Plan Your Next Move
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When I was 18, I was pretty sure I met the one, but I had to fetch him from prison first. You're listening to the ideas in motion podcast. And I'm your host, Karen Wilson. And in today's episode, we're going to talk about making your next move. Okay. I know what you thinking. Now I did become pen pals with this guy and he was in prison.
And it wasn't long before I was convinced that he was my forever guy. So I packed up my life into my little Ford escort. I brought every letter he mailed to me. My childhood photo albums, the fleece robe. My mom made me for Christmas. My car was bursting at the seams. I hit the open road Brock set plain on the tape deck that said, hello, you fool.
I love you. C'mon Joel and the joy. Ah,
one year later I was packing up everything I could grab in five minutes and stuffing it in my backpack. Knowing I had to get out of there. And for the first time in six months, I picked up the phone. Make a collect call.
Dad. I think I made mistake.
But I had gone too far. And a gray hound. A Greyhound bus. It had to take me home. I stepped on the bus with a lump in my throat, bigger than my backpack.
I found myself. A window seat. And I sat down and I began to watch. All the other people file in. I was at the back of the bus. And I have tons of seats around me or so it felt like, and I see this woman walking towards me. She's. Got curly hair. She's much older than me. It looks like she just got out of the shower. You know, her hair's just a little wet.
And she comes and has a seat. Right beside me. I'm thinking, at least she smells nice. As the bus began to move. I watched the world go by in the window and I began. To think about all the, I told you so conversations that were in my near future. And scripting different responses. To different people.
You know,
And that's when the woman she started asking me questions. Like what I'm getting, what I'm going to do with my life. Where am I going? Where am I coming from?
I'm only here. I said. Because I have a place to go.
So many don't.
I'm going to make sure. Somehow. The nobody has to experience what I just did. Scaped.
I'm going to give everyone a place to go.
The woman leaned in and she grabbed my hand. She squeezed it really hard. And then she said, What a wonderful thing to look forward to.
We wrote in silence and I wish I would have gotten her name.
And the bus came to the stop. I got off and as my feet hit the pavement, I spotted mom and dad. The relief in their eyes was overwhelming. When I got to them, we hugged so hard. Then I embraced my ugly. And took ownership of the recovery road ahead.
You just heard a song from my niece. Megan Abel. And we performed a show together called my body is my home.
It's incredible how often. When you think of those lyrics that we feel in that position? I didn't know what my next move was. But I did know how I wanted to feel. I just wanted a normal life. My first step was to really think about. What that normal life looked like. Would it felt like. And only then could I take the next step and putting it into action?
There's one thing though that I missed. I really didn't know how to praise myself for the huge leap I just took. I can only focus on the people. I hurt the money. I lost the shame I felt. There was a piece of me that knew the pride and felt the strength I had to drastically change my environment. It was terrifying.
Yeah, there I was a warrior. And it would take me years to realize that shoving it in the closet was not taking her. With me. The strong, powerful, brave girl was muffled. So really. What is the next move?
Taking out, this is what I want you to do. Take out a piece of paper and honor the good, the bad and the ugly of the last year. The bad and the ugly are also necessary to the puzzle pieces that made you unique. And strong all too often, we turn on ourselves with labels. How would you talk to yourself as a child?
Write it all down. So many things come flying at us from everywhere from media friends, family. To get what you want. You have to know first where you are.
Step two. Is to start to visualize and write how you want to feel. Seriously, get out a piece of paper and literally write out your perfect day. Be ridiculous, but include your Workday. Uh, type of movement, the people you are with and the activities you love to do with more time. Now with that you have some power.
You have something tangible to grasp onto an anchor. Step three or number three is stop writing. So many goals start writing intentions instead. What if I told you, reducing your goals from 10 goals that we're all taught to do every single year, write a list of 10 goals. You know, change that to three intentions.
What have I told you that would bring you further, faster? This is how we do it in the ideas in motion planner, you choose one intention for your mind. One for your body and one for your purpose. I'll share my example from last year. So for my mind, I have an intention to meditate 10 minutes a day for 28 days.
I say 28 days. Because. I designed the planner to be a 28 day system. And so when you do it for 28 days, you can decide what you want to set for the next 28 days. And maybe you haven't achieved the intention. So it just carries on.
So for the body. I have an intention to follow my workout plan, 80% of the time for the 28 days. And to listen to my body, what it needs, extra recovery. And in the purpose category, I have an intention to write for 90 minutes each day, before the sun comes up. For 28 days. Now the outcome of that.
In a three month cycles. So, you know, in 90 days, Was a written and self-published book my book be weightless. Within 90 days. And I stuck with my wellness plan and I was only writing for 90 minutes a day. Sometimes it was writing. The next part was. Uh, editing. And then the next part was doing everything that I needed to do to get it published, which was learning and delegating and all of that stuff. And the cover design. So you're able to push whatever goal you have forward with these 28 day cycles and just moving things forward.
With the allotted time that you have. Number four. Make yourself a vision board. So do this with a drawing. Like it can be stick figures, magazines, whatever it is, just get it out of your head and onto something that you can see daily. This helps you with distractions and there will be many you need to, what's more powerful than knowing what to say yes to is knowing what to say no to.
And if opportunities and things come at you like flying, you know, One of Drayton center, the way they often do, especially in a new year and especially new seasons. You can look at your vision board and you can think, does that line up with what I see for myself? And you can sit in that and think, how is that going to make me feel.
So you can say yes or you can say no, and you can know that you can, you know, you get to be in control of that. So you, you don't have to say yes to everything.
Goals or intentions. They don't work if you're not working towards them every single day. You have to write it down, get some action. I mentioned that I was at with 90 minutes a day, start with 15 minutes. If you have two, nothing gets momentum. If you don't have movement. End of story. 15 minutes a day is going to get you further than zero a day. You know how to do math. You just have to start. So get a planner, get a notebook, whatever you need to have in front of you every single day.
And break down that big vision that you have of your perfect day into a million little pieces. If you'd have to just start. Number five is if you're still wondering where you're going to get the time, consider building boundaries around your smartphone. When I quit smoking almost two decades ago, I can't believe it's like two decades.
I didn't realize how much time I was using to go out for a smoke. Until I wasn't anymore.
I know you're not the person who is addicted to your phone, but hear me out there might be something you can tweak. That makes a huge difference. Your smartphone is just like a junk drawer and can cause decision fatigue just by existing in space with you. So let's recap. We are in a new place and time right now.
I want you to start fresh and adopt some new strategies for planning your next move. Number one, take out a piece of paper, honor. The good, the bad, the ugly. Of the last year. Number two, start to visualize and write how you want to feel. Number three, stop writing. So many goals start with three intentions instead.
Number four, make yourself a vision board. And number five, if you're struggling with time, consider building more boundaries around your smartphone. All of these strategies are more have helped me year over year, gain confidence self-awareness and get ish done. And they're all baked right into the ideas in motion day, planner and journal system.
You can get it in digital, copy, physical, or even join me in a live class where I personally walk you through it. And we do the work real time. All the links are in the show notes. If you like this episode, do me a favor and share your review and subscribe to ensure you have all the episodes. As soon as they are published.
But for now. Thanks for listening. Bye for now. We'll talk with you soon. Take care.
