You're One Decision Away From Living Again | Episode 442

You're One Decision Away From Living Again | Episode 442

Ever feel like life shrank without you noticing? We open up about what it really takes to live again when motivation is thin, the sky is gray, and your goals feel a size too big. Justin shares the honest path back: tiny steps, real rest, and a support system built one person at a time. No hype, no shortcuts—just practical habits that restore momentum and make your voice heard again.

We talk through how a big vision can thrive on a zero-dollar budget, why consistency doesn’t mean doing the same thing every week, and how adaptation keeps a mission alive when plans change. From seasonal depression to burnout, we name the weight many of us carry and offer tools that work in the real world: micro-actions you can finish today, sleep hygiene that resets your brain, and boundaries that let you serve without losing yourself. We also unpack the hidden trap of living for other people’s projects and show how aligning with your own values actually makes your help stronger.

Along the way, Justin reflects on 440+ episodes, missed events, evolving formats, and the simple throughline that keeps everything moving: show up with honesty and keep going. The seasons outside become a metaphor for renewal inside; birdsong and blue skies mark a chance to start small and start now. Whether you’re rebuilding after a rough patch or simply want to feel more alive in your daily routine, this conversation offers clarity, warmth, and concrete next steps to reclaim your voice and your days.

If this resonates, tap follow, share it with a friend who needs a lift, and leave a quick review. Your support helps us reach more cities, more countries, and more people ready to live again.

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*Voices for Voices is a 501c3 nonprofit charity. All donations are 100% tax deductible.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Gratitude And Milestones

2:45 Big Vision On A Tiny Budget

4:15 Support, Donations, And Reach

6:00 It’s Time To Live Again

9:30 Teams, Treatment, And One Step

12:30 Finding Your Voice And Purpose

16:00 Living For You, Not Others

19:30 Rest, Tiny Steps, And Momentum

23:30 Adapting, Consistency, And Faith

28:00Hard Days And Gentle Expectations

#OneDecisionAway #LiveAgain #LifeTransformation #PersonalGrowth #InspirationDaily #MindsetShift #EmpowerYourself #ChangeYourLife #MotivationalPodcast #MentalWellness #ResilienceJourney #SelfDiscoveryJourney #UnlockPotential #DecisionsMatter #justiceforsurvivors #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion #TikTok #Instagram #truth #Jesusaire #VoiceForChange #HealingTogether #Episode442

Transcript

Gratitude And Milestones

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices 0:02

Hi everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices. Thank you so much for joining us on yet another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. We're grateful to have you. We're thankful to have you with us. We are over 440 episodes total. So it's uh uh what I would actually call a miracle that uh that we're here, that we've made it this far. Um and it's uh only because of your help, your demand of uh wanting more content to watch, to listen. Uh we're grateful to have you with us. Help us get to reach 3,000 cities and 300 countries worldwide. We're well over a hundred countries, well over a thousand cities. Uh we just broke a uh a goal for uh the last uh the last year uh download-wise. Uh so it's just incredible. We're we're knocking out goals with a basically a zero dollar budget, and we have that big, huge monumental goal of helping reach uh at least three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. And we uh we're we're gonna do it. I know we are, and it is uh it's incredible to have seen the growth from the beginning of our endeavor, uh endeavor together here with Voices for Voices, and then here with our Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. If you can do us a big favor, give us the big thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share, all those great things. They're easy to do. Uh, we would greatly appreciate it. And if you would do us another huge favor is to reach out to 25-year contacts, 50, 7,500 contacts, let them know about the voices for voices, TV show, and podcasts. Uh, it's because of you again that we're we're at this point, and that would be awesome if you could do that. We know that a lot of you have already, so we want to say thank you uh because we are seeing it in the analytics in the numbers. Uh, there's some analytics, some numbers we don't see uh because of different reasons, private servers, all kinds of different uh things that uh don't let us see the full analytics, and that's okay. But we know we're helping people, you know we're helping people, and that's all that matters. So thank you. And if you are able to, uh we are Voices for Voices, we are a 501c3 nonprofit charity organization, and so what that means here in the United States is all donations, uh, all book purchases under the Voices for Voices moniker uh are 100% tax deductible on the federal level. And it's uh it's tax time. If you haven't done your taxes yet, it'd be a great way to uh pad uh your return by helping us out and helping yourself out. So again, thank you for joining us. It's time to live again. Uh, there's probably a song or maybe several songs that titled that. That's not why we're talking about it's time to live again. Uh we're talking about it in the way the Voices for Voices talks about it and things. Um, and that is on the very human level of when we say it's time to live again. The reason we say this and reason why we're going to dedicate a show today, uh, this episode to talk about it is for far too long have so many of us, and I'm included, uh not been living. We've been whether it's procrastinating, whether it is just uh just not feeling the best. And that's what weather, I say bad weather, but you know, and the the skies are dreary, there are lots of clouds, it's snow and then raining and and all that, it can cause us as we know the seasonal effect of disorder, which I get every year on top of every all the other things that I have uh with being diagnosed with. And I'm okay with that because I have a team behind me that's with me every step of this way. Uh and I hope and pray and send good vibes that if you need a team behind you, that you're able to find that one by one. Don't look at don't look at the whole situation as oh my gosh, I got to do all these things. Do one thing at a time. That's the only way we get things done, at least for me. And so that's that's what I would would say um to to someone who looks at, oh my gosh, I have to go see a psychiatrist, I have to go see a therapist, I have to look. We only get one shot at this life. Uh, and that's part of the reason why I did what I did in 2017. And uh maybe that's something that that you you want to explore doing. Uh I can't make decisions for you, I'm not giving medical advice, just sharing my experience. And so living again means doing what we love, doing what we want to do. Uh for me, voices for voices is really to use voices as many times as I can. Uh, voices for voices is really helping and has helped give me a voice back that I had, but it was all in my head. It was all in my head. Uh, I wasn't talking about things, I wasn't um, yeah. I mean, that's a big thing, is just talking through it. Um, and I wasn't doing that, and so I really wasn't living. Yes, I was alive, my heart was beating, my brain was I'm not talking like that. What I'm talking about is what you do on a daily basis. Is it what you want to do? For the most part, not everything is up to us, but if you have a couple of things you want to work on or do in a particular week, are you able to work on maybe one of those for a little bit of time? Or are you not? If you're not able to, that's what we're talking about living again. That let's get back, if we can, to living again, to work on and do things that make us feel feel good. Uh, I am by no stretch, nobody is perfect, and I am by no stretch perfect, and saying, Oh, Justin's doing all these things. Uh, I'm trying, I'm I'm working on on things. Uh just like you are, just like everybody is. Uh, I think we're constantly learning, we're constantly working on things, not just for others, but for ourselves. So learning to live again and to live again, we want that to be for us. Because if we're not able to do things for us to make that make us feel good, then it's a hard life. If we're doing what somebody else and others want us to do, then we're not living again, we're not living for us, we're living for somebody else, somebody, somebody else's goals, somebody else's projects. Uh, and while that is not a negative all the time, it can be, and it can hold us back. We can get caught up in our heads where I've been so many times and still am so many times, the things, ideas, they they just hang out up in my head. They don't come to fruition, which basically just means they don't come true. But let's make them come true, let's help them come true. If we're not feeling the greatest, that's okay. Let's if our body is telling us we need rest, then let's rest. And then let's try small itty bitty step at a time. Don't have to do big big things, big steps at a time. We just do as best as we can. That's all we can be. It's the best as we can. And if the best we can that we're doing is what we want to do, what makes us feel good, then that's what that's what I'm talking about is let's learn to live again. Let's again, for for me, I know some of you are like, oh yeah, that's easy for you to say. Look, look at your organization, look at the goals, and look at the things that that you're doing. Let me tell you, that this thing right here, voices for voices, is a godsend. I didn't know it was gonna happen. It came to me one day as an idea, and then for some reason I just kept doing it and kept finding different different ways. We've had a Voices for Voices walk before. We've had two annual events. We've taken the last couple years off. There's been uh a lot of movement on uh a lot of different um areas, and so every year it's a little bit different. I like consistency, but it's not what I want. It's what for me as a believer, it's what God wants, it's what Jesus wants for me, and so one year we may have an event and a walk or another year, or we may have none of those, and we we just may be working on our shows, our content for things to click and to come into come into perspective and into it to come together. And that's okay. I've had to accept that myself for that very reason. This very reason. As you know, Voices for Voices started as an event, a once-a-year event before we started with the show. And so we had a couple years of events, and for one reason or another, we we haven't we haven't had an annual event. There's been years where we've had awards that we've we've uh we've given out, and there's been years we we haven't. It doesn't matter to me. Again, I would like consistency, but as I sit here talking to you, as you're watching, as you're listening, that should be a little bit of a moment to look at and to go, oh wow. The one consistency is the show, what you're watching, what you're listening to. So we do have consistency, not on every single thing, on every single level, but we do have consistency on the show. We've had times where the the cadence, which is which is basically fancy for saying, you know, the amount of shows we have a week was one. And so we were doing fifty-two or so shows a year. And now, by the grace of God, many times, many weeks, we're doing more than one show a week, and so something clicked somewhere along the way. There's been things that have been taken away from us, and we've learned to adapt. And I think that for me, adapting, we talked we talked about this before, but not at this level. For me, adapting is so so important. And I think one of the things that I don't always do well. And yet we continued on. We could have taken no for an answer. We could have taken stop. We could have taken don't do it. All I know is how to be myself and how to be human. And there's flaws in all of that. There's so many flaws of me just being human and being myself. But I've learned and I'm still learning how to live again. It's really remarkable as I take a step back of yet another accomplishment of that other kind of medium-sized goal that we just hit. And then over four hundred and forty episodes of our show. And so I look at that as the positivity of growth, of helping, and just living. So many times seems so hard. Seems so hard. So hard to get out of bed, so hard to brush our teeth, so hard to take a shower, so hard to do. What a lot of us would say is, oh, that's an easy task to do. But for some of us and for some of our days, it is hard to do. So we don't do them. We do half of them. And I'm not expecting and asking every single person to think in terms of of me. Just think in terms of yourself. Are there are there days and times where you just have to take a step back? You just have to have to stop for a minute or two or a day or two. I know I've have and am continuing to work on myself, how I can be a better self, better person. And I'll tell you what, there's not a whole lot that changes. Um I'd like to think of when, let's say when we, if we're ever able to go on vacation for any amount of time, whether it's a day, two days, a week, two weeks, and we gotta have our phones next to us. Ben there done that. Have to do this, have to do that. I you know, can't have a break in the action of well, I I need to try to. Find a way to do a show on vacation. And then it's it doesn't seem like a vacation then. And I've been there, done that. And so there's something that what I'm working on, and I'm continuing to work on, is it's okay to take a day. The world's gonna continue, the earth is gonna continue rotating. It's still gonna have four hundred and forty plus shows. So to take a day or two or three or seven, it's okay. We're living again. We're not just consumed by one thing or two things or three or four or five. I have been. But it my body needs rest. Not just, well, yes, in the evening, I haven't been prioritizing my sleep and my sleep hygiene for years. It's one of the big things I'm working on now. And so if I'm just throwing numbers out, I don't uh I I I've stopped keeping track after uh the 52, you know, the one episode every week um situation when we were just all one episode a week. I just work on episodes as they come. And more times than not, that's it. At least that was our ice machine if you heard it sound. Uh we at least have one show a week that comes out that we drop. And so when I pass on from this earth, God's not gonna look at me and say, Oh, you did 400 and whatever amount of shows. It's not gonna be that at all. It's gonna be about how I how I was and a person. Did I did I help my fellow human when I had the opportunity and the ways and the means? Were you constantly learning in ways that would help others? And so for me, that's that's what I'm focusing on. For you, it may be something similar or maybe something totally different, and there's not a problem with any of those at all. So as we as we all just learn to live again, maybe you've been blessed and you you haven't had a rough a rough patch. You can hear birds too, as well, so you also know that maybe spring time is on its way. And part of the reason I did this show specifically about learning to live again is just that because of the birds, because of the the blue sky, because of the the sunshine that has been gone for so long. Each year, we don't have sunshine every day of the year. So the weather is kind of like a a renewal of ourselves, and that's part of why I wanted to do is do this particular show on this particular topic or these topics. Because if we're alive now and we've made it through, you know, depending on where we live, but maybe where we live it's sunny and 70 degrees every day, and uh I'm a little envious of that, a little jealous of uh of that. Uh but where we live, we go through all the seasons, we go through all seasons. Some are easier, some are tougher. So let yourself live. Let yourself love. Let yourself work on goals, set goals, easy goals, hard goals. And not all of them, you don't have to you don't have to write down every single goal. Some of them can be uh, you know, small, small goals where we we don't have to write them down. But whatever goal, whatever thing, whatever experience, whatever event you want to take part in, that you want to host, that you want to work on, do it. You can do it. Let me be a testament. You go through all our catalog of episodes. I talk about myself, my diagnoses. I talk about hot topics, talk about pop culture, uh, talk about easy topics, we talk about hard topics. That's probably what makes us one of the top shows, and that we are continuing and have continued to put content out for the world. Thank you so much. We're grateful, we're thankful to have you with us again. If you can give us big thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share. They're free for you to do, and it helps us reach more people. Help us reach 300 countries, territories, provinces, help us reach 3,000 cities across the world. Help us help at least 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. And if you can reach out the 2550, 100 of the contacts in your phone on social media after you follow Voices for Voices, of course. If you can reach out to those 2550, 75, 100 contacts through text, group text, uh, group chat on social media, we'd be very grateful for you to let them know about voices for voices and how raw and authentic and transparent we are. And we want to help people. We have helped people, and there's been times where one of those people is right here, is myself. So we love you. Thank you for your love and support, sending good vibes your way, whether you're a believer or not. And until next time, let's celebrate all the voices in the world and let us be a voice for not only ourselves, but somebody else that needs their needs their voice heard one way or another. Take care. Bye for now.