Welcome to the real mom's playbook where balanced becomes a lifestyle brought to you by our premier sponsor, The Breakfast Club Coffee Co. In season three, we are building good foundations with your Monday morning wake up. So fill your cup, grab a notebook and let's get going.
Welcome to episode three of the real mom's playbook. I'm your host, Lisa Autry.
Today we are building on our value systems and establishing daily priorities for ourselves. So make sure you have that notebook handy.
I would like to begin this episode by thanking our premier sponsor. The Breakfast Club Coffee Co. is a Christian, mama owned business by Ashleigh and Stacey, who personally pray over every order.
Their coffee is roasted in small batches, which yields super fresh, high quality beans that are insanely delicious. Finally, we moms have a coffee community that supports our need for delicious coffee and aligns with our values, something we take very seriously here at The Daughter Diaries.
Today in my cup is their famous Lou Brew, which is a part of their St. Louis collection. Those Midwest mamas know their coffee and the Lou Brew is a favorite dark roast. I kept mine super simple today with a little bit of organic vanilla creamer and raw sugar, which helped keep the flavor bold.
Click on the Breakfast Club Coffee Co. in the show notes to shop all of their amazing products and you can pick up your Lou Brew.
I'm keeping today short and sweet so you can go take action.
So in the last episode we discussed our values. I hope you're coming today with your top five values list. If you would like some extra help figuring out your values, I highly recommend the Align program where I guide you through the process step by step to help you get clear and lead your days with intention.
Values are our foundation and how we establish our priorities. So if you don't know your values yet, time to pause this episode and test them. I'll be here when you get back.
Those that have their top five values established, time to jump on in.
It's not about just learning what's important, but how to lead with what's most important.
My personal goal for you through this series is I want you to have freedom in your day to connect with God.
I want you to have freedom in your day to connect with yourself. I want you to have freedom in your day to ask, what do I want to create? That's when we know that we're living to a different standard. It's not about asking, what do I have to do next? Or where am I going to have to clean up today?
But it's about showing up in a purposeful way, the way God designed for us. And that's truly impactful.
Don't get overwhelmed thinking about an overhaul. This whole series is about taking the tiny baby steps to make the most of our time and energy. It's all about the power of the compound effect, which are small actions, adding up to big results over time.
I have an amazing quote that sits right next to my desk so I can look at it every single day. And it's my reminder of why I'm doing what I'm doing, like speaking here to you ladies today. So the quote is, the purpose of life is to discover your gift. The work of life is to develop it. The meaning of life is to give your gift away.
And that's David Viscott. I want to give you breath in your day to discover your gifts, talents, and passions. So if you get frustrated and overwhelmed along the way, remember the baby steps we are taking here and now of determining our values and aligning our priorities, help us craft that breath in our time.
Why do so many of us feel out of alignment? Feel like we are constantly running and aimless and feel so burned out. The honest truth, we are overcommitted. That's what most of us moms are. We are running from one thing to another to give our children fulfilled lives, but in turn, we feel like total messes and many times pouring from an empty cup. Today, I'm going to help you refocus your priorities to pave the way for your success.
Look down at your top five values for a moment. If you're driving, keep your eyes on the road, please, and just picture them in your mind.
I want you to go back to the question from episode two. Am I leading with this value each and every single day? Today is going to involve a week long activity and reflection so you can test a new system of schedule creation.
This is what you're going to do. All we're doing is tracking over the next week. I want you to create a list of what you're doing every single day. The objectives you hope to conquer each and every single day. This is known as your task list.
I really recommend doing this the night before and then reflecting in the morning before diving into your day.
It's going to give you more purpose and intention starting the night before. More on this concept in episode six, so stay tuned for that, but just take that little nugget and start doing it and applying it as a habit.
For now, create a list of your daily to dos, also known as your daily task list, like I was just saying.
Next to each item, I want you to ask yourself, what value is aligned with this? Not every item has to have a value, but this is to help you see if your actions are aligned with your priorities. So, for example, you could write down on your task list, go for a walk, and if that's aligned with your health value, say health is one of your values, then you would write health next to it.
This can be a little bit challenging to understand as you're listening to me and trying to picture it in your mind. So within the show notes, I created a link called Lisa's Monday Task List, and I've included how this can look visually. So you can format yours however makes most sense to you, but it's how I've listed it so I can clearly see my tasks, the value that corresponds with it, and the checklist.
So did I get it done or not? And so that's going to help you see. So when you look at it, it's like mine is Monday. And so the far left column is, is this complete? You know, it's my check box. Then it's the task. So, okay, what task is it? And then is it associated with a value?
And so that helps you see what kind of tasks are you doing? Are you doing meaningless tasks or meaningful tasks? So make sure you open that link in the show notes, because that's going to help you visualize what I'm talking about. At the bottom of the page, I also wrote my values so you can see how I'm putting them in next to the tasks. So keep track of what you accomplished through the week with a check mark, the objectives that you accomplish, check mark that off. That is a immediate endorphin release and it helps you see what you're actually doing throughout the day.
At the end of the week, I want you to tally how many objectives based on your values that you accomplished.
So at the end of the week, you can say, Oh, I hit my health with 10 objectives or I literally did not work on my health at all. That's okay. It's not time to beat yourself up. It's about making changes going forward. Right? So you're like, Hmm, how do I need to change my schedule going forward? And that's going to help you really adapt and be proactive with your schedule versus reactive.
So based on the example, you can look at how many times you walked, which is my health value, and see how many times I showed up for my health.
The results of this may surprise you. So once you get to the end of the week, then it's time to reflect. Which value was your top priority based on the objectives completed through the week?
Which value did you spend the least amount of time on? Was there a value you spent no time on? When we see our priorities listed out and reconcile it between how we are actually spending our time, it helps us realize where our energy is really going. A lot of times we don't actually see what we're doing and this is a chance for you to be really proactive with it and say, okay, now I'm going to craft my way forward.
Are you filling your time with a lot of meaningless tasks or top value priorities? After the first week, I want you to continue this method of list creation and values, but I want you to shape how you're going to spend your time going forward.
It's time to be proactive with your time. What changes do you need to make in order to incorporate a value maybe you weren't spending any time on?
If there's an objective or a task in your schedule that's not in your value system, I want you to answer these four questions.
Question one, do I have to continue completing this objective? Question two, is there a way I need to do it that will take some of the burden off of me? Question three, am I able to drop this objective from my daily task list? And question four, if I cannot drop this objective, can I delegate it and get it off my plate?
So this is the beginning of reestablishing your priorities. So if you look at my Monday task list, I wrote down laundry and I wrote three loads cause I had to do three loads and I didn't put a value next to it. I guess in some way, if I was really digging deep, it's for my family, right, cause we all need clothes, but it's really not important to me.
I honestly cannot stand laundry, but I can't drop it and I really can't delegate it. So I adjusted laundry into my schedule to take some of the burden off. So it's not a mental load on me constantly. And a mental load is things that are sitting on your mind all the time. And really, when you look at your daily task list, that's supposed to take things off of your mental load.
So more on this in the home system segment that's coming, but I want you guys to think if I can't drop or delegate something, how can I take the burden off of it? Because that's going to help you be more intentional and purposeful versus reactive. Too many of us moms huff and puff through the day, feeling used up and not making any changes.
First, we need to gain that clarity, and that's what the activity is for. Then we need to reflect to see what adjustments we can make going forward. More often than not, we are over committed to things that really aren't important to us. So the big question for you to take going forward is how can I craft my time in alignment with my priorities?
Remember each step you are making brings you closer to living in alignment with the things that are truly important to you. Time to gain clarity on your priorities and make adjustments moving forward.
That's it for today. Until next time, I'm Lisa Autry. Thank you for joining me for The Real Moms Playbook, which has been made possible by our amazing sponsor, The Breakfast Club Coffee Co.
Make sure you check the show notes for links and access to the resources from today's episode. If you love this podcast, make sure you subscribe, rate, and share. See you next time. I'm Lisa Autry, and this is The Real Moms Playbook.