparalleled than my absolute favorite is to be outside during sunrise. So like first thing in the day. But here’s the caveat to this, like, this has not been happening for me at the time of I’m recording this in October. This has not happened the last couple of weeks, because it just rises so late, like my kids are already up half the time. We’re not half the time, but like some days we’re driving in the car at sunrise, and I’m sure a lot of you were in that same boat to where that has just not happened the same way as it could in the summer. Well, we’re summer, I think was the first year to that I just wasn’t training clients. At that time, I was usually training clients in person or on Zoom smoke. Why didn’t I do this before and I realized it was because I actually had the mornings. And to take my devotional or my Bible or my whatever, just my coffee even for silent prayer time out on the deck. First thing in the morning was fantastic. Right now I’m not in that space, just due to time, and whatnot and weather. But I will still like at right now it’s not winter, yet it is fall recording this but I will bundle the kids up, we will go outside at least once a day, I will make sure I get my butt out there. Maybe without them if it’s really not great weather or just you know, sometimes you’re just too tired to do the dance of getting everybody ready to go outside when you have little ones. And but just prioritizing for myself or even like at naptime, thinking outside the box with this, if this is you because this is me where I’m like, Well, I can’t just go for like, I’d love to go for daily walk. But that doesn’t work with my husband’s work schedule my life and this and that. And like now now our amount of kids are like getting everybody out the door to go on a daily walk, it’s just way more production, we actually have to like homeschool, and things like that. Which yes, that can be part of your homeschool day. But I’m just saying like, you know, logistics are at play. But even if if I’ve just kind of done the mental like, Oh, I haven’t even been outside yet today, I will skip folding laundry, I will leave the dishes, I will do whatever. And if it’s nap time, I will just put on my boots and my coat or whatever, and go trudge around my own driveway for 10 minutes. That’s what I was doing last year two, when it got to like, where the sun was kind of coming up before they woke up. Like I remember that early spring time, but there was still snow and stuff, I would do that just to run a winter coat and go walk around my backyard and walk laps in my driveway. And that I mean, there are so many mental benefits listed from getting outside. And I truly felt that this year like oh my goodness, okay, so enough to again, like I miss it when I can’t do this. So maybe that needs to make its way on your goal list for 2020 For last one that definitely helped me out and enhanced my life and 2023 was setting limited social media times. So I really, really tried to get I was not 100% With this, I was not 100% with any of these three, but what you do most of the time matters more than what you do some of the time. And all in all, I really tried to set social media times to only three times a day when I not exactly when I woke up. So try not to look at it right away. But before the kids were up, I had my like initial flip somewhere usually, like the last kind of thing I do before they wake up as I’m getting breakfast ready or something. And then naptime when like it’s kind of that or lunchtime, whatever I sometimes call my union break. It depends if they’re getting a show at this point, or if I it’s quiet time for other people or they’re reading or whatever. And it’s like okay, it’s the house quiet time and I’m eating lunch or I’m just this is when I usually check in with work emails, that kind of thing. I will check in with social This is a lot of times I’ll make the post if I haven’t pre scheduled one. So early morning, mid day and then at night I, at some point, again, tried to be away from my kids and but at that point to them, that’s when I get to hang out with my husband. So, in general, my social media usage went way down in 2023. But I tried to really stick to like with at set times, and within set like parameters, I never went in, you know, use any of the fancy, like, make the app kick you off after an allotted amount of time or anything. But I just, I felt this is another thing like the outside time, I felt such a good return on that investment moved there, that I, it made me want to do it. Like I didn’t want to just open social once I started seeing the benefits. Like I was way more present with my kids. I wasn’t distracted, I wasn’t getting drawn in by a million different things today. That’s what really texts me in previous years that I’m sure a lot of you can relate to where you’re just having a fine day. And then you decide to flip through Instagram or Facebook and find out like the devastating bombing that happened wherever and all of a sudden your like mood is shot your your kid tries to ask you something and you’re like snippy and short like and well, I didn’t like because you’re inviting something else. And I, I know a lot of us are really passionate about this topic. And a lot of you are just even off of social media in general now or off of one platform or another. I am on it for the nature of healthy ethic moms, you know, I think that it’s worth putting the health and fitness content out for you guys free the free workout tips or whatever same reason I do this podcast. But I just need to put up, you know, boundaries for myself to not get, like engrossed in that whole world because I do think it’s tough that we will not be exposed to all the problems of the world that every minute if we didn’t have this instant access. So that was really helpful for me. And then my last little bonus one, I believe was my tip. Or this conversation from 2022, which is silent prayer time. That has been like another huge rock in my day. In this does not have to be long and is not sometimes free sometimes is like seven minutes long. For me, sometimes it’s a half hours an hour. But in my morning prayer time, I will usually read some kind of spiritual reading, read the Bible. Sometimes I journal sometimes they just have silent prayer time. But there’s always at least a little bit of silent prayer time. And they were I just sit by eyes closed and I breathe deeply. And I try to listen wherever when talk. And it’s like just given me such a calm, start to my day that I really miss when it doesn’t happen. So that’s a little bonus tip that was my biggest game changer from last year. Maybe even one of these four will be helpful to you, and start thinking about what goals you want to set for 2024. Maybe pray about that too. Like what is God telling you, you should focus on 2020 For some of us do words of the year. I do that sometimes too. Actually, I’ve done it for the past several years. So I’m going to also take the time to do that I actually sat down to record a couple of podcasts in a row together. And I looked at what was on deck and was like oh, I need some silent time and prayer time with that I have not yet set my goals for 2024. So I will have to give it time before I record the next episode, but that is what’s on deck. So I will have done that. The next time you tune in, we will chat together about goal setting in general the categories they do, and I’ll share my own with you as well. All right, I hope you have a great rest of your day. Ladies, don’t forget to go check out the programs if you haven’t yet. And I will talk to you next time.

Summary: