Three Tools to Create the Life You Love

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

Whether we’re talking about our relationship with our spouse, the way we parent, or the how we keep our home, in order to be effective we need to attend to 3 tools in our lives: 

• Our Knowledge or the what and the how
• Our Mindset
• And Our Why

All three are required to progress toward living the life we’ve always dreamed of living.

The life we envisioned when we were in our early 20’2 doesn’t just happen.

In many ways it is a battle – some days we feel that idea of battle more deeply than other days.

But it’s important to consider that we aren’t passive participants in our life. 

We Can’t Be Passive

Life doesn’t “just happen” to us.

We need to continue to take responsibility for our happiness, our success, and fulfilling our role as women in the world. The biggest cop-out to me is saying, “Well, that’s just the way I am. I can’t be patient, run an orderly home, cook excellent meals, teach my children to behave or listen or be respectful.”

It may be – depending on where you are in this life journey – that you don’t know how to do something. 

You may not understand the tremendous power of your thoughts and mindset or you may not have considered that there’s a higher purpose to your life than just getting dinner on the table at a specific time.

I’d like to discuss the three pillars of success for your life  – no matter where you are in your journey.

The First Tool – Practical Tools – Knowledge

My mom was a lot of great things, but one thing she just wasn’t was a stellar cook.  I don’t think she particularly liked it and her mother came from the depression generation where you opened a can – no finesse, no recipe experiments just meat, potatoes and canned vegetables.

Also, my mom was a high school teacher so when we went off to school, she went off to school.  I’m sure she was exhausted when she got home, so the fact that we actually had a meal prepared every night for us was probably a miracle.

And when I was in 5^th grade, we were one of the first on our street to get a microwave.

Oh my gosh, the convenience was amazing to us –  not to mention how cool it was to watch marshmallows blow up!

So, I learned to cook in a microwave.

Well…not really cooking….more like heating up.

When I married, my skill set was virtually nil.

Michael and I married right after I graduated from college and while he was still in law school.

He worked a part time job at a law firm, but mostly we survived on my teacher’s salary of $10,500.

My Cooking Fiasco

So when my parents came to visit us and brought us a roast -OMG we were so excited.  Up until then it was ground beef and hot dogs.

I wanted to make something fancy for Michael, so I had a copycat cookbook that had a recipe for Beef Wellington. I had no idea that people didn’t actually make beef wellington with crescent roll dough. As soon as I took it out of the oven, and it fell apart. I was devastated and cried so much I wouldn’t even eat it.

So, I realized that if I valued cooking in my home, I had to learn the techniques of actual cooking.

I read a lot of cookbooks and watched many Martha Stewart shows that opened my eyes to what real cooking was all about.

Whether it’s cooking, cleaning, or creating routines for your home management system, or in our relationships – in learning better communication skills, or learning about different dealing with different temperaments in our parenting, we need to attend to and be open to increasing our knowledge of the practical tools we need to create the life we want.

Don’t Say, “I can’t!”

We can’t be lazy about this.  We can’t give up saying, “I just can’t do this, or it will never work.”

It’s also important to remember that the tools/systems/routines that work in one person’s home, may or may not work in another’s.  We have to have perseverance to tweak and adjust until we find what works best for us.

DON’T GIVE UP

You are stronger than that and you owe it to your own sense of accomplishment and self-confidence to not give up as you learn and discover what you need to create the life you love.

The 2nd Tool – Our Mindset

As I mentioned in the first pillar, we need to keep learning to develop our practical tools, I have been studying more about why some moms are happy and have their home in order and others don’t.

Why do some families exude peace and joy while others seem miserable, overwhelmed, and full of disrespect for each other?

In many cases, I know the families personally and they’re all good people.

I’ve even discussed with friends what they perceive to be different about families that have orderly, joyful homes and ones that don’t.

It’s All About Mindset

And so to strengthen my pillar of practical tools to help you all, I’ve been studying mindset. 

It’s not woowoo.

Our mind is this powerful tool that we can allow to control us.

Depending on what we THINK about a particular circumstance, our results will be different.

It seems so easy and obvious, and yet I don’t think people actually stop to put it into action – I know I didn’t until I really became conscious of what this model can do to bring about the results in my life that I want.

It’s about what we think – our thoughts.

I’ve seen families with similar circumstances, but the way they move through the day and the family life they develop is very different.

If You Think You Can’t, You Won’t

When we were first married, if I didn’t think I could learn to cook, I never would have learned to make amazing Lobster Risotto, lemon curd, the best chocolate cake IN THE WORLD, and truly delicious Thai Coconut Butternut Squash soup!

If I have bought into the idea that my children are strong-willed and just won’t listen, then the result will be that they won’t be disciplined. I’ll either feel defeated, angry, or overwhelmed at the thought that they’re strong-willed and beyond my control and that will cause me to not do the actions required to give them self-control. The result will be out of control children – whether they’re inherently strong-willed or not.

And just as an aside, most children could be described as strong-willed.  They want what they want when they want it – isn’t that just a definition of a child?

Our mindset – what we think about our life, our abilities, our limitations and our expectations PROFOUNDLY effect our daily life and the progress we make towards our goal of happiness and the life we dreamed of.

Do Some Thought Work Every Day

Take time every day to stop and consider what you think about certain aspects of your life.

You have the power to choose your thoughts – others don’t decide those for you.  You choose.

Why do some severely underprivileged children with no resources or even parental support grow up to live a life of virtue, financial achievement and happy family life?

That’s an extreme example, I know, but their thought that they CAN is always what drives them.

Our thoughts aren’t non-negotiable.  We can choose to think differently to create positive feelings for ourselves and results that bring us joy.

Here’s How Thoughts Control Our Feelings

We can choose to think our husband doesn’t notice some household chores that need to be done, or we can choose to think that he does see all the work and he’s just being lazy and inconsiderate of all we have to do.

Notice the different feelings that come up?

In the first case – he doesn’t notice things (because, sometimes men just don’t notice things) and so we ask him to do a particular task.

Not highly charged with emotion.

But in the 2^nd thought line where we think he’s just being lazy and inconsiderate, even speaking this I can feel the resentment and anger that wells up.

We decide to just do it ourselves and load that resentment into that convenient backpack in our brain where we’ve loaded all the other resentments.

Wouldn’t we be happier to manage our thoughts so that we’re not angry and resentful or defeated and overwhelmed?

Paying attention to our mindset is critical in our journey towards a life we love.

Tool #3 – Our Higher Purpose

If all we do, day in and day out, is get through the day what gain is that?

I believe that God created us to be HIM in this world.  To show others how much HE loves them – to challenge those closest to me to be the best they can be and encourage them to be Christ to others in their lives. 

And I can only do that for those around me if I am doing that for myself.

Every day I take the circumstances of my life – where God has placed me – and make it holy by challenging myself to love more and serve better. Each day I take the gift and responsibility of my role as wife and mother seriously. God is depending on me to be HIM to my husband and my children.

We only need to look at our world to see that there are some serious issues.

In my little home, with my husband and my 7 children we created kind, loving people – not perfect to be sure – but the nine of us worked day in and day out to challenge our weaknesses and be Christ to others. We’ve now expanded that original 9 to what will soon be twenty-seven. Twenty-seven people working hard to live a life full of love and service to bring into the world the love of Christ.

What we do in our lives is not nearly as important as how we do what we do.

Living with a higher purpose. Bringing about a deeper commitment to living and loving as Jesus lived and loved is really the ultimate end.

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