Choosing the Life You Want

What You’ll Hear in this Episode:

Why is it that some women flourish in their marriage and family life, while others never see any traction or the improvements they want to make?

I have and will continue to give you practical tips on how to have a strong marriage, well-disciplined children, and a calm nurturing home,

but how we think of ourselves, our situations, and the constant challenges of life will decide if we attain the motherhood we long for or we just keep bumping along – not entirely unhappy, but not fulfilled or happy

       Maybe some are, in fact, really unhappy.

And so in my pursuit of discovering what is really at the root of a joyful motherhood and marriage, I’ve spent a lot of time reading and learning about mindset.

And I’ve discovered what Brooke Castillo calls “The Self-Coaching Model”.  She’s the founder of the Life Coach School where I’ve been studying to become a certified life coach.

The model is a tool that we can use for any circumstance or problem that we’re dealing with to help us respond and choose the action that serve us and empower us, rather than be the victim of.

The Basic Concept

Ok first let me go through this basic concept.

Circumstances

Our life is filled with circumstances  – events in our life that happen and everyone would agree happened

•        A guy cuts you off in traffic.

•        You child didn’t pick up their clothes.

•        Your husband is looking at pornography.

•        Your child talks back to you.

•        You don’t have a regular cleaning schedule.

•        Other people, our past, events outside of our control.

All of these are circumstances – facts that can be proven in a court of law that no one would disagree with.

This is our day – lots of circumstances that work together to form our life.

We often think if we could change our circumstances, we would be happy.  But the truth is, we would have a whole new set of circumstances to deal with.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that life is not perfect -heaven.

But we don’t have to be the victim of our life.  We can have the power to decide HOW we’re going to react in any give situation.

So many of us remain the victim and that’s what I want to help you with – taking back your God-given power to react the best way to serve you and Him.

We do that by choosing our thoughts about any given issue.

Thoughts

Thoughts – the way we think about our life or a particular circumstance – the way we interpret the facts – our thoughts directly create the results in our lives.

40-60,000 thoughts a day, 80% are negative and 95% are repetitive

So, the odds are that you’re going to think more negative thoughts in a day – and the ones that go over and over again in your head will also be negative.

•        I hate cleaning.

•        I don’t know how to discipline my children.

•        I’m not a good cook.

•        My husband doesn’t love me like he should.

•        He never helps around the house.

•        My kids drive me crazy.

If we don’t stop the unconscious cycle of negative and repetitive thoughts going on in our brain, it’s no wonder we are unhappy or unfulfilled.

Thoughts are Subjective

Thoughts are purely subjective.

Just because we have a thought, doesn’t mean it’s true.

       My husband forgot to take the trash out one night.

              As I was doing it early in the morning before the truck came by, I had a thought, “He always forgets and I have to do it.”  Before I started paying attention to my thoughts, I would have spun that over and over a hundred times before I even got back in the house and been angry with him for not taking the garbage out.

              Instead, I noticed that negative thought and I asked myself if that was really true.

              And when I stopped the negative cycling I realized that no, that wasn’t true.  He remembers most of the time.  They I reminded myself about the other ways he contributes  and I ended up walking back into the house (such a short time) being very grateful that I have a husband who is not perfect, but tries to be very generous around the house.

Feelings

Feelings – How we feel – our emotions come directly from our thoughts. 

If we think negative thoughts, we’ll have negative emotions.

If we think positive thoughts, we’ll have positive emotions.

Now, sometimes, we will need to think a negative thought because it is appropriate to feel a negative emotion.

Circumstance:  My dad died 8 years ago

My thought:  I miss my dad

My feeling:  sad

       Our life as a human is a life of positive and negative emotions.

       I think a HUGE problem with our culture now, is that we think we should always be happy – or make our children happy.

       When we were raising our children, the “everyone gets a trophy” began.

       We didn’t want anyone feeling bad.  And in doing that we didn’t give our children an opportunity to live through disappointment and survive it and create resiliency for dealing with disappointments.

       So many young adults and teenagers talk about the ‘anxiety’ they feel, when in fact, much of it is just the normal negative emotion that goes along with being human.

So understand that it isn’t that we’re trying to create this rainbows and unicorns life – that’s not realistic.

We’re want to create an intentional life where WE decide the thoughts we have about a particular situation that will serve us.

              We understand that our feelings come from our thoughts and that our actions will be directly influenced by how we feel.

              If I felt angry with my husband for not taking the garbage out and that anger came from the thought, “he always forgets” not only might I feel angry but I also might feel disrespected and maybe a whole lot of other negative feelings. I would have gone into the house and started in on him. Maybe we would have argued.  For sure I would have held on to resentments.

Actions

Actions or inactions come directly from our feelings.

When we choose the thoughts we want to have and manage our feelings around those thoughts, we will show up with the actions we want to take that serve us and our family and create joy in our lives.

So, for instance, when I was first married, I did not know how to cook.

I wrecked many meals in the learning process.  But my thought was I want to learn to cook.  My feeling was that I was excited to learn.  My actions were trying new recipes – sometimes with failures, but sometimes with successes.

And even though my results weren’t always perfect, I kept going back to that thought, “I want to learn to cook”.

Results

It didn’t really take long, but my results – the last part of the model – is that I’m a very good cook now.

And it all goes back to “I want to learn to cook”.

If I left my life to my circumstances which was I didn’t know how to cook – oh well, too bad, so sad, I guess I can never learn…I would not have learned AND my family would not enjoy the Salted Carmel Fudge Cake, or the Shrimp and Rice with Red Pepper Cream Sauce.

We’d just have take out all the time.

And that would have been a pity because one of my favorite things in the world now is to cook.

Your Turn

So what about you?

What thoughts do you have that create joy and what thoughts do you have that create anxiety, stress, or discontent?

Do you approach your life with confidence or have you decided that you’ll never be enough or you’re stuck or a victim?

Learning the skills of marriage, motherhood, and keeping a home are important. But whatever you think, will be your reality.

Choose your thoughts to serve you rather than enslave you.

Stop believing the past defines you and know that you have the power to define yourself now.

You just need to slow down, be conscious of your thoughts and choose what serves you.