Hey mama, welcome to the inside out mama's podcast. I'm Brittany Turley, mom of six, and I know what it's like to feel stuck and overwhelmed trying to be the perfect mom. But everything changed for me when I learned that small changes on the inside can bring big results on the outside. Each week, I will share simple yet powerful inside shifts or outside tips that can transform your approach to mothering, helping you thrive from the inside out. Ready to ditch the mom guilt and enjoy this season of life? You're in the right place. As the sickness saga continues at our house, we just cannot have a single week of everyone being healthy still. And the weather is snowy and very cold. We have been doing a lot of Legos. One of my sons decided to get out all the Legos. And wants to put together all of the sets that we own. And after like probably 15 years of kids getting sets for birthdays or Christmas, we've accumulated quite a few sets. We do have our Legos kind of sorted a little like the big chunky pieces, the small flat pieces, the itty bitty pieces, the slanted pieces. But other than that, all of the sets are together. So yesterday I was helping one of my sons find some pieces for a set he was putting together that he was struggling to find pieces for. We probably did this for a good hour but he would show me which piece he would need and I would start looking through the pile for that piece. For example he would say I need this red piece, it's this size and I'd sift through the pile and find the red piece and get it to him. Well, one of the pieces was yellow And I hadn't had a yellow piece and I thought, Oh wow, a yellow piece. Like, this is going to be pretty easy to find. I don't think there's many yellow pieces. So I started looking through the pile for this yellow piece, and I am seeing so many yellow pieces now. And I thought, wow, I didn't realize we had that many that were yellow. I didn't even notice these. All the other times I was looking for different colored pieces, I never even noticed all of these yellow pieces because now that I was looking for yellow, all the yellow pieces were popping out at my eyes. And then the next piece he gave me was blue. And so I'm doing the same thing. I'm looking through the pile for blue and now I don't really see the yellow pieces anymore. I'm seeing so many blue pieces because that's what I was looking for. That's what I was focused on, all the blue pieces were popping out and I hardly noticed the yellows or any of the other colors. So I started noticing how interesting it was that whatever piece I was looking for, that is what just popped out to my eyes. I would, you know, be like, okay, now I'm looking for a black piece and all the black pieces would just kind of pop out at me and it would be easier to find because my brain was sorting out what I was seeing and just showing me. all the black pieces. That's what my focus was on and that's what my brain was helping me to see more easily. Now this concept, is also true with motherhood. What we are focused on will be what we notice. So when we are focused on how a child is misbehaving, we will notice All the times that he or she misbehaves, and we will be more likely to miss when they have great behavior, just like when I didn't see any of those yellow pieces because I hadn't looked for one yet, they were there the whole time. I just never really noticed them because I had been focusing on other colors. But when I decided to focus on yellow. I realize there are a lot of yellow pieces. The same would be true for our kids and their behavior. When we're focused on just the misbehavior, we are more likely to miss the times when they have great behavior. And you might think, oh, no. It would be so rare for them to have good behavior that I wouldn't notice for sure. But if you were to change your focus and trying to find the good behavior, I think that you would be surprised at how much more good is going on than you saw before. Last month, I did a love note challenge for my kids. I talked about it in another podcast, but basically, I wrote a love note to each one of them each day for a month, saying one thing that I loved about them, and my goal was to never repeat myself. And I didn't keep track exactly, I just tried to in my mind remember, so. I could have messed up, but my goal was to never repeat myself. And like I mentioned in that podcast, at first it was pretty easy because, you know, there's lots of things that are easy to say you love about your kids, but I really wanted mine to be meaningful and I didn't want to repeat. So after you do like 10, then you've got to dig a little deeper than just the, you know, top of the line stuff. I love your hugs. I love your smile. And, um, Um, some days were harder, especially if I was having a rough day, it was harder for me to write them down, but there was always something that I could see. And most of the times I tried to write something from that day that I loved about them because I was looking for it. And because I was focused on that and looking for it because I knew I would need to write a note that night and I was trying to like prepare myself throughout the day. I noticed so many more things then I would have had I not been focused on that. Now this could be applied to more than just focusing on bad behavior and good behavior. It could be applied to anything. What is it that you want to focus on? It could be applied to noticing how smart our kids are. It could be applied to noticing how caring our kids are. It could also be applied to us, noticing how easy motherhood is instead of focusing on how hard it is. Focusing on how enjoying motherhood is instead of how frustrating it can be. Focusing on all of the things we are accomplishing instead of just all the things we're not accomplishing. Focusing on the parts of our house that are clean instead of all of the parts that aren't. Focusing on the impact for good we are having on our kids rather than feeling defeated because we're noticing all of the impact we think we're not having on our kids. Now because I believe small changes on the inside bring big results on the outside, each week on my podcast I'm going to give you a small changes challenge. Something small you could do throughout the week if you choose that could end up bringing big results to your life. So the small change challenge for this week is to think about what you are looking for today. What is it that you are focused on today? Is that what you want to find more of? And if not, pick something you do want to find more of and focus on that for today and see what you end up finding. Remember, small changes on the inside bring big results on the outside. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Inside Out Mamas. My hope is that our time together inspires more feelings of peace, confidence, and joy in your mama journey. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss a show. And if you're ready to take these insights even deeper, head over to brittanyturleycoaching. com to check out my digital workshop designed to help you reduce daily mom overwhelm without adding to your to do list. Thanks for listening, and remember, Small changes on the inside bring big results on the outside.