110: Simple Step-By-Step Guide To Living A More Fulfilling Life

How satisfied are you with your life or your home atmosphere? If you are like most people, you are probably happy with some areas and want to make changes in other areas.

Making lasting changes requires attention and effort. It's not easy, but it's not rocket science, either. In this episode, you will learn a simple, step-by-step guide to help you identify what to change and create an action plan so that you can live a more fulfilling life and improve your home atmosphere.

Click here to download the Thriving Life Journal.

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Click here to learn more about 1:1 coaching.

Until next time,
Crystal

© Triumphant Learning, LLC

Transcript

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Welcome back to the All in a Homeschool Day Podcast where we talk about cultivating a thriving home atmosphere by getting control of your day, managing your emotions, investing in relationships, and training your children. On today's episode, we are going to dive into that. We're talking about six steps to living a more fulfilling life. Most parents that I talked to would rate their overall satisfaction of their life or home atmosphere, probably about a seven or eight. Most areas are going pretty well, they probably have a few areas they want to improve. I know I do. And I would venture to say that everyone at some point has at least one area they want to see changed. This is totally normal. And as I often say, everything is working until it isn't. So in today's episode, I want to give you a six-step framework to help you identify where you want to focus your attention and make a lasting and impactful change so that you can have a more fulfilling life and so your home atmosphere will be better. I created a free PDF that walks you through this process. You can download that at triumphantlearning.com/thrivinglifejournal. You don't have to have that free download, but there are extra reflection questions that will walk you through some of these steps. So let's dive in right now to step number one. Your first step is to examine your current situation. You have to know where you are, where you're starting, before you can evaluate the progress that you've made. So what is your life or your homeschool or your home atmosphere like right now? There's a different assessment for each of those three areas in the Thriving Life Journal that you can download. If you have the journal, rate those areas on a scale of 1 to 10, and see where you are. If you don't have the journal, think about different areas of your life like relationships, maybe the tidiness of your home, the way everybody is pleased or displeased with your school lessons, or how much time you're at home versus out of the home. Think about different areas that you want to assess, and give yourself a rating. Now the second step is to cast your vision. You need to know where you are going, or you'll just wander around and never know when and if you've reached your destination. If you have the journal, rate those same areas again, but use a different color this time so you can see where you are and where you want to be. If you don't have the journal, take a look at the list that you've made, and rate those same areas. Where would you like to be on that scale? Those first two steps have gone pretty quickly. But you're just rating where you are and where you want to be. This third step is where the hard work comes in. The third step is choosing a focus area. Look at your ratings and find an area that has a gap between where you are and where you want to be that feels significant to you. This is all subjective. Somebody may have rated one area as a four, but they really only want it to be at a four or a five. But somebody else may want that same area to be a nine or a ten. That's going to be a much larger gap, so I can't just say choose the area that has the biggest gap. You may want to choose the area where you feel you really want to reach that higher rating, instead of closing the gap between where you are and where you want to be. So take a look at the areas that you rated and ask yourself which one of these you would like to focus on. Then visualize what that looks like. We're going back to the casting the vision a little bit, because you've identified the area you want to focus on and so now you can cast your vision in that area. So think about what does that look like? What would you like that area to feel like, to be like. How would you want to experience it? Describe it in as much detail as possible. I like to think about the story of Michael Phelps, and how his coach told him to envision a winning swim meet, and he told him to visualize it and in great detail. ,What does it feel like? What does it sound like? What is his body doing? And then to play that over and over at night as he goes to bed, like a videotape. Rewind that and play that over so that he can see it. And it has become a part of him. When he's done that, he has been able to achieve such greatness because he already knows what he wants to experience. He knows what the outcome is going to be. You don't have to replay this videotape every night as you go to bed, you could and you would probably find a lot more benefits from it, but at least think about what you want this area to look like in great detail. I like to have a visual reminder, so I think about a phrase or an image that represents my desired outcome and what I want that to look like. One of the areas I want to focus on this year, the image that I came up with was blooming flowers. It's like new life. And that image is helpful for me to call back on because we all think in images more than words and having that is a way for me to say, "Yes, that is why I'm putting in all of this work." And as you think about that focus area, also think about that gap. What is holding you back from achieving your desired outcome? Spend some time journaling about that, writing about it or talking with someone about what obstacles you're currently facing. As you explore this gap, this area, some things may come to mind or come to light that you want to work on. And this would be where you want to focus your efforts for the next step. Step four is creating your action plan. What is it that you need to do to help you get from where you are to where you want to be? And I want to encourage you to not get too ambitious because we may have some areas that we want to make major improvements. But if you're anything like me, taking baby steps is so much easier than trying to take giant steps and see giant leaps forward in progress. It's just not as beneficial. I like to think of how Dave Ramsey describes the debt snowball effect where you start small, and as you start seeing a little bit of momentum, a little bit of change, then you start to see more momentum, and it just builds upon itself. You just need to take one small step. And that small step will help you to see results, help you to overcome some obstacles, and then you'll be able to take the next step. So in this first action plan creation, you're just going to focus on one small step that you can take. Now step five is to identify potential obstacles. Earlier, you looked at what is currently standing in your way, and you created an action plan, possibly based on that, possibly based on just what you know you need to do to reach your goal. But right now, I want you to look at what might get in your way in the future based on the action steps that you want to take right now. What might prevent you from achieving that? It could be something physical, maybe you don't have the supplies that you need. It could be situational, maybe you're in your current life stage, devoting let's say 30 minutes to exercise is just not realistic. And so you need to look at how you can get that 30 minutes in, given your current situation. It could be emotional, it could be that what it is you're about to embark on improving is going to have a lot of emotions attached to it. And it could be mindset, what you tell yourself, is what often happens. I love how Henry Ford said, whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right. That is so hard. Because we have so many mindsets that come from our childhood, come from experiences we've had growing up that really affect the way that we approach situations and what we think we're capable of and not capable of. So think about these different obstacles that you might face and then ask yourself, How can you mitigate these potential obstacles? Now finally, Step six is to find accountability. Sometimes we're motivated enough to see everything through to the end. But other times we need someone to walk alongside us and hold us accountable. We all need help; this is normal. And even though some of us may have a stronger motivational desire to accomplish something, and because that's just the giftings that we have, even we need someone to come alongside us. They can be a cheerleader. They can help us to overcome the obstacles. They can help us when we get stuck or when we get frustrated. So what do you need in this area, it might be something as simple as a check-in with a friend. Tt might be a piece of technology like to help you block out some of your technology use. There are so many ways that we can find accountability, and it's going to be unique for every situation. And I want to remind you to be patient with yourself. Change takes time. It takes effort, and it takes a desire to see something different happening. You can do this, but you will need to be patient with yourself as you go through the process. So I want to recap those six steps for you. One is to examine your current situation. And then two, cast your vision. Three, choose your focus area. Four, create your action plan. Five, identify your potential obstacles, and six, find accountability. And remember, you can download the Thriving Life Journal at triumphantlearning.com/thrivinglifejournal. And all of these steps are in there. All of the reflection questions are in there; there's more questions than I was able to cover in this episode. It will give you some time to step back, to pause, to assess your current situation, and reflect on where you want to be and how you might get there. I know that some of you will be able to do this on your own, and you will be off and flying. And I am so excited to hear about your results. I would love it if you would email me. You can also go to the podcast page triumphantlearning.com/podcast and leave me a voice message, and let me know how that is going. I also want to invite you that if you want someone to partner with you, to walk alongside you and help you explore what it might look like for you to make improvements in your life, your home atmosphere, or your homeschool, I would love to help you. You can go to my website and find out more about coaching. Or I want to invite you into a group coaching experience. This is a great way for you to experience coaching in a group setting where it's a little lower investment. There's a lot of synergy and energy that happens when we're working together to achieve similar results. Everybody's probably going to be working on a different aspect of their home atmosphere, but we're in it together. So the next group starts on April 17. If you're listening to this live, and if you join before March 31. Then you will also receive a 30

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1 coaching session with me. There will be more groups throughout the year if you can't join us in April, but I want to let you know about that. I'm really excited to be walking with you through this process. You can learn more about that group coaching experience at triumphantlearning.com/thriving homes. I hope that this episode has helped you to see some possibilities to start to dream about what could be, and I can't wait to hear about your results. Until next time, have a triumphant day!