Coming into the New Year with intention

[00:00:00] Hello, hello and welcome back to the show and welcome to 2023, which seems a little bit crazy, but here we are. This episode is coming out the day, a New Year's Day. So happy new Year and this one is gonna be kind of short and sweet. I just wanted to take a minute and talk. You know, so it's the first of the year and I think a lot of us are, you know, there's the whole New Year's resolution thing and , just kind of reflecting on the last year, what is this next year look like?

[00:00:31] And I, I don't know about you guys, but for me, as I have gotten older and, you know, just progressing through life, I guess I've really wanted to spend more time reflecting on. And remembering what happened during the year because they go by so fast. Especially when your kids are young and when you know, we're military families and we're moving all the time and you're living in a new place.

[00:01:00] One of the things that I really like to think about is trying to maximize the, the. our time when we're in a new place and play the tourist and go visit all the things. And if you wanna do that stuff, you really have to be intentional with your time. Otherwise, , life happens and all of a sudden it's been six months and, you've just been doing life and haven't really been branching out into anything else.

[00:01:24] , I dove into the personal development space really. Probably six or seven years ago now. And I, as the year winds down and you come into the new year, a lot of people are talking about, , goal setting and looking back on your year and, all of that stuff.

[00:01:39] Right? And it can be a little bit overwhelming. I know I, I don't really listen to her podcast anymore, but I used to listen to Rachel Hollis. She wrote Girl Wash Her Face and. She does this like last 90 days thing where like, let's make the best of our year. And then I remember listening to a podcast episode and she's talking about how she like goes away for a week or 10 days a week, I can't remember, but like secluding herself.

[00:02:08] So that, and she's got a family. I mean, she's got three kids or four kids, I can't remember. And to reflect on the year, what, what happened. What went really well, what didn't go well? What do I wanna do for next year? What's gonna challenge me? What's gonna push me forward? And kind of going into the year with a plan and I'm like, I love that, having intention into the year, but I, I don't have that kind of time or resources to make that happen.

[00:02:30] Right. And I think that a lot of us are in that place. So how can we do that a little bit more simply? I wanted to share with you something that I, that I did come across. There's another podcast that I like to listen to. It's called the Goal Digger Podcast. with Jenna Kucher, and I don't listen.

[00:02:49] I, I listen to, I don't know. I'm, I'm a little, I'm not like a super loyal listener. Sorry. That's offensive. If she ever hears it, I don't know why she would hear it. But anyhow I, listen, I'm a sporadic listener. How about that? I'm a sporadic listener, but she had an episode recently about journaling and that was intriguing to me.

[00:03:05] We've talked, I've shared with you guys before in my morning routine, and that I do, I try to do 15 to 20 minutes of meditation and then 10 to 15 minutes of journaling. And journaling is sometimes challenging, and if you haven't journaled before, it can be very overwhelming. Like, what do you say? It's just blank piece of paper staring at you.

[00:03:24] And so she came up with this journaling practice that she has. And now of course she sells a journal that she developed. But she talks about this journaling practice that she has where she asks herself three questions each day. And so it's a quick answer and it's like a five minute journaling process.

[00:03:37] And I was intrigued by that and I thought, Hey, you know, I really like journaling and I usually honestly, Recently my journaling has ch it's, it's kind of changed. It used to be this is how I'm feeling, just kind of like, you know, word vomit, like just get it all out. And then it kind of turned a little bit more into being a little bit more structured as far as like I would write down my goals, like what are the big goals that I'm working for right now, but like my top five things.

[00:04:03] And then I would kind of go into my day and then recently as I've restarted, because I told you there was kind of a long period of time there. Fell out of my morning practice and it definitely made an impact on my mental health. So I have made it a priority to get back into. . And so as I've gotten back into my journaling process, I've just been writing what I'm grateful for.

[00:04:22] So like I'll spend 10 minutes and just write like, I'm grateful that the girls didn't gimme a hard time as I went to school today. I'm grateful that the car started. I'm grateful that I didn't run into traffic. I'm grateful that, yeah, whatever. That I got to take the dogs for a walk today. I'm grateful for my workout, I'm grateful for, you know, it can be anything.

[00:04:38] So I literally just do that. And gratitude is something that I think is a really important practice to have in your daily life. So that's where that was going for me. But I was kind of feeling like, you know, maybe I wanna do a little bit more. So, long story short, that was a little bit longer. Sorry about that.

[00:04:52] I decided to purchase her. And she just wrote a book. It's called How Are You Really? So the journal is kind of a kind of with that anywho, so I purchased the journal and in purchasing the journal, , she I kind of got Del Deluged with emails, which I'm really not a big fan of. I mean, like, almost immediately four emails.

[00:05:10] And then I've gotten like three more throughout the day. That's kind of a lot. But the one in the first set of couple of emails that I got, she sent a free, it's called, it was a goal setting workbook for 2023. And I thought it was really fascinating. You know, cuz it, so, and it's not long. It's, it's designed to kind of reflect on your year and she asks specific questions and then to look forward to next year, what do you wanna do?

[00:05:33] And it's, it's kind of like, it's, it's very small and bite size, which I really appreciate. I went on her website to see if I could find it so that I could share the link with you guys and I can't find it when I search on her. So I don't know if the only way to get this goal setting workbook is it's literally 10 pages.

[00:05:49] It's not, it's not anything crazy is to purchase the journal. I don't know if that's what it is, but I did try to find it and I couldn't find it. So I, I don't know how to share that. How to, for you to get that specifically other than purchasing , purchasing her journal which you can do on jenna kutcher.com if you're interested.

[00:06:03] I don't, I'm not affiliated or anything with it, it's just something that I'm trying for myself. I'll let you, I will share with you how it goes for me. But anyways, so it's just, you know, again, first of the year, taking the time to kind of reflect. And so some of the questions that she asked that I think are are really thought provoking and to get you into the mental space.

[00:06:22] Because here's the thing is we don't wanna just keep going through the motions, right? We wanna. Our best lives, which I know sounds kind of like, you know, cheesy and rah rah, but honestly, right. We don't wanna, we don't wanna sit in crap. And I think that we all wanna feel like we're making a difference and that we're productive and that we're feeling good and doing things that make us happy and all of those things.

[00:06:46] But at, at the same time, caveating that with, you know, this, it doesn't mean that you have to do. , right? We don't need to , we don't need to add anything more to our plates at all. And, and I guess, I mean, doing this workbook kind of is adding more to your plate, but I think that it's important to take a look back and reflect on what we, what went well for the, for the last year, what we felt really good about, what we're, what was really hard for us, what can we do differently?

[00:07:15] How do we. Feel Right, because that's gonna, that's going to lead us in, in different directions. And you just as, as you reflect, , are there things that, that really felt good to you, that made you really happy, that lit you up that. , all of that stuff. But then there's also an area and a question that she asked that, have you built your life on a stack of supposed tos, 

[00:07:40] I'm supposed to do this, or this is the conventional thing to do, or this is convenient, so I'm just gonna go with the flow and then asking questions like, when did you feel burned out or overwhelmed? And is there consistency? Was it a short season of that or did it feel like 

[00:07:54] , a long season of that. And were there any goals that you had set for 2022 if you, you know, if you didn't make goals for 2022 and now that 2022 is over, looking back on that, are there goals that they didn't quite fit for you? They didn't feel good. Goals that we didn't reach. Why? , why, just taking a moment to go back and not in a super crazy, we're gonna take days and weeks and months to to analyze this stuff, but just a little bit of thought behind.

[00:08:20] and then looking forward and setting your goals for 2023. You know, some good questions are, what are three ways that you wanna feel in 2023? What are three big goals that you wanna achieve in in 2023? What are ways that you wanna transform or grow yourself? What are three ways that you want to impact the world around you?

[00:08:42] What, you know, just kind of asking some of those bigger questions and, and again, giving yourself that grace. And this is where I think the reflection part can come into it. Because I think a big part of this too might be for some of us, is taking stuff off. , right? What can we, what can we take off our plate?

[00:09:04] What can we say no to? What can we change? What can we ask for help with? What can we outsource so that we can free up some of that mental space for ourselves? So I just, I just wanted to share that you know, some of the things that I'm gonna be going through as far as goal setting for this next year and sharing the, the journal and some of these questions that I thought were really thought provoking and.

[00:09:26] The last thing that I wanted to share with you is something that I started doing back in in 2019 and it is making a family yearbook every year. And I am not going to even lie. I'm not gonna sugarcoat this, it. , the way that I do it anyways, it is hours. It is hours of me sitting in front of my computer looking at pictures, adding them, adding captions and things like that.

[00:09:53] Okay, so, so from the top, I saw someone else post this on Instagram I can't remember who, who I saw post it and I was like, oh my god, that's really smart. Because , as we go through the, , we have all of these pictures on our phones, right?

[00:10:12] Because we always have our phones with us. We don't walk around with cameras and go get film developed and have like a physical thing of it. We have our phones. I remember seeing this meme and it was like first child and it's this fully, , documented beautiful baby book and then second child and it's a half filled.

[00:10:30] , modge Podge baby book, and then third child, they get handed your phone because all of your pictures and memories are in your phone. And I, and that really kind of struck a chord for me. I was like, that's true. , I have so many beautiful pictures on my phone, but how often do you actually go back and look at that stuff?

[00:10:47] And so I thought, you know what? I really like the idea of a yearbook. And so I decided that I wanted to do that, and I love it and my family loves it. The girls love going back and looking at it. And then, do you know what's fascinating to me too? , it says I go through the year. So this is the process that I do.

[00:11:04] I use Shutterfly. There are a ton of other, there's one story work. Nix. There's a ton. Like if you just Google family scrapbook or something like that. You, there's a ton of places I personally use Shutterfly. And then what? So what I do is I go back through my camera roll, I go all the way back to January of that year and I go through and I heart or favorite, I have an iPhone.

[00:11:30] If you have a, a Android, I don't know how to help you. Sorry. But I heart , so I. My favorite pictures from the year, these are the pictures that I really like. And then I upload all of those pictures onto my desktop and then I upload them into Shutterfly. And then Shutterfly offers, you know, if you make photo books and things like that, they offer where they will automatically place photos for you and then you can go in and change it and they're like, it'll save so much time, blah, blah, blah.

[00:11:57] Here's what I have found. I have found when they automatically upload stuff, it's not an. and it doesn't make sense and I am too type A to let them do that . So I kind of create more work for myself in the way that I do it. I like to start from scratch. I start from scratch and as I load my pictures in, they load chronologically in Shutterfly because that's how I load them in there.

[00:12:20] And or that's how they're selected and downloaded into. . And I just go through and I go through each month and I put 'em in here. And here's what I found is it's like I remember 2020, right? 20 20, 20. the year. That was a year, wasn't it? But I just, I remember thinking, man, we, we really didn't do anything.

[00:12:39] , I feel like we didn't do anything. We just kind of existed. And then I go back and I look at all these pictures and I'm like, oh. Yeah, I forgot. Oh yeah, that, oh, I remember that hike. That was so cool. Or, oh my gosh, I love that picture. I remember when the girls did the, and it's like, like a trip down memory lane for the last year, and I really like it.

[00:12:56] And so a, again, I'm not gonna lie, I usually take the time while the girls are off of school. And then the Michael's in stand down, so he's home and I will literally sit at my computer. . Hours. Hours and make these things. So my last photo book I think was 85 pages. The one previous that was 93. Like there, these things are substantial, and then cost-wise.

[00:13:19] Okay, so here's a tip. Cost-wise. So with Shutterfly, if I went in right now and printed out. The book, it would be like $180, which is just absolutely ridiculous. So I will hold the book , cuz you can save your projects, right? So I will hold the book and I will just watch for them to have sales and they'll have like 60% off or free extra pages.

[00:13:40] That's the big one. And when they offer free extra pages, Then the cost of the book goes down dramatically. So I usually wait. So the last book that was like 93 pages, I think I paid $60 for it. Cause I waited for them to have a really good sale. So you might have to wait a little bit. So kind of play with that.

[00:13:56] And then again, there's, there's a ton of places. I, there's probably ones where you can just send your images and they will do the whole thing for you. I, I don't know how all of those work. I'm just telling you what works for me. Again, it's a big kind of time suck in sitting in front of the computer to get it done, but it makes me, it's so fun to look back on the year and it's so fun to.

[00:14:20] , to be able to share that with your family. And then, , when the grandparents come out and visit and things like that, they always wanna look at them and it's just, it's a really cool thing to have. And then as , your kids get older and they start moving out, you can go back and have something physical to look at that's not just swiping on your phone.

[00:14:36] So, okay. So that's what I have for you today, goal setting. You know, just do whatever version of that works for you. Even if it's just, Hey, I've got some quiet time in the cars I'm driving. What did I really like about this last year? What did I not like about this last year? What are some things that would make me feel better, that would enhance my life, that would, whatever the case might be for you.

[00:14:58] And then, , if you're into the the yearbook and making that for your family, I, you know, give it a shot. Just give it a try and see how it feels for you. See if you like it, or, , , if it's not something that you wanna do yourself, because I'm not really a creative person.

[00:15:13] But it's all digital. So it's like you move the picture here, you select this layout, you add this embellishment or whatever, but it's all digital. I'm not having to actually cut out pictures and Scrapbooky stuff. I'm not good at that , but this I can do because it's all digital works for me.

[00:15:29] So, okay, that's all I have for today. Short and sweet. Happy, happy New Year and I will talk to you guys again soon.