Episode 19: Making Space: Creating Margin for Your Goals and Growth

 “Making Space: Creating Margin for Your Goals & Growth”

Change Chasers — if your schedule is full but your personal goals feel stuck, this one’s for YOU.  

 Why margin matters.

 How busyness kills growth.

 3 simple ways to create space for the dreams God planted in you!

Sometimes your next breakthrough isn’t about doing more — it’s about making room for more.

#ChangeChasers #GrowthMindset #MakeSpace #MarginMatters #GodSizedDreams #PodcastDrop

Faith in Action // Change in Motion

Transcript

0:14

Well, hey, hey, hey, change chasers. Welcome back to another episode where y'all were all about chasing change, leveling up, and learning how to lean into who God has. So sweetly called and created us to be. And so with that said, today y'all were going to be talking about something that I personally believe that every change chaser needs, but often overlooks, and that is margin. Somebody else probably going, oh, snap, crackle, pop. Yes, I can relate to that because I do not have a whole lot of extra margin in my life. Right? So when we think about. Margin. It is the space that we create in our lives for personal growth, for personal goals, and even for God's size dreams. And so if we're really, really gonna be real, that's what we're all about on here, right? Is just being real. I think that sometimes life, or at least my life can get noisy. Can get really kinda scattered with the to-do list a mile long, so to speak, that you probably can relate, right? That margin doesn't always seem like it is. Close at hand to even be able to figure out how do I add margin to my crazy busy day? Between work, between family, between responsibilities, and even the unexpected curve balls that are thrown our way sometimes, right? I know that it's easy to fill every square inch of our schedule, but here's the thing, y'all. I truly believe that growth doesn't happen in the chaos. It happens in the margin. That's something that I'm personally seeking to try to learn and figure out how do I add more margin to my schedule, to my busy days. And so that's part of where the theme for this episode is coming into play. And so with that said, let's jump right on in to hot take number one. What is margin. Well, I think that margin is simply the breathing room, so to speak, that we build into our lives. It's the intentional space between our load and our limits. It's waking up, say 20 minutes early to pray or to journal or to be able to even open the U version Bible app, right? It's just saying no. Even if it's something good, I know that's extra hard, right? If you're like, oh, but this is such a good thing is that I remember that Lisa Turkers study years ago. I think it was called the best. Yes. And so one of the slogans of it was Sometimes Your Best Yes is a no. And so when I stop and I think about margin, the difficulties of, even though sometimes something is good. And that it might even be for God, you know, is that just trying to figure out how do we do a better balance so that we're not always jam packing our days and cramming our schedules so tight that we have no room for, we'll say maybe. I know some folks might say divine interruptions. Or as I like to call'em, divine assignments. So it makes me think about the verse from Proverbs chapter 21, verse five. From the NLT it says, good planning and hard work leak to prosperity, but hasty, shortcuts lead to poverty. Whew, snap, crackle, pop, right y'all. Margin allows for good planning. It gives space for God to speak, for ideas, to be cultivated, and for us to process to heal an even dream. Jumping on in the hot take number two. Why change chasers struggle with margin? Let's be honest, I think that change chasers are driven people. You probably giving me a little head nod, right? Yep. We're driven. We growing as we're going, right? One of our mantras, and so I would say that you're listening to this and so I have no doubt that you are a very driven person that you desire to grow. And to be able to be all that God is so sweetly created you to be. We love progress. We love action. We're wired to do, but sometimes our drive can turn into what I'm gonna call hustle addiction. we equate busyness with productivity. Busyness doesn't always equal fruitfulness. That's definitely something that I've been learning in my life over this past year. And so just stopping and thinking about the fact that what is it that I'm allowing to get added into my day? Is it going to allow a fruitful outcome? So maybe that's a question for you to ask yourself as well, because the reality of it is, is that real talk without margin, y'all, it leads to burnout. Without margin, we lose clarity without margin. We say yes to way too many things, and we might even miss God's best. Our personal goals stay on the back burner because we're stuck in go, go, go. Gotta get her done. Kind of survival mode. Margin protects what matters most. It keeps your personal growth alive and it keeps your God-sized dreams on track. It creates room for sustainable change. And so maybe that's just a sweet little reminder for you to stop and think about why you also might need some help with getting a little bit of margin, more so in making space in your day and creating margin for your goals and for your growth. Right? And it makes us jump on into hot take number three, and that is three simple ways to create margin. Number one, schedule white space. And what I mean by that is literally block off time on your calendar. Guard it like an appointment with your future. How cool is that to stop and think about that? Just kind of my new little thing that I'm doing is I'm creating margin so that I can have that space on my calendar with, okay, this is an appointment with my future. For my future, right? Hopefully you're picking up what I'm putting down on that. But the idea is to use that time for prayer, for reading, for dreaming, for goal setting. I mean, whatever it is that you need a little bit more time or you know what, sweet friend. Maybe even creating some margin for rest for some slow your roll kind of time to stop and breathe. Maybe it's to go take a walk. Maybe it's just to give yourself permission. To just be still. And then also, number two, thinking about ways that we can create margin, eliminate one good thing. And so with thinking about that as unfortunately, y'all, as much as we want to have a positive spin on everything as a change chaser, I'm really learning that not everything good is God's best. And so that kind of stings a little bit to allow that to, I guess, for my personal self, to accept that maybe you're not in a season like I am in right now, but just thinking about knowing that not everything good is God's best for this season. And so if you're with me on that, maybe the idea that we can ask ourself is a question is, is this helping or hindering my growth right now? And so in thinking about that, I think it's okay to pause certain commitments to be able to prioritize our own personal growth. And with thinking of that, it leads me into number three on the ways to create margin would be create micro margins. And so we talked about micro goals in the last episode, and so just kind of stepping in on that a little bit more, elaborating with the simplicity of. Even just taking five to 10 minute windows of time throughout your day that you can allow for yourself to be able to have practice. The pause moments, right? Maybe you want to just slow down for a second, take some deep breaths, or to be able to just to reset, reflect, or take a small action step toward your own personal goal. Don't underestimate what small, consistent moments can build over time. So again, thinking about creating space for the micro margins, we don't have to get everything done in every single moment, right? We talked last episode about just in the middle y'all. And so how do we continue to persevere and to be able to accomplish things in the middle of what we're doing is to not underestimate, even if it might be small progress, there's still progress. And so then jumping into hot tech number four. I'm gonna call this one the God factor, because sometimes we don't create margin because we fear falling behind or missing out. Anybody else got FOMO out there in the real world talking? I'm sure I'm not flying solo on that. FOMO is real. The fear of missing out, right? And so we, we might not create margin because we do have fear of missing out or falling behind, but it tells us in Matthew, I think it, it's chapter six, verse 33. To seek the kingdom, right? It, it's, um, let's see. The verse is seek, seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. I think that's how the verse goes. You can go look it up. My, I know it's Matthew 6 33, but you know, uh, king James, I think seek you first the kingdom you know of, of God. But in all seriousness, seeking the kingdom first because I know that that is a game changer whenever we do that. When we prioritize God, y'all, then he gets to multiply our time and I would much rather God multiply my time than me trying to find extra hours or minutes in a day. And so thinking about allowing God to be in his proper place prioritizing God, then the multiplication of. Time and energy and even my capacity. And so I'm like, yes, please, Lord, sign me up for a double dose of all three of those. Right. And then also I just, I've been thinking about this as I've been learning, honestly, gosh, being really transparent with you guys as that God's taken me on a journey of realizing that margin is an act of trust. Maybe you've not really thought about it that way, so maybe this'll give you a little bit of a different perspective or something to maybe give you to just kind of stop and chew on for a second and just to think about, but God's really been teaching me that is that margin is an act of trust. For me, I believe it's saying, God, I believe that you can do more with my surrendered schedule than I can do with my jam packed one. And so maybe that's also a just a sweet little reminder for you as well of allowing yourself to realize that margin is an act of trust. And then to allow Father God to be able to be the one who actually gets our schedule anyway, right? The surrendered schedule, so to speak. And so now we're gonna go ahead and jump right on in for this week's change chaser, challenge our C3 time. So in closing out, I want to challenge all of you beautiful people who are listening. For number one, look at your schedule. Ooh, okay. Right. Do you even have a schedule? And that might be part of the problem with creating margin if you're not sure what you're doing, where you're going and all the things. So pull out your phone, use your calendar on your phone. Or if you one of those fancy schiess and you've got a big huge calendar somewhere in your home, in your home office, or wherever you keep it. Maybe you have a, a desktop calendar, maybe you just have a, a notebook. Uh, I do a lot on my phone and then I also have a planner, but, so I wanna challenge you look at your schedule, and then as you do so, find one area where you can create margin, squeeze in a little bit of time. In that space, allow yourself to have the permission to be able to pursue some type of form of personal growth. Be it. Stop and read something you've been wanting to read. Maybe have some time to reflect, some time to allow yourself to have a vision casting kind of dreaming session. Maybe even pray. Maybe it's time to have some more Bible time. Maybe it's time to. Literally go and take a little 15 minute walk, I mean, whatever it is, so that you can just try to give yourself a little bit of margin, a little bit of space so that you don't get burn out as we are grinding in the middle. Right? So we as we talked about on the last episode, and so I wanna encourage you guys with thinking about this. Is that. It's really important. I believe that we need to remember that margin isn't wasted space. It's where God often does his deepest work, if we'll let him, right? And so in thinking about that, I think about the importance of just sharing with you guys is the whole idea that you were made for more. Isn't that awesome to hear? You sweet friend. We're made for more and sometimes the more starts with less. All right. Thanks for hanging out with me today, change chasers. I'm so grateful for your kindness in tuning into another episode. If this episode encouraged you, then I wanna ask you if you'll please share it with a fellow change chaser who needs some margin in their own life as well. Maybe a little bit of encouragement, a little oomph to help'em to say, Hey, I see you and I wanna encourage you to give yourself permission and grace. To be able to add a little bit of margin and space into what you want to gift yourself with, the whole idea of a little snippet of some extra time of doing something for yourself that breathes some life right on back into your heart and your mind, and your soul. And so with that said, sweet friends, I'm gonna go ahead and sign off and say, until next time, let's keep chasing change and living with purpose you. Bye sweet friends.