Hello everyone, and welcome back. My name is Kylie and I am a mom, a wife, an educator, and an entrepreneur. I'm a professionally trained Catholic mindset coach with a mission to help overwhelmed Catholics find peace and purpose in the chaos so that they can become saints having a deep and meaningful prayer life is not exclusive to those in religious life. You are called to holiness too, and with that, let's get started.
This week, I am going to talk about how sacrificing your time or mismanaging your schedule leads you to shorting the people around you. Does that thought sound familiar? I'm frustrated. I don't have enough time and I'm shorting the people around me sometimes even myself. Or how about this one? I've also heard I'm sacrificing my one-on-one time with God to meet the demands of my job.. That one rings all too true for me. I wanna tell you a story about my mom, so.
I'm currently still a seventh through 12th grade educator, and as I am wrapping up my last school year of teaching, things are a little bittersweet, but anyone who has been in the education world knows that that last push to the end gets a little bit. Crazy in the school realm from preschool all the way on up. And I say that having just talked to my son's preschool teacher about if he's maybe been a little crazy at school because he is been a little crazier at home, and she said, it's everyone.
Everyone at the primary building has been a little nuts these past weeks. We've got fluctuations in temperatures we've got just that eagerness to be outside, the anticipation of summer right around the corner. We just came off of a long Easter break. Um, and then it's hard to get back in that swing of full school weeks or in my level with the high school. You've got kids gone for activities almost every day it seems like.
And it's just a lot of busyness going on and a lot of changes and a lot of things to adapt to, but also a lot of eagerness for what is to come. So, All of that has me really thinking about my mom because when things used to get really crazy or really stressful, I would always call my mom. I remember my first years of teaching.
I was 22 my first year of teaching, and when things got really crazy, and I would do this in college too, I would call my mom because I knew that no matter how bad my day was, she was going to have something to top it. And I say that in the most loving way. My mom was one of the kindest, most patient souls who ever walked this earth. She passed away in 2011. But anyone who knew her would tell you that she was just this kind soul and so full of love.
But she had a tendency to just pour everything that she had in all of her being into the people around her, and sometimes that left her not having a lot left for herself or maybe burning the candles at both ends for a little bit too long. I recently was going through her Facebook. I was looking for something and I came across a couple of posts from the year that she died, and one of them said, Got to work at 8:00 AM this morning, getting home at midnight.
Do I start my homework now or in the morning? And I just had to chuckle because that's exactly who my mom was. It wasn't that she didn't want to sleep, she had trouble sleeping, but also she just poured so much of herself out. She was a passionate person. Extremely passionate about two things, and I want you to note that the word passion means willing to sacrifice for right. Christ's passion. He sacrificed his life for us and so, um, things that she was willing to sacrifice for. There were two.
I like to summarize it as babies and beasts. So kids, number one, children were her true passion. She was a headstart teacher for many, many years and she would do anything for those kids, uh, and for their parents and anyone else who asked. But beasts were the other passion of hers, so especially horses. But also chickens and ducks and cows and all of the other things. Maybe not cows.
Cows. I think she maybe named her cows and tried to grow close to them because she didn't appreciate them as much. They were a little more stressful, but she just loved all of those things. And so when she would have those really long days. I don't think it was because she loved working and loved not sleeping. It was because she put the other people around her first. When I was in high school I can remember her, you know, trying to do all of her schoolwork.
Uh, she was going back to get her master's, uh, taking care of all the kids, doing all the house. Those kinds of activities. My dad took care of a lot of the farm activities, uh, but it would be late at night and I would be doing my homework or getting ready for bed and she would be up washing my basketball uniform or my volleyball jersey. And when you multiply that by the number of siblings and all of the extra things that she took on, that took up a lot of her time..
Another example I can think of was her staying up late at night to meticulously hand paint t-shirts for every student in her class before they went on a field trip. And I just, the amount of time and effort and energy that that took is so incredible. It wasn't like, Just shelling out some money to take 'em to, uh, someone to screen print on a t-shirt. She hand painted every single one, and that's just who she was. Um, so where, where's the problem with that?
Well, the problem of that is when we are sacrificing so much of ourselves for everything and everyone around us, number one, we can lose sight of who we. But we can also become frustrated. We can become frustrated that we don't have time. We can be frustrated or resentful towards the people around us because they are taking up our time. And it can just lead to a lot of emotions that can take us on a path that isn't necessarily healthy or helpful. So I say this with absolute love for my mother.
And I am very, very much like her and I have realized over the years that I had learned a lot of these behaviors of getting up and working really, really late and not prioritizing or having a great structure with my time. Now my mother died when she was 48 from a pulmonary embolism. It was really sudden and you know when it's time for us to go, we know not the hour or the when or the what.
It's just when we go and did the way that my mom lived her life have anything to do with how early she died? I don't know. That's not for me to determine. But do I know that she maybe didn't live the best lifestyle for everyone? Absolutely. And so as I've gotten older, I started to recognize that I was starting to feel these feelings of resentment, whether it was toward my job or toward the people around me.
An example that I've heard from other mothers is not wanting to put their children to bed. It's frustrating. And they don't wanna sit there and read the books because they don't have time. They've got a million things to do. They just wanna get the kids in bed and go do the tasks that they need to finish. Maybe it's for their job, maybe it's for, something else. But all of a sudden these people, these small, tiny children that we love. That we went through hell on Earth to get here, to be here.
We don't wanna spend time with them. We're resentful toward. Why? Not because they're awful tiny little humans, but because we are stressed and anxious about everything else going in our life, that we start to project that onto our children. Now, are there times where yes, we just want them to go to bed because they're being tiny little maniacs. Absolutely. That's gonna happen, right? That's, um, part of the parenting life. But it doesn't have to be that way, and especially not all of the time.
So I just wanna invite you to ask yourself. Does my calendar need a makeover? Does the structure of my day and my week and my life need something to change that I don't feel like I'm sacrificing my one-on-one time with God to meet the demands of my job? Does something need to change that I'm not frustrated, that I don't have enough time to be with the people around me that I love and care about, so that I don't feel guilty for shorting everyone, especially myself?
I just invite you to consider that question today as we go through this next part. Okay, so I want you to just ask yourself, if you're not driving or cooking dinner or something, if you can just close your eyes for a minute and think, why would my calendar need a makeover? If time was not a constraint, it is, right? It's a circumstance that we cannot control. But if it wasn't a constraint, what would be different in my life and why would I want it?
When I think back on how my schedule used to be and how I have changed that trajectory, I think back to the things that I wanted the most, and some of them I still want and I'm still working toward, and I am still fighting to make this change happen in my life, but I think about wanting to be present with my children so that when they say, mommy, will you play with me? I don't have to say, I'm so sorry baby, but I can't tonight. I have a lot of work to do.
I'm so sorry we can't read one more book tonight. I have to go do homework. I'm so sorry. We don't have time to do that this morning. We're running behind and I have to get to work to grade. I don't want that for my life. I don't want that to be a time constraint that takes away from my children.
When I think about my why, I think about wanting to spend time with my husband in a state where I'm not so mentally exhausted that I can hear him talking to me, but I have absolutely no idea what he's saying and the next morning he's. Tell me something and be like, don't remember we had that conversation. And I'm gonna say no. I was so zoned out because my mind was going a million miles an hour on all of the crap that I didn't get done today. Why does your calendar need to makeover?
What about your calendar? What about your schedule? Is it that is keeping you from the life that you want to live. Maybe it's driving your kids to 10 different soccer practices every week, or trying to get one kid one place and one to another place, and one to another place, and keep up with the schoolwork and the piano lessons. Maybe your schedule's perfect and maybe none of this relates to you, but I know it relates to a lot of moms that I'm surrounded by in my life and some dads.
And even some singletons who don't have kids yet who are still just trying to make it all work. So why does it matter? That's where you need to start, and then we're gonna get into what is getting in the way of you changing it. I would love for some of you to DM me your thoughts on what is getting in the way of you changing the way that your calendar works. Now, obviously some of these are gonna be circumstances. There's only 24 hours in a day. Absolutely. I need money to put food on the table.
Absolutely. Right? But what are the thoughts that are underneath all of those circumstances, and what feeling does it bring to you? Okay. Someone told me the other day, well, I can't change it. I, I am the sole provider for my family, and if I don't do this job, I don't have any other options. This is it. That's a thought. That brings up a feeling and a very powerful emotion of being stuck, and none of us are stuck. We're not, God gives us choices and options and can move mountains, right?
So if you had freedom in your schedule, what would that feel like? And when I say freedom in your schedule, I mean like you have a chance to shower by yourself and like put on clean underwear in the morning without being rushed. To get out the door because of all of the stuff that you're doing with your children and all of all of the work stuff and all of the schedule that you've overbooked.
And I say you overbooked again, I know there are some things that are out of your control, but ultimately who's in charge of your schedule? You're in charge of your schedule cuz you're an adult. Right? Um, so I just want you to think about what would it feel like? To have that freedom. Where do you feel that in your body? And what image comes to your mind when you think of freedom in your schedule? And I'm gonna tell you how to get there. Okay?
So what you're going to do is start by making a priority list, okay? It's very simple. Um, I will share what mine looks like. All right. So, uh, I just sat down and I organized like primary, if I had a blank calendar, I didn't have to worry about time constraints. I'm just literally talking about things that bring me joy that I could spend my time on. Okay? So, uh, prioritizing number one in my schedule. Um, making sure that I can execute on my plan of love.
So that includes my mental prayer time in the morning and my holy hour every week, making sure that I'm going to weekly mass and building in time to go to confession. So that last one, confession was something I never built in my schedule was like, well, if I get to mass early enough on time, maybe it'll work out. Uh, but I've been much more, um, just aware in how I'm going to fit that into my schedule. And the same with my mental prayer time.
Like how am I gonna fit that in so that it doesn't get pushed out or that I'm not, restricting my sleep time to a point that it's interfering with how I'm able to go about my day and it's affecting my family. So those are things that I prioritize first. Um, if I had a blank full year calendar, or maybe even monthly calendar, uh, date night with my husband. How I fit that one in is we coordinate with our kids' grandparents, and it's kind of a win-win for everyone.
They go spend a weekend at their grandparents. We get, uh, a date weekend. Sometimes that date weekend looks like taking care of cows and planting the garden, but we get time together. Maybe it looks different for you, maybe it's just a night out and you have, a babysitter come to your house. But where does, where does that go and how often? Do you need that in your schedule to feel really good about, like, I had this time to connect with my husband. Maybe it's every week that's even better.
Um, I know there are times where my husband and I really intentionally check in with one another, uh, and it fluctuates with the seasons, but how often do you feel like you need that and, how do you fit that in? Okay, so then, Other things I prioritize. So for our kids, they really love like Daddy Daughter Day or Mommy Keaton Day. And so we try to make sure that a couple of those get in. On the calendar, and if we've forgotten, our kids remind us like, Hey, when are we gonna have this date?
And so I have a monthly calendar that's on my fridge and I have my daughter help me fill it out at the start of every month. And we try to map out, okay, these are the things that can't change, that can't shift in our schedule, and how do we make sure that these other things that we really want to fit on there, make it in there? When we look at yearly, my husband and. Always map out.
We usually do this, um, once a year, sometimes twice a year, but we'll talk about when are we gonna do our family vacation. So we always plan at least one weekend with his parents and sister and that side of the family that we go see them. We've started to do that with my side of the family as well. Um, and then we have just the four of us where we go somewhere and sometimes we don't know where we're going. We just say, okay, you know what?
We know if we don't put it on the calendar, it's not gonna happen. So, In June, we're gonna take these four days and sometimes it's the week before and we still don't know where we're going, but we know that we're gonna do something. We are going somewhere, even if it's, we drive an hour and we go stay at an A hotel and the kids swim in the pool and that's all we do.
We are going to go spend that time as a family because we have made it our priority and we have put it on the calendar and we are not moving it, and we are not letting anything else disrupt that. Another thing I would encourage you that maybe this goes on your primary list, maybe this goes on your secondary list. Something as simple as scheduling a zoom call with your friends. Better if you can go out with them, but I have a lot of really close friends and they don't live anywhere close to me.
Uh, sometimes it is a struggle. We have to schedule two months out just to have a zoom date. Where we all meet online and chat and usually we're all so tired that by nine o'clock we're like, okay, we're going to bed. It was good to see you for 40 minutes. And, and we move on with our life, but at least we're checking in with each other. And we made it a priority to make that effort. Um, because as parents, your whole world changes. You know, you go.
Being in this place where you get to spend a lot of time with your friends. You know, you think of college life or even right after college life and you're, you're in the workplace, but you still get to go out with all of your coworkers. You don't have a family to go home to every night. Um, and now your whole world's shifted and you wouldn't change it by any means. But it's still important to have some of those other relationships too, and to, cultivate those..
So those would be some of the things that would go underneath my, like, these are my priorities. These are the first things that are gonna go on my calendar. So think about what would go on your priority list and actually write it down. It's really important to write it down. My husband and I, like I said, we do this together. Sometimes we kind of do, like in January, we do a goal list for the year and we do financial goals, but we also do like dream goals.
And some of these things like family vacation, those come up and we post it on our bulletin boards so that we can hold each other accountable for making sure that it happens, uh, underneath my secondary. Okay. These, this is where things like work absolutes would go. So what I mean by work absolutes, those are. I know in my husband's schedule that in the spring he cannot miss work. He's gonna have to work Saturday mornings, so I just blocked those off.
I know Saturdays from eight to 12 for about two months, my husband is gonna have to work and. We aren't gonna be able to plan anything as a whole family, right? So there are certain work absolutes that we know that we have to just make work in our schedule. Um, and there isn't a lot of flexibility in that. Things like my class schedules.
So I get to choose what classes I sign up for, but as soon as I know what those dates are and what I've committed to those go on the calendar so that my husband and I can work together to make sure. Children are still getting the attention that they need during that season. Um, however we decide to work that out together, especially if it's a particularly busy season for both of us, uh, that's something that again, goes underneath my secondary.
So you list all those out and then the things that come last, these are things like kids getting invited to a classmate's birthday party. Great. If they get to go, it's wonderful. But that's not high on our priority list. We fit it in if we can. One other thing I would encourage you to have somewhere on this list. Um, maybe for you it's a primary thing, maybe it's a secondary thing. Maybe it's another thing. Uh, it is just blocking out a day on your calendar where you just write nothing.
As in, I'm going to schedule nothing on this day. I think of how I plan out my lesson plans as a teacher, and I know, like I'll try to map out a certain time period, like from this break to this break of what my students are gonna cover. But I know that things are gonna shift in there.
Things are gonna come up and I need some space for myself to recover and catch up, but also because I know that my students are gonna need that space, maybe they need some reteaching, maybe they just need some sort of reinforcement, or maybe they just need a little bit of a break where we do. Math games or something different just to mentally refresh. So maybe it's one day a month on your calendar where you are gonna write the word nothing, as in I am not scheduling anything.
And then when you get to that day, you're gonna use that for whatever you need. So maybe that's relaxation. Maybe that's going to get your hair done because you haven't had it done in a really, really long time. Maybe that's just a family day at home, snuggling on the couch and watching movies, but you are not going to fill it up with going out to do a million other things. So that's just a personal preference.
Something that I would encourage you to consider as you are filling out your calendar. Okay, so you've made this list, you have prioritized. What I would encourage you to do next is if it's not already ordered, okay? Make sure that you get it ordered. So again, primary, these are set. These will not change. Okay? If someone calls me and says, Hey, let's go out to dinner tonight. Nope, sorry, this is on my calendar. I'm not moving it. I'm not saying be so rigid that you can't, you know.
Ever change your mind, but these are the things that are the most important to you, and you're not going to sacrifice that time for something that isn't as important. Okay? So, uh, order those things on your list. Go to a clean calendar. So maybe in your calendar, you've got it booked out for the next six months. Fine. Okay? Go to a clean month and put the things on it that matter to you. You can go back and.
The calendar that's already set, but there are probably some things in there that you can't decommit to. All right? So maybe there's something that you signed up for, that you're responsible for. Maybe it's, um, something with the booster club or the PTA at your kid's school that you decided to organize. That's awesome. Do it right. You agreed to do it. So keep it on there, but then next time, see if it fits in your priorities. See if it fits with your family, if it. Awesome. Keep doing it.
If it doesn't, it's okay to say no. Allow yourself the choice to say no. There are going to be things that aren't going to fit in your calendar, and this is going to be a major mindset. Mind, Ooh, mindset shift for some of you is to consider how do I let these things go and I say that because this was something that I struggled with myself for a very long time. Clear back. I can think back to high school. I remember every year I would say I am not doing dance team next year. It is so stressful.
I don't have time. I have to get to school so early, and then I've got school and basketball and one act and all of these other things. It's just too much and there's a lot of girl drama. I'm not doing it. And every year I would go try out, and I was even the captain for a few years. Okay. So I put that on myself. And why, I remember my aunt asking me, Kylie, why are you doing that?
And I said, because no one else will, like if I, if I don't lead this, that's part of my personality, my temperament. If I don't lead this, who's gonna do it? And she said, somebody else will or they won't, and it'll be okay. But I was not willing to hear that. I didn't wanna. And so I'm just going to tell you, in the most loving and compassionate way possible, it is okay to let things go. You do not have to be the savior because we already have one.
It is great to step into leadership roles, but you don't have to be the leader for every role, and it is okay to say no. I know that that goes against. Culture and that people aren't always going to like you for saying no to things. I can tell you two specific instances recently where mothers have had the courage to say, you know what, I overcommitted, this is not working out for my family, and I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to step down. And it was not well received.
Okay. And it wasn't me, it was someone else. But, uh, They said that, and I, I told someone this the other day. I said, that is so awesome that you recognized that this was not helpful for your family. And you could tell she was struggling with it a little bit because it was not as well received from everyone else. The second instance was someone who stepped up the other day in their workplace and said, you know what? I don't work for free.
I can't keep giving up all of these hours from my family to do a job that I am not being paid to do. It doesn't mean that I don't care about my job. It doesn't mean that I don't care about the people in my job. I 100% do where I wouldn't have this job, but my family has to come first. And I think that that is something as a culture that we have forgotten. I. Our first vocation if we are married and if we have children, is to be a wife and to be a parent.
And that is not a message that gets told to us very often or we, it's something that we're told, and then it's immediately covered by a list of 10,000 things that do not allow us to be great wives and great mothers. So I am just going to very strongly encourage you to consider. Are these things on my calendar helping me to live out my vocation? As a mother and as a wife, you can still be really great at your job.
You can still accomplish a million beautiful, wonderful things, especially if they are things that the Lord is calling you to. You can still be feel filled with a fire to serve a lot of people. And you can do it really, really well, and it doesn't have to take away from how things go in your own home. All of this gets me just super passionate and fired up because I love, love helping women overcome this struggle because it is one that is so personal to me because I have overcome it myself.
Like I said, I grew up with this model of my mom. Just pouring everything into everyone and it's so beautiful, right? It's so beautiful and I love that about her. And people love that about her. And, um, I know that I am very much like that, but I've also learned that when you are prioritizing everything, that nothing is a priority anymore, and you start to very slowly, right? The devil starts to very slowly push out the things that are keeping you connected to God.
It starts to push out your prayer time. It starts to push out those connections and those relationships with people, those deep meaningful ones. Um, and it's very slowly and it's very subtle. And so, uh, I just, I get so excited and passionate about this.
So if you are someone who feels like you are sacrificing your one-on-one time with the Lord to meet the demands of your job or your family, or the culture or societal norms, whatever it is, if you are someone who feels frustrated that you don't have time, to do the things that you need to do, and so you're shorting the people around you or you are shorting yourself.
I just really wanna encourage you to start simply by prioritizing a list of things that are the most important and essential to you. Take away the constraints of time, take away the constraints of money, and just write out a list of what is important to you, what fills you up, what is gonna help you. Be the better mom and the better wife and the better saint, cuz that is what we are all called to. So make that list, order it from most significant. This cannot go from my schedule.
If this goes from my schedule, everything else falls apart, down to the very bottom of I, Ugh. Maybe it's, I still really want this on my calendar. I don't know how I could let it go, but it's, it's at the bottom. And if I had to let something go, this would be it. if you have a lot of thoughts coming up, like, oh, this is really gonna disappoint people or anything like that, just write those off to the side, okay? Don't let those hinder you. Don't judge it, just write 'em off to the side.
You can go back on journal on those le later, or you can reach out to me and I can help you work through those. Uh, go to a clean calendar and put those priorities on. Okay, write 'em in pen. If you're still a, like a, an actual like pencil, paper planner type of person, if it's in your phone, put 'em in a certain color. So you know, like this is a do not delete. This is a do not change. Do not shift. This is not moving.
And then surrender the rest of the Lord and the things that don't fit, they don't fit and it's gonna be okay. And just sit with that. And move forward because you have taken a huge step. If you actually take the time to do those things and you don't move those priorities that you've put on your calendar, ooh, you're moving in the right direction and it's gonna be so good. Thank you so much for joining today.
If any of this was helpful, I pray that you will share it with someone who you think maybe needs to hear it, leave a review. Uh, if you wanna follow along with my journey, you can follow me at Kylie m Hein on Instagram. That's, K Y L i e m H E I n, the website. You guys am so excited.
Um, my website is getting redone, however, um, the person who's working on it had a family emergency this week, so it might take a little while, but my whole website is getting revamped and remodeled and it will be able to do all the things that it wasn't able to do before. So I'm really excited. I can't wait to share that with all of you.
And as this school year comes to a close, uh, I hope you stick around cuz I'm gonna be jumping all in on some workshops and some other surprise things that are gonna. Unfolding in June and July and beyond. And again, thank you so much for joining. This is just a beautiful journey. I pray that you are all doing well and that the Lord is just gonna lift you up and carry you through whatever burdens might be coming your way this week. I'll see y'all next time.