FEELING RESTLESS
Sometimes you feel that wave deep in your heart. Little ripples sending urges into the intentions of your hands and the meandering of your thoughts.
You know change is going to happen. Exciting, transformative change.
I feel it happening right now. And not just for me, but for those around me.
I’ve got some top-shelf women in my life, both friends and family. They are passionate, they are persistent, they are dreaming big dreams and, most importantly, chasing those dreams – sometimes with kids in tow.
I grin at them over tea and late-night snacking. I want to hug them hard and tell them they kick ass and then grip their hands tight and run after their dreams with them.
What I really need is to hold my candle up to theirs and get my sputter up to a good steady flicker.
After becoming a
stay at home mom I nestled into the slot of ‘homemaker’ and found the simplest creative outlet I could, blogging. I can’t say I’m ever bored. I have contentment in the day to day. I have hobbies and passions and five loads of laundry always waiting in my basement. But I don’t have many dreams beyond not botching up marriage and motherhood and doing a handstand by age 40.
STEP ONE: Set some vision
So, I did what most wives do, took an inopportune time to bombard my husband with unwelcome soul-probing Q&A on his dreams. After some sarcastic remarks, he agreed to entertain a conversation about it.
So I made us some Tom Collins, got out the pen and paper and wrote down everything we could brainstorm before he figured out I was tricking him into a vision-planning session.
Question one: HOW DID WE WANT TO RAISE OUR KIDS?
We talked about the qualities we want our kids to have, things we want to do with our kids, what our own dreams and goals were around ourselves, our careers and our relationship with each kid.
Stats say you are way more likely to actually do things when you write them down. I think achieving your goals is important (I mean, it is called a ‘goal’ not an ‘it would be nice if’). What might be even more important is actually identifying the vision they are serving for your life (
more on that here!)
I don’t want to look back twenty years later and think I wasn’t mindful of the days I had to teach and guide my kids. I want to be mindful of how I spend my days and how each week that goes by could be a drop in the bucket on who and where I want to be. Where do I want to be? (Other than doing a killer handstand with my World’s Best Mom mug hosting coffee freshly made by my husband.)
Step two: Start Small, where you are
Do one small thing. You can always do one small thing! I talked about it here on
Episode 21 of the podcast (doing things that your future self will thank you for!)
If you want to be healthier, drink a glass of water. If you want to have better sleep, go to bed five minutes earlier.
Start doing the small little steps that move you closer and keep your mindset thinking of ways to be moving you towards your bigger vision and goals.
Step three: Get in community, get support
All journeys are better with friends! So, get into a community. Make one with your lady posse, find a great
Facebook group, join a mastermind. And if you are wanting to take it to the next level, get yourself the
Life on Purpose workbook! The deep dive into exploring your life, what is important to you, what you want out of it and how to get there.
I am so in your boat with this! Wait maybe your in my boat? Wanna steal a boat? That would be exciting and if we get far enough away rather dreamy…
Seriously though… I need to seek out some serious vision… write some stuff down… maybe after a glass of wine… booze somehow makes things seem more possible…
I like how you think! Maybe a happy medium would be a river float with a bevy or two 😉
Oooh love this! The last two and half (ish) years have been really up in the air for me. I’ve recently been given the luxury of being able to make plans beyond a couple months at a time and it’s overwhelming. I’m interested to hear how others manage to do it – the planning and the follow through 🙂
I love to hear that this is the case for you. Stick around then because that is what we are trying to figure out too and we can do it together.