PFL 28: Are You Enjoying The Journey?

Hi everyone! This is Connie Sokol, and you're listening to Balance Redefined Radio. I've spent over 20 years teaching people how to redefine what balance really is, meaning a more purposeful and joyful life.

 

They’ve paid off credit cards, lost weight, organize their homes, and created a meaningful life plan and they've managed their time, changed habits and experience greater success both at work and at home.

 

So now I decided to take the plunge and help about 100,000 new people who want to redefine balance in their lives. People ask me all the time, “How do I go from an overwhelming and chaotic life to more purpose and organization and joy?”

 

That's the reason why I'm doing this podcast, to give you trusted answers and create a space where you could find balance. My name is Connie Sokol and welcome to Balance Redefined Radio…

 

Welcome back to Balance Redefined. I'm Connie and I'm so glad you're here. I always am so thrilled that you are back for more connection, more scoops, more information, more insights to bless your life everyday. It's going to be a great one if it hasn't been already.

 

So let's talk today about are you enjoying the journey? Are you? I know that's kind of a layered and loaded question because the journey on a given day, it depends if you're up high in the mountains are down in the low valley, but the point that I want to talk about today is how you can enjoy all facets of that journey and the reason why this is so important is it has been on my mind.

 

I've been talking to different people and then this morning and our group coaching call, this came up again and this, this concern of, "I am going and doing like a mad person everyday and working it almost to exhaustion and I still feel like I'm not getting all the things done that I need to and I'm not really enjoying it.

 

I get done. I look forward the whole day to putting my head on the soft pillow and my warm blanket, but then for what to get up early and hit that button and jam jam on it again."

 

I kind of call it pinball living. If you could remember, back in the eighties, pinball where it's that pinball machine and you pull back that lever and then you have the pinball and you'd go coaching and it goes up and then it goes ching, ching, ching, all the way down and it hits going to the dentist and go into work and then taking your kids to their soccer game and then going to get dinner at home and then off to help a neighbor and then off to help a child to go to their choir concert and boom, boom, ching, ching, ching, ching, and down the bottom of the chute and back into the place holder.

 

Because the next morning you go pitching and you start all over again. And sometimes it can feel that way and you think, "Oh, so what's the point of the kitchen?

 

Like, why am I doing this on a daily basis?" And if you, my friend, have felt that then there's a couple of things that are missing from your life, the one that I want to talk about is that finding that simple joy.

 

I hope that you can kind of imagine in your mind...We can kind of look at the things we have to do on a given day on a daily basis. And we forget that we wanted this package deal. You know, I'm big on talking about the package deal. I know sometimes I do.

 

I wanted children and in most days I still do. I really love my kids. And yet there are days where I am just...and depending on the day and the number of children and age level of the children and of course, whether or not they're fasting from our church experience or whatever, but you know, on a daily basis, it just depends on those all those factors, how enjoyable that experience is going to be.

 

But we don't have to make it be outcome based. We don't have to base our joy on what the day brings. We can actually choose joy ahead of time. I know for me, I can forget, like I said, these things that I opted in for and just think, "Well because I wanted to be a mom because I wanted to do a business to help women and families and and everybody being able to move their life forward with purpose, organization enjoy. Well then it should just be joyful every day because I'm engaged in good things."

 

But I also find myself getting into this rut. I don't know if you've found this to where, I call it the "head down plow the row rut," where I've got this whole acre to plow and my head's down and I'm pushing the plow and I'm like, "I'm just going to get this row done."

 

Ever been there? "I'm just going to finish this row." Then you put your head up at the end of the row and you go, "Well, I'll just do one more row and I can do it. I'll just put my head down and get it done. Not going to dink around. Not gonna have any fun. We're just going to get this row done," right? "We'll get there when we get there. Family vacation-we're not stopping for potty stops. Just do it. Just get there..."

 

I can forget that if I stop and look around, number one, I'll see there's 52 more acres to plow that there's a whole lot more than I am to do and I am never gonna make it if I just doop my head down and plow the road every single moment of the day. I'm not gonna make it. I'm going to lose my mind. So what's key is number one is to look up and really see the beauty of where you are.

 

Now that can be a hard thing because I know it's like, "Yeah, that sounds all pretty mystical, Connie, but I still have to get about 600 things done today and it only have about 12 working hours to do it." Now if you're feeling like you're in that kind of a spot and it's really more, "Oh, I feel like I've got too much to do and I don't know how to organize my time to get it all done." I have a FREE masterclass is called Five Keys to Balance Redefined. http://conniesokol.com/ You can check that out and you can really get some organization on how to focus on what matters most and how to get that done. Then get the other stuff done that's kind of in that second tier, and then the third tier tier levels, so that you can actually feel like, "Oh, I'm getting stuff done and moving forward."

 

I'm not just saying, "Oh, I'm savoring and enjoying where I'm at today-going through a meadow with a basket of daisies..." I want to help you recognize that you really are moving forward, so you can check that out. Five keys to balance redefined. That's on my website, conniesokol.com and it's also on social media. So http://conniesokol.com/

 

Alright, so meanwhile the first thing is to look around and see the beauty of where you are at, because I can promise you, if you don't put your head up, look up and see all the goodness, it will not be a beautiful life. You will lose the ability to see the good in your life. In fact, I'm reminded of a story... Okay, comment below if you remember where this story is because I'm just going to paraphrase it...

 

I remember the story of a man, and this is one of those fable kind of stories, but he lived in a magical city.

 

It was gold and city. It was beautiful, absolutely stunning, and the streets were paved with gold, but every day they would. People would go and go to work and do their things. They would stop. They would talk to people. They would laugh and point out the beauty of where they lived and they loved it, and then one day some bright spark realized that if he put his head down, he got to work about 15 minutes faster and so he started putting his head down and got to work and save time...

 

Now I'm all about saving time. Just a little excerpt there just a little segway...

 

However, back to the story. The other people in the town started following suit. So here's this gorgeous town, beautiful flowers, gorgeous architecture, golden paved streets, and people start putting their heads down so that they can get to their places faster and be more efficient and day after day, week after week, more and more people put their heads down and guess what happens?

 

The city disappears. And so I don't know where that story is, but I have never forgotten that. I have heard that like 15-20 years ago. I've never forgotten that. So look up, look around. Enjoy the beauty of what is before you smell the gorgeous air.

 

Look at all of the rows that you have plowed. Look at the beauty of the rich solid soil that chocolate brown want to run your fingers through. And the smell of that yummy earthiness. I loved the smell of fresh mown grass.

 

I love the smell of certain flowers that are so aromatic. You have your lie, lox and how gorgeous they smell in the summer and roses when they're beautifully done. Those roses are so fragrant. Oh, there's a spiritual sanctuary that I go to. It's a latter day saint temple and as I walk up there there was one particular temple has lots of roses in the front usually, and I literally have to stop.

 

My kids are so embarrassed, but I stop and go, "Oh, this is so yummy. This is so yummy." I've noticed they walk a little bit farther ahead of me. I'm sure that's just a coincidence...

 

Anyway, so look around at where you are and look up. See the beauty of where you've been and where you are right now. The second is to connect with people. Take a moment and actually connect.

 

Now I know when you're buzzing around and you've got a bazillion things to do, that's the last thing you want to do, but when you're stopping to get your mail, take three minutes and say, "Hi," to somebody. You can let them know, Oh, you know, I'm on my way to such and such, but how are you doing? And you can let them know, "I want to hear more about this.

 

...Let's connect over the weekend, or let's get together next week, or I'd love to pop by..." something that lets them know "I care about you," so that you're not freaking out, "But I only have three minutes and I got to go to carpool."

 

You can let them know, "I'm on my way to Carpool, but oh, so good to see you." Look them in the eye, listen to them. Getting that moment of connection person-to-person, that is just so vital that we experience that everyday and especially for women.

 

Women need that connection every date. So if we don't have it, we're going to start dying inside. We're going to start withering. We're going to start disappearing. So consider how you can talk with someone for a minute.

 

And you know what's funny is that so often in life, the problems that we have, the situations that we're trying to resolve, the information we're trying to get is often given to us by these little angels that we don't even notice because they look just like our neighbors or a stranger in the grocery store.

 

I remember years ago my daughter was taking some art classes, and it was in the home of this wonderful woman and her adult daughter.

 

So what would happen is while my kids were engaged and other things, my other kids, I would take her to this woman's house and I would sit in the front room. Then my daughter would go in the kitchen and the adult daughter of my friend would teach my daughter the art. I could kind of hear them, and it was fun.

 

You could hear them laughing, talking, and things like that. I had 45 minutes to be able to get something done. So I would take my laptop and I would type on my book. Sometimes I could get an hour and a half, but usually it would round out to be about 45 minutes. But it wasn't very much time. So I had about 45 minutes generally and I tell you what, I would sit down, open my laptop, and it was time to go.

 

It was time to get things done. So usually typically the mom would come in and we'd say, "Hey," we do our little introduction, kind of, "Hey, how you doing?" "Good thanks, so nice blah, blah blah..."

 

And then she would go on her way and I would open up my laptop and I was ready to roll, right? Beautiful. Well, during this time I was actually really prayful about the school that my boys were attending.

 

It was turning out to not be a very good experience and it was one of those charter schools and usually they're great. They were wonderful, but we just weren't having that good of an experience and I was just trying to be prayerful about which school to put them in and what would be the better way to do it. We had tried a bunch of different solutions, and they just had not yet worked.

 

So that's where I was at….

 

So anyway, I go there this day, flip up my laptop, I'm ready to write and here comes, the mom starts talking to me, but this time she stops with just, you know, instead of just doing the superficial thing and stopping and moving on, she keeps talking.

 

I have to tell you, I'm embarrassed to say that the more she's talking, it's going into five minutes into 10 minutes into 15 minutes. In my mind I have stopped listening to what she's saying because in my mind I'm like, "Lady, pudding pop, I am trying to get something done here! And okay, the universal language is being spoken, which is the laptop is up, okay? There's a barrier between you and me and I'm actively with my fingers poised, ready to type that gives you subtle cues of no talkie."

 

So I'm starting to get really frustrated here...

 

Trying to be, kind of trying, to be polite, but trying to give her a subtle more even more obvious cue by this point that we're done talking. So after it's getting past 15 minutes, suddenly this little feeling thought, you know, those feeling thoughts that come, a little feeling thought comes to me and says, "Listen to what she's saying, she's giving you your answer." So I went, "Oh." I start listening to what she's saying and guess what? She's a substitute in all the schools in the school district that we're in. And guess what?

 

She knows how all the schools are and where the really great ones are in the great teachers. Oh my word. I just had one of those moments where you go, "Got It. Okay." So it was a thing of beauty. I've never forgotten that because I learned the power of talking with someone for a moment and people first, you know things and do second.

 

So connect with people. You're plowing that row? Well stop. I love that. Robert Frost poem. I've mentioned it on another podcast in its actuality, but I'll just paraphrase it here. It's the one, I think it's called the Visit Anyway. It's the one where he says, "When I'm out, and I'm doing my land, and I'm plowing" and whatever, and the neighbor comes and says, "Hey, Ho," I don't shout from where I am at the field and go, "What?" I put my blade, my shovel in the ground, blade ended up and I walk up to the wall for a friendly visit.

 

Now I've totally slaughterd that poem that is so beautiful by Robert Frost, but you get the point. It's. He's saying, "I don't just go, what? What's that? What do you need?" I put my blade in the ground and I say, "Okay, I'm going to walk up and have a friendly chat for just a moment because guess what?

 

There's 52 more acres of rose to plow so I can take a few minutes to connect with another human being." Alright? The last one is to savor. In fact, this is such an important step that I actually include it in one of the formulas of one of my programs because it is such a huge step. When we skip it, guess what happens? We're missing the cream. We don't get the fulfillment factor. We just check off the thing on the list and we think that we get the hit from that, but not really because then there's the big wide gaping opening of, now I have another thing that I'm supposed to do, and so that weighs right on you. That kind of stewardship of "Now I have another thing," and opening that means I have something else that needs to be done. So instead we need to extend this savor time.

 

We need to really have, for all intents and purposes, is a gratitude moment. Be able to pause whether it's a prayer or a specific set of words and our mind or a meditation or even writing in your gratitude journal. I do one every night. Even if I'm dead tired, I will write some things that I am grateful for and it has truly changed my life and continues to change my life. It's a very small thing. You've heard about it for years and maybe you've tried it, maybe not, but I'm telling you, it changes your life. Try it today. You can even put it on your smartphone. There's even apps out there that you can do little gratitude things on their super slick, but I so encourage you to savor the things, and I kind of alluded to it a little bit earlier in this podcast, but savor things, tastes, smells, sights, sounds.

 

I just savor the taste of a fresh baked scones. The smell of that rain, fresh air. The beauty of the flowers. I know we have a place here that has gorgeous tulips, gorgeous, and they've been imported from Holland and they had acres and acres of tulips and they all come in the spring. They all bloom and you just walk on this beautiful kind of cobblestone path through trees and then tulip fields and oh my stars. It's so gorgeous. This poppy orange and bright yellow and and whatever colors. They mix it in with daffodils and all kinds of things and just these gorgeous, gorgeous flowers, but it's the tulip festival and it's just beautiful. It's just a wash with colors. So savor right now. What is something that you can savor? Is it that you're taking a break and you're resting? Is it that you have a beautiful new baby? Oh, savor that new baby smell.

 

Is it that your lawns looking lusciously green? Is it that you're feeling that your children are all at peace and all is well with the world, is that you just had some beautiful financial windfall and you're going to savor all the good that you can do with that? What are you going to savor in this moment? Your health, your spiritual connection, your relationships with the ones that you love and friends and family that love and support you? What can you savor for just a moment and then I encourage you to take that next step and offer a prayer of gratitude. I believe in God and you can say higher power or universe or whatever that is for you, but just offer a prayer of gratitude. I can go through studies that share the difference that this makes in your your energy, your mind pathways that the wavelengths that you have through prayer and meditation actually shape who we are, so a momentary saver throughout the day.

 

One minute, two minute, five minutes-it reap benefits and fruits for years and days and weeks to come. So I encourage you as you are doing these experiences on your daily do list, your daily life, you're going, doing that pinball living, and caching caching caching all day long, pause.

 

Pause and enjoy the journey...

 

Stop. Look around. See where you've come from and where you are now. See the good that you've already done. Then take a minute to connect with someone even if it's a little bit inconvenient.

 

Then lastly, savor...

 

Savor with a gratitude prayer. Savor with your soul. Savor with your senses. Savor the good that is in your life right now.

 

I promise you will go to bed more fulfilled. You will go to bed happier. You will go to bed feeling like you did what mattered most. And like I said, if you want help on being able to actually manage the business of things so that you do go to bed happy, you can do the free master class, "Five Keys to Balance Redefined." You can get that at http://conniesokol.com/ . But meanwhile, remember that these three things are three keys to be able to enjoy the journey. Alright. Stay tuned for more balance, redefined.

 

You got it. Thanks for listening and remember to rate and subscribe. And if you are feeling the need for real balance in your life, get your free 3-Step Life Plan, and get started today! Just go to conniesokol.com/download.