Purpose to the Pause: Reframing Giving Your Best Life for Young Women | Transition Episode

The pause from Giving Your Best Life Podcast has been intentional. In this time, I started a new podcast called the "only God" Podcast - sharing stories only God could write. On the new podcast, I interview other Christians and also share my own only God stories. You can check out that podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Buzzsprout.

Now, I'm ready to re-launch GYBL - reframed to be catered especially toward college-aged women who are seeking after God. Maybe struggling with anxiety and depression. Maybe needing advice on dating. Maybe feeling unsure about how to balance classes and career and following Christ. This podcast is for YOU. Consider me your sweet aunt who gives the advice I wish I received at your age. I'm in your corner, encouraging you, and helping you give your best life! 

Let's connect!

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With gratitude, Stephanie❤️

Transcript

Why The Pause

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey friends, it's Stephanie here with Giving Your Best Life. And I have not recorded in a hot minute. Um, but if you've been paying attention to me at all, or you follow me on social media, is I have a new podcast that I started last year called Only God, Sharing Stories Only God Could Write. And um that was actually where I left off of this podcast. It was called Living the Only God Mindset. And I really just paused this podcast because I didn't know what to do with it.

Launching The Only God Podcast

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Um, I really felt like the Lord was leading me in a new direction to have this Only God podcast. I started seeing all these like only God stories show up in my life, but more importantly, in other people's life. And I wanted to share their stories. I wanted to interview them. I wanted um to learn and I wanted people to like see what God is doing in other people's lives and sharing that. And so I just decided to pause the Giving Your Best Life podcast, but I didn't feel like the Lord told me to like shut it down, just leave it there. And some things have been happening probably over the last two years as it relates to giving your best life. And so I just want to use this episode as a transition to where I'm taking this podcast in the future. So if you are a listener of the podcast, thank you for sticking with me. I really encourage you. If you haven't gone and listened to the Only God podcast, go listen to it. You might have to search Only God, Stephanie Jones. There's a couple of Only God podcasts, which at first I was a little uh irritated and annoyed, but then I thought, how cool is it? Like there's so many people sharing stories of what only God could do. So um I encourage you to go listen to subs and subscribe to that. Follow me there.

Retreats, Conferences, And Momentum

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Um, but several years ago, man, gosh, probably five or six years ago, I did a little retreat at my house. Um, and it was a giving your best life retreat, and it was like five or six women. And then it was like after that, and I think maybe even before that, I had done a giving and living retreat with one of my girlfriends down in Florida. We rented a house and we invited women. We were right on the beach. It was amazing. And um, and then fast forward, I think two years ago, my friend Amy and I did a giving your best life conference. It was all day, like a hundred women. It was amazing. It was like after that one, people kept asking me, like, are you gonna do another one? And I said, I don't know. The Lord, the Lord hasn't told me. And then in April of 2025, I did a Giving Your Best Life retreat, which was like from Friday to Sunday, and that was on a whole other level, but I really knew that was what the Lord is calling me to do. Um, and that was amazing. And I still people get people asking me, uh, my doctor asked me the other day, are you gonna do another one of those retreats? I was sad I couldn't come. And I don't know, you know, the Lord hasn't called me to do another one of those retreats. But so that was in April of 2025.

Mentoring Sarah And A Summer Study

SPEAKER_00 3:23

And um if you've listened to this podcast or the Only God Podcast or Write Better Together, which was a podcast I did with my um friend John Myers, who has since passed away. Um I was a fill-in, a sub. Um, I interviewed uh Sarah Vesley, and she's college age, sweet young gal. I've helped her publish two books through my publishing company, Giving Gal Press. And Sarah was at my house one day, I'm mentoring her, and we just she tells the story on the Only God podcast, but really at the end of the day, is by the time she left that day, we had talked about doing a Bible study at my house during the summer for college-age women, her friends. And that ended up happening every Wednesday morning for seven or eight to eight weeks. I had at 8 a.m. Uh, I had college-age women in my house, anywhere from five to I think the most we had was 10 or 12, and it was so beautiful, and we gathered around the table.

A New Audience: College Women

SPEAKER_00 4:26

It was an hour. I got up really early on those Wednesday mornings, and I would just pray, and I would write out the Bible study, and we would have a great discussion, and I just I really got to know these gals, and it was coming out of that that you know, they went back to school in August, and I really felt like that's what I was supposed to do with this podcast. Um, several years ago, I wrote a book. Um, this is even just the proof called Uncommon Growth. 224 Lessons to Help You Live an Extraordinary Life. I wrote it for high school and college-age students, and um so I just really felt the Lord calling me to use the giving your best life brand for college students, in particular college women. Um, you know, here I am 48, and I just feel like I've lived so much life. And as I get to mentor these young ladies, um, you know, sometimes my advice seems so simple to me, but I remember struggling with the things that they're struggling with. And I want to say this humbly, but I often like when I'm having conversations with them, I'm like, man, I would have loved to have had somebody like you in my life when I was your age. Um, because I can really see a lot of times where we have conversations and I'll almost immediately see their anxiety decrease,

Gratitude And The Road Ahead

SPEAKER_00 6:03

their fears decrease, their it's like God is using me. You know, we're in the Bible, we're talking about scripture. And so um I really want to say thank you. If you've been listening to the Giving Your Best Life podcast from the beginning in the middle, if you've only listened to one, um, you know, go back and listen to the other ones. And the content is still relevant. A lot of it is evergreen content. But moving forward, the content that I'm gonna be putting out will specifically be speaking to that um like college-age young lady. And she doesn't have to be in college, you know. Sarah, who I've been mentoring for years, is she's yet to go to college, and the Lord is using her in mighty and amazing ways, and maybe she'll go to college um in the upcoming years, and maybe not, and so but I really do want to focus on just speaking um life and truth into that age group. And so um, if you have a daughter, niece, you know, somebody of this age, as I start putting out these podcast episodes, feel free to send it to them. So um I just want to say is this is the last episode that's gonna be kind of in the old giving your best life uh conversation type. And the next one I'm gonna be doing is for that college age young lady. So, again, thank you for all your support. And I really encourage you and challenge you to go listen to the Only God podcast, sharing stories only God could write. Thank you so much.