Coffee and Bible Time Podcast

From Wishful Thinking to Tangible Results: Nailing 2024 God-Centered Goals w/ Polly Payne

January 04, 2024 Polly Payne Season 6 Episode 1
Coffee and Bible Time Podcast
From Wishful Thinking to Tangible Results: Nailing 2024 God-Centered Goals w/ Polly Payne
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Are your goals for 2024 destined to be forgotten by February, or are they the kind that will transform your life? Join us on Coffee and Bible Time as Polly Payne, the visionary behind Horacio Printing, shares her expertise on crafting resolutions that resonate with your soul and align with God's will. We guarantee you'll walk away from this episode with a blueprint for achieving personal wholeness, equipped to tackle the year with intention and clarity.

We've all been there—setting ambitious goals only to watch them crumble under the weight of daily routines. Polly and I dissect this all-too-familiar issue, uncovering strategies to create a holistic plan that touches every aspect of your life. By embracing actionable goals and integrating them into your weekly schedule, we guide you on a journey toward balance, ensuring your dreams are nourished and your well-being is prioritized. Say goodbye to guilt and hello to growth, as we provide the tools you need to stay on track and cultivate a life of joy and purpose.

As you sip your coffee and contemplate the year ahead, we wrap up this heart-to-heart with the secret sauce to making resolutions stick. Immerse yourself in our anecdotes and discover joy-sparking activities that go beyond the mundane.  Get ready to embrace life's beautiful moments and live intentionally within the comforting embrace of God's will.

Website: horacioprinting.com
Go-To Bible: The Message
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Thanks for listening to Coffee and Bible Time, where our goal is to help people delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living!

Mentor Mama:

Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. For those that may be listening for the first time, our podcast is an offshoot from our main platform, Youtube. Our channel is called Coffee and Bible Time, where our goal is to help people delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living. We also have a website and storefront with Bible studies, prayer journals, courses and more. I'm Mentor M ama, and today we've got an episode for all of you goal getters.

Mentor Mama:

We are going to be diving into the challenge a lot of us face, which is making our 2024 goals a reality. You know, the kind that actually stick and bring about real change in the new year. Do you ever catch yourself setting ambitious goals only to find them abandoned by February? Well, we've all been there, and one of the biggest mistakes in goal setting is the lack of solid planning to keep us on track, and so joining us today to help us on our path to clear and strategic goal planning is Polly Payne. She is going to help us begin our year with a solid plan so our goals don't fizzle out. She will share with us how aligning our ambitions with a higher purpose will ensure our goals are in sync with God's will and help guarantee they aren't just wishful thinking for a few weeks from now. So stay tuned and let's take action to make our goals a reality in 2024.

Mentor Mama:

Polly is the founder and CEO of Horacio printing. Her mission is to help Christian women pursue and achieve their God given dreams. Through her company and in partnership with a 21.org, she has raised more than $70,000 to fight human trafficking. Polly lives in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, with her husband and two children. Please welcome Polly.

Polly Payne:

Yay, I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Mentor Mama:

Thank you so much for being here today, Polly. I'm really excited to, as we are kicking off this new year, to just take a time of reflection right and really try to explore where we want to go. And why don't we just start with like what? What significance do New Year's goals or resolutions hold in the context of the Christian faith?

Polly Payne:

You know, I think every morning, you know his mercies are new and he's always doing something new and what's beautiful about a new year is everyone's kind of doing it with you. I think there's a lot of times for rebirth and renewal every season, every year, even your birthday. For me that's like my own personal New Year's and I think you know getting for me it's always getting a new planner opening up a fresh bucket list and it's just a space to to have a refresh, like why not? You know, and it doesn't have to be January 1st. You might find this episode and it's the middle of February, you know, and that doesn't mean you missed it, and there's You know people say there's something magic about January 1st, but I think it's a great time in winter, which is a season of, you know, almost like a hibernation and quiet and cozy, and you know things feel dead, but we all know spring is coming. I think it's a really beautiful time to sit and reflect on what you want the next 12 months to bring, because I think for me what I've learned is your schedule will determine who you want to become, and the most important dream I think any of us can have is to become who we're called to become.

Polly Payne:

That's, you can't carry any of the lofty dreams or goals or callings or purpose if you're not physically, mentally, spiritually ready to carry it.

Polly Payne:

Which is one of the reasons why I think God doesn't place big things on us until certain parts of our lives get healthy and get stable, because sometimes a blessing can drown you out. You know, like, let's say, I wanted my business to go grow to this huge revenue goal. You know I could definitely see in the back of my mind like, am I ready to sustain that, am I ready to scale to that? Because many blessings or goals and dreams can, can grow to be not to be a Debbie Downer but they can grow to be a burden. They can be heavy things to carry, even just like a podcast. You know it's exciting goal to start it, but to consistently keep it going and to edit and to record and to stay organized and to give it the the time and energy it needs. Like it, it has weight and so I think the best, the best dream we can really focus on is the dream of our own wholeness and health, so that God can continue to carry it, to call us into what we're called to carry.

Mentor Mama:

Yeah, yeah, how important do you think it is to actually reflect on the past year before sort of going into the next year, and how do you go about doing that?

Polly Payne:

Yeah, so two ways. It's so critical. It's just like a, like a GPS for your car. You know if you want to get somewhere, the car or your phone has to know the place you're at, has to pinpoint where you're at in order to even give you directions. It doesn't work without knowing where you're at. So it's critical to assess where you are today.

Polly Payne:

But it's super important to reflect on the past, not just the good, but especially, especially the good. You can reflect on what went wrong, what didn't serve me, what do I need to let go of? What do I not want to carry into the new year? Especially, who do I need to forgive? We could be harboring unseen bitterness from the things that have happened. You know, let's say, things got political in your family or someone said something, or someone shared something on Facebook and, like you're harboring things, and it's so critical that we have a clean heart so we could have clean dreams for the new year.

Polly Payne:

But looking back on, what do I want to leave behind is such a great question to ask. More importantly, what went right? What can I be thankful for, what can I praise God for? What can I share in my testimony of faith that God has walked me through, because in the sharing of the praise reports and what went right, we all have elevated faith and it's something that I think is so easy to neglect is the answered praise reports and the prayers that were answered and things that we're grateful for. So I think that's critical to for me. When I start to dream for the next year, I always start with what went right last year. We can always remember what went wrong.

Mentor Mama:

You know that's easy to pinpoint, but really sitting down with what went right, yeah, you know I'm thinking about what you just said, and one thing that sort of happened in my life this past year was a ministry that I had been involved in for two decades came to an end and I was just so, so sad, really, about it. But at the same time, I'm like you know what God? I have to trust that, trust your plan. And now that I've gone through this season of, I don't think I would have done it well if it had been because I had so many other things going on, and I don't know about those of you that are listening, but one of the challenges too that I have is too many things right, like asking myself and my daughters are very good at saying, well, mom, do you really need to be doing all those things? So, yeah, I think, assessing too, like, how are you feeling throughout the year? Are you feeling stressed or too busy, or yeah, so looking the dream of less.

Polly Payne:

Yeah, you know, we often think about all the things we want to put on our I call. I call it the canvas. Like your life is your canvas? Like what? All the things we want to add on? You know, trips and this, and adventure, or this new adventure, this thing.

Polly Payne:

But it's so important you have to clear stuff out and then we're we're. You know, we just did a lot of Christmas shopping for our kids and my husband's like they've got to get rid of some toys before we're buying more, like we cannot fit more toys in this house, and I totally agree with them. It's the same thing with our life. It gets so full. So we have to constantly say you know, if God was in charge of my schedule, god, what would you erase? What would you erase? What would you remove? And often there's things that are obvious. You know the distractions, the time wasters. Sometimes it is something that was once a dream and we go through the release of it, which is so critical. It all comes down to surrender. I think surrender is one of the most powerful fuels to your dreams, even though it seems counterintuitive. But we have to get comfortable with surrender when we're working on godly dreams.

Mentor Mama:

Yes, yes, absolutely, and it might seem at the time, if you're following God's will it'll actually be a big blessing. Well what are some of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to goal setting.

Polly Payne:

The first one is not making any. That's the first one, probably, and we're all guilty of that, right. The second mistake would be just making goals and then never looking at them again, which we've all made that one too right, and I used to do that on my planner business, and there's a bucket list in the front, and then it's so easy to just go live your life and then never go back to what was my goal, what was my dream. You know, what did I even say I was going to do this year and some parts of dreaming. It's okay to dream, just to dream, because dreaming is a it's a symbolic and beautiful activity of hope. To dream is to have hope. That's why, when we feel hopeless, it's really hard to dream, and so it's, it's a beautiful thing to dream, just to dream, really. I'm a big believer in that. But how do we connect it with our schedule is what's so critical, and so we have to have goals down into bite-sized things that can be added into our week, and that's what we do in the planner. And so this is how it looks for me, which I think we were going to get into this a bit later, but I'll go ahead and kind of explain it. How we do it is you start with an assessment of how you're doing in all areas of your life spiritually, physically, in your relationships, you know, if you're married, it's you assess your marriage, how you're feeling financially in your professional life, all areas and from there you can really see what part of that wheel, what part of that tire is low. You kind of find the nails in your tire and where your air is leaking out. And here's the mistake, why I mentioned it Often we build goals in the areas that we're really strong in.

Polly Payne:

That's going to be our go-to. Like, if you're doing really well in your career, that's the first place you're goal-setting. Why not? Because that's where you're putting your time, that's where you're putting your focus, that's where you feel like I have more value. If you are a really strong athlete and maybe you do marathons and CrossFit or whatever, you're probably setting goals and dreams in that area because you're really strong in that area.

Polly Payne:

And so what happens is we set goals and areas of strength because, a, that's something we like, b, we're probably going to hit it and it's fun. What happens is we neglect the areas of our life that are low. Like, let's say, you're really discouraged in your marriage or your finances, it's like well, that's where you need to be goal-setting, intending and nurturing, because we are holistic and if our finances are not doing well, that affects our marriage, that affects how we show up at our job. We're connected beings and so that's a big mistake is we'll only set goals in areas of strength because we want to win, we want to have something exciting. It's not that we don't set areas in our strength, goals in our strength, but we want to have them holistically.

Polly Payne:

So, setting area goals in all areas and then connecting it to your schedule, and we have a section in the front of the planner, in the 2024 dream planner, where, after you've assessed the wheel, you go through a couple steps and at the end of it, what you have is your fundamental needs or your top one thing in each area of your life that you schedule into your week and basically it's a simple thing. Maybe it's, you know, 15 minutes to an hour a week that you're pouring into each area intentionally, and it's not that it's gonna make it perfect, but it's something you're not skipping to intentionally pour into your physical health, your finances, your marriage, your motherhood, your spiritual life, because that's the big missing puzzle piece that I finally found for myself was okay, maybe I can't hit a Bible study every single day, or I've really fallen off the wagon. It was like, okay, let's set this goal. You know that's, we're always hitting this one, and maybe we don't hit a date night every week, but we're always doing our marriage journal on Sunday night and that's our kind of like the anchor in the storm, you know, is I always have these things to nourish myself, which is ultimately hitting my main goal, which is a whole and healthy me becoming whom, call to become, not not letting myself get to a place of absolute burnout and drowning and overwhelm, which allows me to carry my calling. So that's a roundabout way of how I go about it in the planner, connecting those things.

Polly Payne:

And also, if you have a big goal like, let's say, a big goal is to start a business or start a podcast, you need that in your schedule. You know dream. I call them dream blocks. Maybe it's on Thursday nights I'm doing my dream blocks. That's my night to sit down and work on something from my bucket list. Start mapping out that project, the bigger things in your life, and having it on your schedule as something that's a gift to yourself. That's exciting. Reminding yourself it's not selfish to pour into your dreams. That is that's kind of my method, I love all of those tips.

Mentor Mama:

There's so many good ones there, you know. I think it's easy for us to like at least for me personally to like those areas that you aren't good in, like you mentioned, to kind of just want to turn your head the other way and be like it'll all work itself out. But I love that we do need to be intentional about nurturing those areas and I know for me personally, just getting translating that to being on your calendar for me has been so crucial that if it's, if it's not on there, then yeah, I'll definitely be forgetting about those goals that were set. And it sounds like something you were kind of alluding to. There was, like you know, you have like your, it's okay to have like a bare minimum goal, right, like your, your your night with your husband in the journal, but then you could always go past that right like, oh yeah, we are actually going, you know, out to a concert tonight or whatever.

Polly Payne:

So I think that that maybe helps too with making them achievable oh yeah, the biggest way to help your goals happen is to cut them in half. That's a great lesson tip from John A Cuff's book finish. He's a book called start, because at first he wrote a book about you know, it's all about you just got to start and then he was like actually you got to finish, and so in the book about finish he's like cut it in half, cut it in half and then cut it in half again. Make it so simple that you can actually achieve it, because, as humans, like we really thrive on rewards and if you hit a goal it's exciting and you can double the goal and triple the goal and you can just make it smaller.

Polly Payne:

Often when people especially in my world of the planner girls, a little bit type A, you know, high achievers deal with perfectionism I don't know if any of you listeners are you like that's me, but perfectionism is the biggest killer of all this and what we want to do is we want to be perfect tomorrow. So we're like all right, new year, new me, I'm, you know, gonna do dry January, whole 30, you know, work out five days a week and what happens is here comes January 4th or 5th, you've nailed it for three days. And then it's the day after perfect and maybe for you listening, this is your day after perfect. You, you're listening like yep, today's the day. Actually, I did fall off the wagon, I didn't hit the workout, I didn't have my vitamins or whatever it is, and we give up. And you've set the bar so high. Yeah, you set the bar so high.

Polly Payne:

And then also, you have to be prepared for the day after perfect. There's nothing wrong with attempting a whole 30. I usually do it in January. It's like my jam. I love that, but I don't always hit it. And and whole 30s really strict it goes. You know, if you mess up, you start over from the beginning. Well, how about we just give ourselves grace and be prepared for the day after perfect and tell myself oh, here it is, this is the day after perfect, the day I would normally give up. But instead I'm gonna do my best, I'm gonna get myself grace and I'm gonna keep going tomorrow because I, even though I've done three days perfect, that's more than none. Yay, let's keep going. So for me, it's just ample's amount of grace and potentially cutting your goals in half great tips there.

Mentor Mama:

Anything else that you want to add to helping make our resolution stick.

Polly Payne:

I think the biggest thing is, if you have a personal goal, make sure it's in your schedule that's huge and have some sort of visual tracker. We're all different in how we handle systems and how we handle goals. Some people are really visual. Some people need, like, if I get seven in a row, I'm going to give myself some sort of like. We're all different in terms of how we do reward systems or fear-based like. We're all different. So try different things. Like, don't be afraid to experiment. Maybe you want to build a little habit tracker in your planner and check it off and see that progress for yourself.

Polly Payne:

As humans, our brains love to see data. So, even though, like, if you're on like a weight loss journey and you want to you know, I don't know feel better in your genes or whatever, and you the scale is what you would normally do, why don't you just mark, like, the days you do, whatever fitness tracking you're doing, and lay off the scale? Like try something different. If whatever is working isn't working, try something new, try something different. And so that would be one of my biggest advice is there Keep yourself grace and ask yourself the question how can I make this fun?

Polly Payne:

How can I make this fun, like, maybe it's all right I'm trying to do this, but I'm really on a strict diet. I want to feel better in my genes. How can I make this fun? Well, maybe it's a signing up for Zumba, maybe it's doing something really life-giving, that is your workout. Maybe it's listening to really fun audiobooks on your walk or doing a you know a step challenge with somebody getting a buddy.

Polly Payne:

How can I make this fun? Because sometimes we see goal setting and these things as really stifling or it should feel painful, and it doesn't have to. You know, your life is your canvas. You can build it the way you want and you're creating your life every day, whether you believe it or not. So create it into something that can be fun and life-giving for you and for me. When it comes to health, I always choose sleep first. That's like my foundation of pyramid of health. It's like if you're not getting enough rest, no amount of exercise and diets going to really change anything. So just make sure you're taking care of you mind, body, soul in the process and make it fun.

Mentor Mama:

Yeah, absolutely, and I think the same sort of theory holds true in taking. If you take care of yourself, then you're more capable and able to care for other people, especially as moms, when you have so many other potentially little ones or bigger ones that you're trying to also help along. Well, let's talk about spiritual goals and just the process of incorporating God's will and making sure that God is in the center of our goals. How do we go about doing that?

Polly Payne:

Well, it's a couple different parts to it. I think the first part is making sure you're in relationship with Him, foundationally, spending time with Him in His Word, spending time in prayer and in His presence. That's where things will be born and shared and faith will rise. So that's the foundation part of it. And someone listening might be going, yep, that already done, that, check, check, check. And some people are like, oh, maybe I need to hang out with Him. And yeah, he wants to hang out with you, so make time to hang. And I totally understand the busy, stressed out mom listening who is like I don't have time, I don't have time, I don't have time. And so for the busy, stressed out mom listening, I totally feel you. I've got a four year old and almost two year old and it is tricky to get the time alone. And then, when you have the time, there's 100 things on the list and spending time with God, while incredibly important, it's not urgent. No one's emailing you saying, hey, did you spend time with God today? And I'm like no one's, I need that by end of day, you know, like no one's on your back about it and so it's an easy thing to neglect and so don't feel bad, but I do want to remind you that God will show up as your everyday, ordinary life. He's all around you. He's not just in the sacred times with the coffee and the Bible and the peace. He is in the diaper changes, he's in the dishes, and so you know you can turn moments of washing dishes into worship. You know, put the music on, pray to him and just hang out as much as you can in those, in those moments with him. So that's my encouragement there. I also love doing a morning app called Lectio 365, where I just sit and it's about five minutes long, super short, and I'll just listen and they just read scripture and then a few notes and things and prayer and it's just, it's quick. You could do it while you're nursing your child, just pop your earbuds in, and that was really helpful for me in like the tougher seasons of newborn life and stuff. So that's the first part is making sure you're spending time with him so he can transform you, he can reveal things to you, he can speak to the parts of you that need him, and they're all of you. So that's the first part, is spending time with him.

Polly Payne:

The second part is we really have to look at our hearts. Dreams are born out of our heart, just like our words are born out of our heart. Above all else, guard your heart, because everything you do flows from it. And so Proverbs 4.23, that incredible scripture it just reminds us that our heart is so important, and our eyes and our ears are the pathway to our heart. So everything is born from the heart and that's why, if we are harboring that bitterness, the unforgiveness, we can birth bitter dreams.

Polly Payne:

We can start to wish ill on other people and actually have dreams that are really dark, and we see this all over the world. That's why we're all created in the image of God, but some people out there, created in the image of God, are doing horrible dreams. They have horrible goals. They are killing people, murdering people, torturing people. You know what I mean? Bad stuff and those are dreams, but they're born out of really dark hearts and we have to be careful about our hearts and what we're letting in. And that's why spending time with God and saying, hey, god, here's my heart, search it, what needs to go, what needs to be removed, who do I need to forgive? Because I want to birth clean things.

Polly Payne:

And when our heart is healthy. We can birth healthy dreams and we can trust our dreams. You know, we can trust it and say, hey, I have this dream. It's kind of crazy. What do you think you know? And so that's the biggest part is heart health. Our heart gets healthy from spending time with God, from being in his word, getting his word in us so we can discern our dreams against his word. And yeah, and being around heart, healthy community, people around us that are also in relationship with Jesus, trying to become a better person, spending time in the word, those are the ways that we kind of dream with a healthy heart and also speak life. That's how we learn to speak life is by having a healthy heart. And so that's the two big pieces.

Polly Payne:

After you've done that, you know, when you are sitting in a place of heart health and you're sitting in a place of spending time with God, I think you're really just free to dream. That's how I feel. I feel like we get so caught up with is this God's will, is it not? Is it God's will, is it not? And it reminds me of this, this book, this Dallas Willard book, and he was talking about people being obsessed with being in God's will, and he told this analogy of him as a father watching his children play outside. And because they were playing outside, in his view they were in his will. It didn't matter if they were doing hopscotch or, you know, jump rope or playing in the sandbox All three things they could play out there, you know, kickball, whatever it is. That was all in his will because they were his children and they were playing, and that's what I kind of see as dreaming. It's like he does. He gives us free will and he gives us our imagination. So, like, don't be afraid to dream, don't be afraid to dream stuff.

Polly Payne:

And when a dream fails, all it must not have been God's will. Well, was it? Was it not? Did you learn something? Because just because something fails doesn't mean it's absolutely not God's will for you to learn those lessons or learn how to deal with disappointment. You know, not God's will isn't that everything goes smoothly and perfectly and you crush everything you've ever tried. You know, like that wouldn't really help us grow. You know we have to stumble and we have to fail, because the mistakes help us not make those it a bigger scale later on. And so I think in a lot of ways, god's like dream play, have fun. But the key to it all at the end of the dreaming you surrender it all to him.

Polly Payne:

In my planner, when I take people through the dream planning method and we sit down and do it, which there's a course that comes with the planner that teaches you this. I always have my students draw a circle in the middle of their bucket list and they draw all their dreams around it and in that circle we write I will be done. Which they could write, a variation of that they don't want to go, you know, king James version. But you know I surrender my dreams or whatever they want to write. But we have to surrender it to him. We can try, we can show up, pick the ones we want the most, go for it, put that in your schedule, but only he can do it.

Polly Payne:

And by surrendering our dreams we're also helping us not fall into the trap of letting our dreams be an idol or letting our dreams become a source of identity and value. If this wins, if I do it, I have value. If it fails, I stink. You know, and I never was supposed to do it. It's like no, neither of that. You're a child of God, like your identity, your greatness, your value is always in him and who you're created by and who you're loved by. These are just icing on the cake, you know, and so that's why I go back to surrender.

Polly Payne:

But God says dream, dream, go ahead.

Polly Payne:

I gave you imagination, I gave you curiosities, I gave you free will, I gave you a strong mind, I gave you creativity.

Polly Payne:

I gave you all of these things that you would be curious about, and you're welcome to follow them and to learn, as long as you take care of the blessings you're given and take care of you, because you can't carry any of those things in the long run unless you're taking care of you Right. So that's kind of like the whole spiel about it that God's been kind of slowly unyining to me over the years of dreaming, because I've had a lot of people ask and be scared of the dreaming and or scared to make the wrong move, and I get it like nobody. And if God speaks to you and says don't do it, oh my gosh, follow him. You know like. But I think we have a lot more freedom than we understand and sometimes, when it's like you know A or B, it's like both are in the sandbox. God says play. You know like he will direct you, just continue to seek him and his presence and continue to show up.

Mentor Mama:

Yeah, you know, I kind of see that as just holding those goals with your hand open and not being so, you know, clenched fisted on this is what I am going to accomplish, but yet to let God be a part of it and open to his leading throughout the process. You know, one of the things that you mentioned is part of this whole process is, you know, we like to think of being in God's word as a gift and really like not something that you're just have to check off each day. And this morning I was just so reminded in a couple verses that I read about this, that prayer also is just such a gift, and Psalm 116, verses 1 and 2, say I love the Lord because he hears my voice and my prayer for mercy, because he bends down to listen. I will pray as long as I have breath and.

Mentor Mama:

I love that because it just demonstrates how God wants to be involved and cares about you know us in communication with him, and this whole process of you know meeting our goals and finding them, and just the prayer incorporating that all together is so beautiful. Well, let's talk about revisiting your goals, because you know things, life happens and changes. How often do you suggest revisiting them and then also like maybe tweaking them or how does that go?

Polly Payne:

So I definitely do it in like a full reassessment every quarter. Every quarter I'll redo my assessment wheel, I'll reset my goals in all areas for 90 days and then once a month I'll flip back to them. For sure. But how I kind of keep it going is in my planner I have my grade 8 fundamental needs, which, by the way, is a system that Chelsea Jo Moore taught. She was teaching with my planner for years and then I connected with her and we edited the planner to add her system in. So she technically has trademarked the fundamental needs, which I love, and she recommends putting them in orange.

Polly Payne:

So I just never forget that in my planner it's like in orange, my fundamental needs, and by now they're memorized and so they become routine. And so every week when I sit down to plan my week, those are going in first and I'm making sure I'm getting those important things of. You know time with the house cleaning and time with my husband, a special family time with all of us, not that we're not hanging out all week, but just a really special time where me and my husband aren't just playing hot potato like hey, you got him, I got him, you know, we're all like intentionally having fun, and then my quiet time, time to assess my budget etc. So it's kind of on a weekly, monthly and quarterly. But quarterly is really when I sit down and reassess and like make some changes.

Mentor Mama:

Okay, you know, I think one of the struggles, especially that very busy people have, is making time for fun and just joy, whether that's art or whatever. You enjoy being outside all these different things. What do you suggest to the person who just feels guilty or doesn't take the time to do that?

Polly Payne:

I would have them build a list of all the things that make your heart sing, like all of them Dance class, art, whatever it is, things you haven't done in a long time, things that after you get done doing it, you're like I'm so glad I did that. You know, I'm so glad to put my sneakers on and went and did that, whatever it is. And then make a list of all your distractions. What are the things that you do to escape? What are the actions you do after a long day or whatever it is? List out every single distraction mentally and then what you do in your life, like sometimes it's self-pity, or like replaying stories in your mind, or social media, whatever it is. And then look at those two lists and like what could you, for the next 30 days, say no to and make time for and replace it and just do one little swap. Just do one little swap. Just try something different.

Polly Payne:

You know some people's homes it's like as soon as they get home, the TV's on for background noise. Don't do it. Try something else. I lived without a TV for a couple years in New York and people thought I was crazy and it was like incredible, you know. And so try something different and I would just swap. But seeing the list is just really helpful. I'm a visual person so like, okay, I'm going to swap this out for this, I'm going to make more time for my passions.

Mentor Mama:

Yes, yes, I love what you said at the beginning, just how you know, our lives are this blank canvas and be encouraged that you can put that on your canvas if you really want to do it and find something to swap it out for. Oh, I love that. Well, holly, as we start to ramp things up, just why don't you tell us a little bit about your business with Dream Planner and how it can help people and how they can find you?

Polly Payne:

Yeah, absolutely so. My company's called Horacio Printing Horacio with a C. I lived on Horacio Street in New York when I started it, which is why it's the name. It means timekeeper in Latin. But we create the Dream Planner which we have our 2024 Dream Planner available now. We also have SOAP Bible studies using the SOAP method. They're called Seasons of SOAP and you can pick what season of life you're in and open up the Bible study and just kind of choose your own adventure of what kind of scripture you're needing. So if you're in a season of transition or a season of anxiety or season of looking for your purpose, we've kind of curated scriptures around different seasons of life. We have four volumes of that and that's all.

Polly Payne:

At HoracioPrintingcom we have some journals and accessories and then, lastly, last year I opened up my own print school for other people who have the dream to publish and print their own product. I've been running my shop now for over nine years and it was about year five that I really started getting a lot of emails of like, hey, I'm going to print a planner, can you help me print my planner? And for a while, you know, I was kind of helping people and I started doing one-on-one coaching, and then I built out a full program called Print School, where you get access to my printer, you get access to my designer and teaching how to design your own product or you can hire them directly to design your product for you. And it goes through. You know, sample printing, ideation, just how to set up an entire luxury paper product, and that leads you right into launch school, where you learn how to sell and launch and either pre-order campaign or straight up, just buy and bulk and then fulfill it and use a warehouse and set up your website and all of that.

Polly Payne:

So that's all at HoracioPrinting. com, and that's what I really love. I love empowering other people who have a dream similar to mine and they can't find the answers of how to do it because no one's out there teaching it. No, certainly no one was teaching it when I was getting started and so I had to learn a lot of things the hard way. But yeah, and if you're interested, I also have a free workshop, horacioprintingcom slash workshop, where you can watch a video and I train you on the dream printing method, and that workshop's absolutely free.

Mentor Mama:

That's great. Well, we will make sure that we put all of those links in our short notes. So before we go, though, I need to ask you some of our favorite Bible study tool questions what Bible is your go-to Bible, and what translation is it?

Polly Payne:

So I would say the one I grab the most often is the message. I took a break from it for a while because I had a lot of heat from oh, it's not that simple. But then I went back and I was like I just love it, I love how it just it just pulls me in, and then I'm hopping to other translations to see what it says. You know it, just I love it, I just love it, I just anyway so, yeah, okay, the message Awesome.

Mentor Mama:

Do you have any favorite journaling supplies or anything that you like to use to enhance your Bible study experience?

Polly Payne:

One of my favorite new ones, if you guys are watching, is the Primrosia dual tip markers. These are incredible. I was just had one in my hand while we were talking, but one side is a brush tip and one side is a fine tip and they're just stunning. I love them. And then I also have a Keros app on my phone if I want to look up the like lexicon or, like you know, dig a little deeper into the word.

Mentor Mama:

Yes, okay, so that was going to be my last question. Your favorite app or website, would you say it would be that one, yeah, that one for sure. Okay, maybe you should spell that for someone who's listening, who doesn't know.

Polly Payne:

It's so weird. In my app it just says Bible, but when you open it it says Keros K-A-I-R-O-S.

Mentor Mama:

K-A-I-R-O-S. We will open it. K-a-i-r-o-s, we will also put the link in there. Well, polly, thank you so much for joining us today to help all of us create some solid plans to overcome the problem of making real change stick that can prevent us from reaching our goals. So I've been a joy to have you here.

Polly Payne:

Thanks so much for having me it's been an honor and for our listeners.

Mentor Mama:

be sure to follow the link in the show notes and head over to Horacio Printing and get your beautiful dream planner or learn how to make one of your own. It's a great way to get organized for 2024. So happy New Year to everyone. We love you all and appreciate you listening so much. Have a blessed day.

Setting and Achieving Goals with Purpose
(Cont.) Setting and Achieving Goals with Purpose
Overcoming Mistakes in Goal Setting
Tips for Making Resolutions Stick
Incorporating God's Will in Spiritual Goals
Creating Time for Joy and Priorities