In this episode, we are diving into the power of quarterly self-questioning to help you stay aligned with your goals and to feel more intentional and present with your time.
As we enter the second quarter of 2024, I encourage you to pause and reflect on the past few months through the concept of "self-inventory," a practice of checking in with yourself to evaluate what's been happening in your life, how you feel about it, and where you want to go next.
Through honest self-reflection, I'll guide you through my simple series of questions designed to uncover insights about your true experiences and real progress.
By honestly assessing successes, challenges, and areas for improvement, you are more empowered to take proactive steps toward aligning your actions with your aspirations. Whether it's celebrating achievements, adjusting priorities, or setting new goals, it is key to emphasize the importance of being true to yourself throughout this journey of personal growth and development.
Listeners are encouraged to join in this practice, whether through journaling or mindful contemplation, to gain clarity, honesty, and renewed purpose in creating the life they desire.
In this episode, we are diving into the power of quarterly self-questioning to help you stay aligned with your goals and to feel more intentional and present with your time.
As we enter the second quarter of 2024, I encourage you to pause and reflect on the past few months through the concept of "self-inventory," a practice of checking in with yourself to evaluate what's been happening in your life, how you feel about it, and where you want to go next.
Through honest self-reflection, I'll guide you through my simple series of questions designed to uncover insights about your true experiences and real progress.
By honestly assessing successes, challenges, and areas for improvement, you are more empowered to take proactive steps toward aligning your actions with your aspirations. Whether it's celebrating achievements, adjusting priorities, or setting new goals, it is key to emphasize the importance of being true to yourself throughout this journey of personal growth and development.
Listeners are encouraged to join in this practice, whether through journaling or mindful contemplation, to gain clarity, honesty, and renewed purpose in creating the life they desire.
The overall goal here is to get clear, and to do that we have to get honest, so then we can align, and sometimes realign, into the life that you want, because that is what you deserve. Hello, my loves, and welcome to the Purposeful Lifestyle Development Podcast, where we discuss all things thought, work and manifestation but we use neuroscience and the study of the brain to do so. I'm your host, tessa Spisak. I'm a board certified practitioner, master, life and health coach and seasoned executive speaker. If you're ready to create your highest value lifestyle and turn your dream life into a reality, you're in the right place. Let's get right into today's episode. Are in the right place. Let's get right into today's episode. Hello, hello my loves, and welcome in to Tessa Talks Purposeful Lifestyle Development. I hope you are feeling amazing, however, and wherever you're listening in from today, and I just want to jump right in. We are just into the second quarter of 2024.
Speaker 1:
And if you've been part of this community for a while, then you know I'm a big fan of taking some of what I like to call self inventory, and if you don't know what that is, whether you're new to the podcast, you just don't remember. Basically, what I call self inventory is just taking some time to check in with you, to get honest with yourself about what's been going on with your life, how you feel about it, what you want to do, coming up, and it really just keeps you present, with you. And I like it for a few reasons, I'm sure, if you are obvious right, it keeps me in check with my goals, with the habits I want to build, and also in check with the habits that I want to get rid of, right, the things that no longer serve me. It helps me plan and maintain the goals that I've set for myself. But my favorite thing is that it really helps me stay present. I personally really don't like that feeling where you're going and going and you look up and you see the calendar and you get that feeling of like, oh my God, where has the time gone this month, this week, this quarter, whatever it's just flown by. I don't really like that and I think self-questioning and self-inventory are a really good way to kind of slow things down to make sure you're present with it all. And since we're just finishing up that first quarter of the year, I did feel like it was going kind of fast, so very perfect time to do this. I want to do some check-in, do some inventory, get present and really the more I get in tune with where I am and where I want to be, the better I feel, obviously, of course, that's kind of the name of the game around here. So in this episode I'm going to go through my normal list, my normal quarterly list, so maybe it can help inspire yours. Or, if you want to use mine, please feel free. It's pretty easy and it keeps me going where I want to, and y'all know I'm all about keep it simple, make it fit in the normal routine. So there's a couple of different ways you can do this, even just kind of thinking along, journaling along as we go. So let's reflect.
Speaker 1:
One of the first things I really like to ask myself is what overall words would you use to categorize the last quarter? Just big, broad terms, what are some of the initial thoughts that come to mind? You know, has this last few months been exciting or have they been busy, maybe stressful? Have they been procrastinating or maybe really focused? What has been the main focus? Right? Just a few words that come to mind, maybe three to five key things. Overall, what do you think about how you treated you and the things that are important to you in this last bit of time, for however long you're doing this and hopefully the words that come to mind are positive right, we always hope that we can honestly say, when we really clearly look back, that it was happy and that it was focused and productive and in flow. But we're humans having a human experience and we know that's not always the case, because life is life. So I don't want you to use this time to be judgmental or to be dishonest with yourself at all, but just really genuinely, how has it been and how have you felt? How have you treated you and the things that are important to you? And then this part's really crucial Once you get a good idea of what the general theme, or at least what your initial thoughts about the general theme are, I want you to take a minute to think through, or even look through, what are some of the big things that happened in this timeframe.
Speaker 1:
Did you have a big project going on? Did you travel? Did you complete something? Or maybe, in the opposite breath, right? Did you put something off the whole time that you said you were going to do? Just take a minute, reflect on these last few months what it actually looked like. I mean, like I said, maybe even poke through your calendar, take a minute to really genuinely refresh your memory, go through your you know whether it's app or you have a handwritten calendar look at what you've been doing. But this will help give you a really clear and realistic view of what you've been up to.
Speaker 1:
Basically and I like to take a second here to this is kind of bonus points here to see if my initial thoughts, those initial big broad terms, if they were in line with what I'm seeing on the calendar. I mean, for example, a kind of vulnerability piece, I guess, or not really, but more just transparency, but a real example that I just went through with myself when I just did my own self inventory practice before recording this episode. But one of my big broad terms that I said to myself over the last month or few months is I just felt scattered. I didn't feel like I was on top of my routines. I didn't really feel like I progressed in some of the things that I was working on in the way that I like to. That makes me feel the best. But I go back and I look and I go through the calendar and I realize that we've been traveling and we've had sports and we had a wedding and we had family birthdays and we had events and all the things. Well, no wonder I felt scattered, right? No wonder I didn't feel like I fully stuck to my routine, because I wasn't in a routine. So, even if this is just a moment to give yourself a little bit of grace, it gives you the chance to have that grace if you need it and, of course, again, on the opposite vein, we don't need to go through this one, but it gives you a chance to call yourself out where you need it to right. Again, this is a space to be honest with you. So then, once you get comfortable there, after you've gone through what you overall think, maybe getting a little bit more clear, going through what it actually looked like I like to have an overview on the last quarter. Again, whatever timeframe that I'm taking inventory over, I like to take a look at the goals before I had I'm sorry, before I got into this timeframe right the ones that I had before here. So, if you're listening to this as it comes out, we're just hopping into quarter two.
Speaker 1:
So what were your new year's resolutions? Did you resolve anything for the new year? Did you set any goals, any plans, any habits you want to gain or maybe again get rid of? Right, and I hope you did. Of course, it's always good to set little things for ourself, but how did you stick to them? Have you been keeping up with them or kind of forgotten about them and let them slide away? Were you good at it for a little while and something happened right? What happened there? Maybe even going through what were you good at? Or even I like this question a lot. I'm going to touch on this a bit. Should I more highly prioritize something, or is there something I need to deprioritize Again?
Speaker 1:
These questions are never in the realm of self-judgment, but instead it really gives you a chance to see where things are working in your favor. What are the roadblocks? And if there are roadblocks, are there some things that we can change? Are there some things that are out of our control that we can't change? Were we realistic about what we wanted and everything in between? This also gives you a chance to be really proud of yourself and really happy that you did what you promised yourself you would do. I spend a lot of time talking about that, how important it is for your brain and your mental health that we keep the promises we make to ourselves. So if we did take the time to be really proud of that.
Speaker 1:
Now, of course, that includes a flip side, right? This can also give you some clarity on what happened not in the way that you planned, right? What can we replant? What can we come up with in a new way to get you where you want to be? Sometimes is it that it didn't work or I just didn't do the work, right?
Speaker 1:
Not self-judgment, but here to get clear, here to get some honesty, and I would say my last piece, my fourth piece of this, easy four steps here, last bit, with all of that out on the table, what are you going to do about it? What are the things that worked? What moved the needle in the right direction of where you want to go? What are the things that need adjusting or reprioritizing? And I think this is so, so important. So I'm going to say it 900 times in this episode. But we have to be honest here. We're not thinking about what your friend, your mom, your family member, what the lady you work with, what even I would think that doesn't matter, not what anyone else's goal would be for you, but what moves the needle for you, what actually brings you closer to the life you want, what can you, as I said before, prioritize or reprioritize to better align with what you want? So it's really simple. It doesn't take a lot of time, but it really should be done, whether you sit down and you journal it out, you know, of course, this is my favorite, because when we write something, we also read it. We see it. The brain just absorbs the information even better because it's coming through all those different mediums. But either journal it or ponder it on your daily walk, use it as a thought, work, practice. But overall, the goal is to get clear, get honest and realign with the life that you want and you deserve.
Speaker 1:
Four simple steps here. So one first ask yourself overall, how would you categorize this last quarter, this last time period, the big, broad terms? Give it three to five of them. Then actually go through. Go through what your calendar looked like. Go through this time whether it's pondering, actually looking it up, right, thinking through it all. Actually looking it up, right, thinking through it all. What did it actually look like? And did those two terms realign how you generally felt about it and what you actually did.
Speaker 1:
Then we're going to go back to any goals you set at the beginning of this timeframe, at the beginning of this quarter. How'd you do? Did we hit them? Did we forget about them? What do we need to prioritize and deprioritize and then last again, when it's all there, when it's all in front of you, what are we going to do about it? Now, of course, if you need help, you know where to find me.
Speaker 1:
My goal is always to make the journey really easy and really fun. That is the best way to get change, especially change that you want and in a way that serves you. But I'm always proud and honored to be part of your journey, whether you just hang out here in the community on the podcast or we set up some sessions one-on-one and we talk it through together. Either way, I'm glad to talk to you today. Enjoy your journaling session.
Speaker 1:
Let's make this a little bit of a habit, whether it's quarterly self-inventory. If it's monthly, maybe we can go through what a nice monthly quarterly inventory would look like. Definitely let me know, send me a message or review if you'd like to hear that. But with all of that said, if you haven't heard it today. All of my love to you and enjoy your week. But all right, my loves, that's where I'll leave us today. I want to thank you so much for joining in on this conversation with me, and each week, every Monday, we're going to be posting a new episode, going a little bit deeper into the conversation, of what you can do to train your brain on purpose to really allow for the lifestyle that you want to live. Until next time, my loves. In the meantime, here's to your health and your happiness.