An Honest Self-Interview For A More Balanced Life

We share a simple “interview with yourself” that helps you step out of the daily grind and check whether your life is actually aligned with what you value. We use the Wheel of Life to spot energy drains, habits that keep us stuck, and the small changes that help the wheel roll smoother. 
• protecting quality time and why it shows your real priorities 
• asking what you spend time, money, and energy on and what that reveals 
• spotting what fulfills you versus what quietly drains you 
• reflecting on regret and legacy and what a more meaningful life looks like starting today 
• building habits and self-discipline as a muscle you can strengthen 
• naming what you are tolerating and the truths you avoid because they require change 
• shifting from obligation to purpose and intention 
• redesigning life around service, love, and contribution and choosing a first step 
If you found anything useful or helpful in this episode, please let us know and please also share it. The more you share, the more we can help others do better. Come find us on all the socials. Come interact with us and find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest. Let us know if you have any questions or comments. And if you want to let us know what your one thing is that you're going to change, let us know there. 

An Interview With Myself

Values and Priorities

• What do I consistently spend time, money, and energy on, and what does that reveal about

my highest values?

• Which parts of my life give me the most fulfillment, and which ones feel out of alignment or

draining?

Regret and Legacy

• If my life ended today, what would I most regret not having done, become, or repaired?

• What would a more disciplined, meaningful version of my life look like if I started today?

Habits and Discipline

• What habits are helping me become the person I want to be, and what habits are keeping

me stuck?

• What standard am I willing to live by starting today, so this becomes who I am and not just

what I want?

Truth and Avoidance

• What am I tolerating that I should either accept, improve, or remove?

• What truth about my life have I been avoiding because it would require change?

Purpose and Intention

• Where am I living out of obligation instead of intention?

• Who do I need to become in order to live with more peace, purpose, and intention?

Service and Contribution

• If I redesigned my life around service, love, and contribution, what would I change first?

Transcript

Welcome And The Wheel Of Life

Debra 0:04

Welcome to the D Times 2 podcast, hosted by Sisters Denise and Deborah. We are all about finding balance in the various parts of life. Using the Wheel of Life as our guide, we explore how to keep each spoke rolling smoothly.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

We discuss health and wellness, education and spirituality, as well as mental and emotional growth. Join us for real conversations, practical tips, and a few laughs as we share stories, insights, and strategies to help you create a life that feels balanced, purposeful, and designed by you.

Date Night Hot Pools Gone Wrong

Debra 0:37

Good morning, Deborah. Good morning, Denise. How are you? I'm well. How are you? I'm doing pretty darn well. Good. Pretty darn well. That's better than well. So you want me to tell you about my Saturday? I do. Let me tell you about my Saturday. Your Saturdays are always fun. They are. So I protect my Saturdays pretty closely because that's like the time that Tom and I have for our date night after barely seeing each other all week long. And he had told me on Wednesday or Thursday that this weekend he wanted to sit in a hot tub because he needed the hot water and the bubbles to do some therapy on his hips and his low back and everything. And I thought, hmm, how are we going to do that? I thought about calling you. You have a clubhouse, you have one at your house. I thought about going to the mineral hot springs. And then I remembered there's a place here in town that's kind of an adult-only exclusive kind of a place. And they have hot pools there. Yes, they do. So I say adult only. It's not a weird place. It's just kids aren't there running around. It's more of a spa type atmosphere. Totally spa atmosphere. So I looked into it and I was like, yeah, that's where we're gonna go. And I told Tom I had made an executive decision and he was just gonna go along with it. And he's like, Yes, whatever you say. He loves that. So we went and sat in these hot pools, and it was so relaxing. It was our date night. So while we were there, we also had dinner delivered to us. So we're like in the robes and out on the patio, trying to stay out of the wind because it was cold. But we kept getting in and out of the hot pools, and it was just so relaxing. Um, and we talked like it was just so nice, like date night, but also decompression time. And as dinner got delivered, Tom was bringing it out. He went to the front desk and got it and was bringing it out. And he, being the bull in a china shop that he is, caught a rock with his fourth toe and tore his entire nail off of his toe and shredded the top of the toe, also. Like it's a very jagged cut and also no nail. And he didn't say anything. I didn't know. There were no words said, there was not a weird face. It was just like he was trying to hold it all together. And I was like, Are you gonna come sit down or do you want to sit closer? And he's like, closer. So I walked past him. I got us a different seat, and then he's just kind of hobbling. And I said, What is wrong with you? And he told me what he did. And I wouldn't have guessed. I was so surprised because he is the master of over-demonstration and very expressive facial expressions. So, anyway, he was apparently bleeding all over the sidewalk, and I had to clean that up and then got a look at his toe, and he just shredded it. So I asked him this morning, or a day and a half later, did he feel like he recovered this weekend? Because when we left there, even after the toe thing, he said he felt so relaxed and completely rejuvenated, and he was just so happy to spend quality time together. And I said, You've been in some agony with your toe. Do you still feel like you are regenerated? And he said, I feel great. Yeah, my toe kept me up and you know, for a night until I gave him some help help your body settle down stuff. Um, but he feels great. And I got to be nurse Deb. And he is being mostly compliant. That's good. And he might wear his Crocs to work tonight instead of his work boots. But I think he'll be able to wear his work boots. It was quite the adventure.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

It sounds like it. Can I tell you as you were describing that? Every fiber in my body could feel that pain. Right? Because it's like all nerve endings. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's quite the adventure.

Debra 5:05

I was so proud of him that he held it together.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Well, yeah, but still that's nuts.

Debra 5:10

A yeah. Ouch. Yep. Hopefully he heals up quickly. So far, so good. Good. Yeah. Wow. Keeping a pretty close eye on it, but so far so good. Good. So that was the end of your adventure on the Humphreys. He kept saying, you can go back in if you want. And I was like, you know, it just he kind of brought the evening to a screeching halt.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Not on purpose, but yes.

Debra 5:35

We did sit there and eat dinner with his foot up on a chair and a like stuff on it to keep him from bleeding all over the place, but it was time to go. Yeah. Yeah. But you had a good time. We had a lovely time. I'm glad. Yeah. Recommend date night, recommend quality time, recommend hot pools. Oh yeah. Yeah. They're very nice. Yeah.

Self-Interview And Intentional Living

Debra 5:56

So, what would you like to talk about today? I would like to talk about the wheel of life as a whole and how we use it.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

And I want to call this episode an interview with myself. Okay.

Debra 6:12

I think there are a lot of us who get lost in the busy of everyday life.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

And we don't take very much time to stop and evaluate where we actually are. And I heard about this concept a couple of weeks ago on a podcast I was listening to. And they just kind of brushed over it. And I thought that is really powerful to just have an interview with yourself, an honest check-in with how you're doing.

Debra 6:40

Yeah. Which is what the wheel of life is all about. And I agree, like the default that most people have, the default setting that most people have in their life is head down in the daily grind, just doing what they gotta get done, never looking up. Never sitting in the driver's seat. Yeah. Just going.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Yeah. It's kind of like sitting in the back of a station wagon facing backwards, and you're just going wherever life takes you. Wherever it goes. And you get to watch it as it flies by. But we like to talk about living life more intentionally. Yeah.

Values Revealed By Time And Money

SPEAKER_01 7:17

So the first interview area that I want to talk about is what are our values and our priorities.

Debra 7:26

Sometimes we think things are important, but they don't actually line up with the with what we actually value.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Yeah. So here's a question that you can ask yourself.

Debra 7:37

And it's not a fly 30-second answer. It's a sit and think about for a little bit. Ponder. Yeah. Ponder over it. So what do I'm going to speak first person, okay?

SPEAKER_01 7:50

What do I consistently spend time, money, and energy on? And what does that reveal about my highest values? For instance, let's take the money one. Someone may say they value money, but they don't have a budget. They spend whatever they want.

Debra 8:09

And then they wonder why they feel poor, even if they make $150,000, $200,000 a year. A decent income. Yeah. So what do you actually value? That would show me that money management isn't one of the highest values. Something else is probably some type of consumerism. But like my story I just showed or shared, where protecting Saturday is Tom and Deb time. Like that's our time together. That's a very high priority in my life. And we don't let hardly anything interfere with that time. Yeah. So you value that and your actions show it. Yeah. Because I practice what we preach. I try to live intentionally. Perfect, but I try to live my life intentionally. Let's talk about the energy one really quickly. So, what do you spend your energy on? And is it what you actually value? Sometimes. Yeah. So ask yourself that question.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

I actually think a good place to start would be to check your phone. Some of us get on, me included, on social media and just kind of doom scroll. And maybe an hour has passed and you didn't realize you've been sitting there for an hour looking at reels or other people's posts, even if they're good. Like I fill my feed with a lot of uplifting good things.

Debra 9:38

But is that what I needed to spend the last hour of my time doing? And how much energy energy did that take from me? Yeah. So check what you are spending your energy on.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Some something you could follow that up with is which parts of your life I'll do first person. Which parts of my life give me the most fulfillment and which ones feel out of alignment or draining.

Debra 10:06

Like what is draining you in your life? Have you ever stopped to think about that? I think about that often because well, Deb's a delicate flower. I was gonna say, we've talked about I have to, I've been having to manage my energy for a little while pretty closely. And I feel it very quickly if something is either out of alignment or it's an unexpected stressor and I have to do an immediate energy shift, like with the whole dad situation. Like I told Tom the other day, I feel like someone took my bucket full of energy and cut the bottom off of it and drained everything out. And I'm rebuilding the bottom to my bucket to stop the drain so that I can then refill. Yeah. So it's not always that it's something that you've chosen. Sometimes you've defaulted into it, or like sometimes life happens, right? How do you deal with it and get back in alignment with yourself?

SPEAKER_01 11:15

So if you can find the things that you find the most fulfillment in and the things that are in alignment with your values and your priorities, you fill up your bucket.

Debra 11:28

So when things like that do happen, your bucket can be drained depending on how drastic it was, like with our dad.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Yeah. Or it can just have a slow leak that is easy to plug and take care of.

Debra 11:42

But a lot of times if you will do the wheel of life exercise regularly, like we recommend, they will just be little leaks. And you can plug the hole and refill and move on.

unknown 11:58

Yeah.

Debra 11:59

Yeah. So that's an interview you can do with yourself about what the

Fulfillment And Energy Leaks

Debra 12:06

things you value and the things that are priorities to you. I want to tell you about a tool that has become part of my everyday actual routine. About a year ago, I had burned out hard, chronic fatigue, brain fog, body pain, the whole thing. One of the things that helped pull me out of that was getting my mind right and getting my nervous system out of fight or flight. The Activations app is what I used. It's short audio tracks that are 5, 10, 15 minutes. They're designed to shift your state. You can use it before a hard conversation, after a stressful day, when you wake up at 3 a.m. and your brain won't stop. I will say I've done that more than once. But they've got over 900 tracks across 25 different categories that include health, manifestation, money, career, relationships, you name it. And new ones drop every

Burnout Recovery And Nervous System Tool

Debra 13:09

week. There's a 14-day free trial, and then it's about 30 bucks a month. Or the yearly is like 130 if you fully commit, like I did. Honestly, even if you only use it three times a week, it's cheaper than a therapist session and it's in your pocket. If your nervous system has been running hot or your mind has been off kilter, try it. The link is in the show notes. Another one is for regrets and legacy. So if my life ended today, what would I most regret not having done or having become or having repaired? That's a deep question. They're all deep questions, I think. That truly are all deep questions. That's why it's an interview with yourself.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Having just gone through this with losing our dad, it does make you when you lose somebody, it it does make you think a little bit more.

Debra 14:10

But we could do it on a regular basis. If I died, is there something that I regret? I I like to think like I try in general not to have live a life of regrets. I will learn lessons because there are sometimes things I wish had gone differently or maybe I had chosen differently, but I'll learn the lesson and move forward from there. But sometimes

Regret Legacy And Starting Over

Debra 14:34

people just actually have a true regret. So if you do, how can you repair that? Or if you haven't yet fulfilled your potential and haven't become what you know you can become or would like to become, how do you do that? It's not too late. Never too late. Never too late. Never too late to do something, become something, or repair something. Yeah. Another way to think of it is what would a more meaningful version of my life look like if I started today? What would happen if I was more disciplined or more dedicated? Because I think it's never too late.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

Yeah. Isn't that like the whole message of Christ?

Debra 15:27

It's never too late to start over. It's never too late to start over. Whatever it is. But that also doesn't mean spiral every day and always just think, I can start again tomorrow. That's like that's the the opposite is eat, drink, and be merry, merry for tomorrow. Like, no. Right. Do the best you can today. And if you fall short, tomorrow's another day. Start again.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

That goes back to the first one. What are your values and priorities and are you living according to them? If your value and priority is eat, drink and be merry and whatever happens, happens, your life is not going to be very fulfilling.

Debra 16:03

No, it will be not a smooth rolling wheel. It will be wonky and clonky and clumpy and grumpy.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

Yeah.

Debra 16:11

Yeah. That's called a hedonistic view of life. Oh yes. So way to pull out the $5 word. You can always start again tomorrow and do better. I think part of that is w thinking of regret and legacy. Keeping the big picture in mind. Keeping the focus on the big rocks and going in that direction. If you do that, you will leave the legacy you want to leave and you won't have the regrets.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Okay. Another question, another area of questions you can ask yourself are about your habits and your self-discipline. This one this is a big one. Well, they're all never mind.

Debra 16:57

They're all big. They're all big. Every single one of them. I gotta stop saying that.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Okay. So here's a question you can ask yourself. What habits are helping me become the person I want to be? And what habits are keeping me stuck? What things are you doing that that help you be who you want to be?

Debra 17:16

What are you doing that's stopping you from that? We're gonna go back to the wheel of life. What's keeping you stuck in the rut of the road instead of on the smooth road? I don't feel like we need to do show and time tell time here. Show and tell time? Yes. Show and tell time. We don't need to do show and tell time because there are things that I'm doing that are helping me, but they also have some habits that keep me

Habits Discipline And Standards

Debra 17:43

stuck. Everybody does. Right. We're a work in progress. Always. We're not a shiny diamond, we're a lump of cold. It's becoming a diamond. That's why we go around and around and around the wheel. Keep honing and focusing and working and reassessing.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

But habits can be changed, yep. And discipline can be increased. Discipline is a muscle. Habits kind of fuel that muscle. So that's a that's a good question to ask yourself. Something you can follow up with on that question is what standard am I willing to live by starting today so this becomes who I am and not just what I want.

Debra 18:24

I think of that as who am I being? Like who lived today as the person I want to be or become. Hold that in front of you all the time.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

The Stoics, we talked about the Stoics on an episode, on a previous episode, but they like Marcus Aurelius, like they they s lived their life by a high standard. And there are people in your life that are like that. They live by high standards, they have a lot of discipline, they have good habits.

Debra 19:01

If you don't know where to start in your life, you can look at another example, model others, adapt it to your own life, but you can model others so that you can become who you really want to become. I think that's a really great way to look at it. Find someone who's setting a really good example, even if it's only in one thing. Like it might not be the whole picture, but they're setting a really good example in one thing. The flip side to that is I know for myself personally, there have been times I have seen something someone was doing, and I said, I never want to do that. I never want to be that person. So I deliberately do the opposite. Yeah. So a bad example can set you in as good of a direction as a good example. It's information. Yeah. It's inputs. What input are you giving yourself? And what do you deal with that?

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Yeah.

Debra 19:56

So another question to ask yourself is in the area of truth and avoidance. Dad used to always tell me I was always avoiding things that needed to be dealt with. So I feel like this is something I am always actively working on. So question is what am I tolerating that I should either accept, improve, or remove? Oh man. So going back to dad, one of the things that he didn't like was his height. I didn't know that. He I used to hear him talk about this in his mental, emotional, spiritual profile class because it affected his physiology. He didn't like that he was four inches

Truth Avoidance And What To Tolerate

Debra 20:54

shorter than his brother. And one day he thought, can I change it? No. I'm going to accept it and let it go. It is what it is. There are some things that are like that we can't change. Can't change your eyes. Yeah. But there are other things that we can improve or we can remove. Do you have any other insight on that?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Well, I think that this is not going to be a political statement, but I hope you guys don't take it that way.

Debra 21:26

There's a lot in the public realm these days that you either accept this or I'm not accepting you. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

And you either agree with this person or I don't accept you. And I think that a part of tolerating things or accepting things is accepting things that you can't change, like dad and his height, right? You can change you. And it's okay for people to see things differently than you do. And as you, as a person, it's okay if you view things differently than people that you love, people that are your friends or society.

Debra 22:15

It's okay. I think it's good. We shouldn't all be of exactly the same mind. That leads to very boring discussion and very much a lack of problem solving. A gray life. Yeah. You need to have different perspectives, different outlooks, different inputs. So what in yourself can you accept, remove, or improve? Or improve. Yeah. And then a follow-up question to that in the category of truth and avoidance is what truth about my life have I been avoiding because it would require change. I have this one in a big way that I've known, and I've been really looking at it a lot lately. I'm not going to expound on it in this very public forum. But this is one that I'm like, I know I've been avoiding it because of really specific circumstances, and it will require change. And I'm actively working on changing it and stopping the avoiding, but it's a big, big shift. So it's it's hard. It's very difficult. And it's for me taken a lot of mental gymnastics. And I've discussed it with various people to get different perspectives and insight before I settle on my course. Well, that takes us back to the first one. Right? What do you value and what are your priorities? Yeah. Be honest. Tell it this, tell yourself the truth about what you're avoiding and look at how you can change it. Even if it's hard. It's usually hard. But what if it were easy? We won't be stretched and grown like we need to be. That's true. But I I think some things are easy. Some things are easy, yeah. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Okay, let's go to the next area. We're gonna go with purpose and intention. Okay. Okay, here's the question. Where am I living out of obligation instead of intention?

Debra 24:34

I think some obligations are necessary. We have an obligation to work, we have an obligation to take care of our families.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

We have an obligation to, in my head, we have an obligation to God.

Debra 24:53

But in those instances, I believe the obligation can be in line with your intention. So it's not instead of intention. True. Sometimes we are living because we feel obligated to something that is out of harmony with ourselves. Yeah. That's what the questions were asking. Yeah. Because there are the good in line, in tune,

Obligation Versus Purposeful Intention

Debra 25:20

in value obligations. I just wanted to make sure that people knew that that was there was a difference there. Yeah, there's a difference.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Okay.

Debra 25:27

A follow-up question to that one. What do I need to become in order to live with more peace, purpose, and intention instead of living life out of obligation? I love that it's phrased as who do I need to become, not what? Yeah. Who am I being to become who I want to become? These all these are all internal questions.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

We can't change people around us, but we can change who we are. So yeah, I like that too. Who do I need to become? You want more peace, purpose, and intention. Who do you need to become in order to have those things in your life?

Debra 26:08

I love it. I actually think that that leads us really well. Like some of my thoughts with that lead us into the last kind of category because you keep saying you can't change people. And I keep thinking, no, you can't change people, but you can be an influence for good. Okay. We can live our lives in a way that we are a living, shining example of good. That's one of the things we're trying to do with this podcast is uplift and inspire and be an example of good and positivity. So the last category is service and contribution. So to me, that falls in with being an example for good. I kind of think this is the crowning one. Yes. So the question there is if I redesigned my life around service, love, and contribution, what would I change first? I'm going to say it again. If I redesigned my life around service, love, and contribution, what would I change first?

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Service, love, and contribution. What can we give to other people?

Service Love And Contribution First

Debra 27:27

Yeah. And what will you do first? Not second, third, 27th, 28th, like clear down the road. Like what's the first step? One step. What can you do? I really do think that is the crowning question. Well, and since we talk about designing our life, living our life on purpose, every time we go through the wheel of life, we're actively redesign redesigning our life.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

We sure are.

Debra 27:56

So basing it around service, love, contribution. In whatever the areas of life are, we can have such a bigger impact on the world around us.

unknown 28:10

Yeah.

Debra 28:10

Within our walls of our home and without.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

So just to recap the areas that we talked about in this interview with yourself. We talked about values and priorities. What's your highest value and priority?

Debra 28:25

We talked about regret and legacy. We talked about habits and discipline. We talked about truth and avoidance, purpose and intention.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

And the last one, service and contribution. So as you think about those questions, we encourage you to print out the wheel of life or download it on your device and do it digitally. However, you want to fill it out. Download that wheel of life and go through these questions in the various areas of your life and see how you're actually doing. Interview yourself, trying to improve yourself.

Debra 29:04

So, in case you don't know, if you're new or haven't picked up on it yet, we have the Wheel of Life worksheet available to you as a free download. It's on our website, d times2podcast.com.

Wheel Of Life Download And Closing

Debra 29:18

So it's dx2podcast.com. And we'll also link it here in the show notes, but you can always get it at their at our website.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

It's free to download and it can be an invaluable resource for you. Yeah, please use it. Please use it. We'll put these questions up in the show notes so that you can see them and refer back to them.

Debra 29:40

Yeah, very good. So if you found anything useful or helpful in this episode, please let us know and please also share it. The more you share, the more we can help others do better. And that is our goal. So if you would help us with our goal, we would appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Come find us on all the socials. Come interact with us and find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest. Any others? I think that's it.

Debra 30:09

Anyways, come find us, interact with us. Let us know if you have any questions or comments. And if you want to let us know what your one thing is that you're going to change, let us know there.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Yeah, maybe you could inspire somebody else.

Debra 30:22

Yeah. And until next time. Keep your wheel rolling smooth. Bye. Thanks for listening to the D Times 2 podcast with Denise and Deborah. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Be sure to subscribe and share it with someone who's ready to roll toward a more balanced life. Your support means the world to us. And just a quick note we're sharing our own experiences and ideas, not professional advice. Always do your own research and talk to a qualified expert before making big decisions. Until next time, keep your wheel rolling strong.