Kayla, wife and mother of three, discusses her recent mindset transformation with Jillian.
Discovering That Something Was Missing
A few months ago, Kayla was hired on as Jillian’s executive assistant. Since Jillian was going off to a conference, she asked Kayla to work through some of Jillian’s free training materials and life planning tools to learn more about the brand. During this process, Kayla had a wake-up call.
At first, it felt like an anxiety attack to go through the process. Although some questions were easy to answer, others were extremely difficult and personal. Kayla realized that she had to really know herself to answer these questions and she had no idea where to start.
I just sat there and realized how far my life had gone and that I had no idea who I personally was outside of mom, wife, church secretary. That I just had no idea.
Jillian has noticed that many people come to this awakening at some point. Whether you got married young or have been in a career role for many years, at some point in your 30s, you might look around to ask if this is really your life.
A Turning Point
For Kayla, the first thing she noticed was that she couldn’t plan out an ideal day.
If I was given five hours that I wasn’t responsible for my kids, my husband, any of those things happening, I had no idea what I would even do anymore. So for me, that was the catalyst there.
For years, she had felt exhausted and written it off to the fact that she had three kids. After all, no one sleeps when they have three kids. At some point, she realized that there was more to it than that.
Kayla deeply believes in doing what you are called to do by the Lord. As she looked at her life, she didn’t feel like she was living up to His calling. Although she was trying extremely hard to be the perfect mom with Pinterest perfect parties, she didn’t enjoy that daily grind. She didn’t enjoy feeling like she was failing at these expectations that society has placed on mothers.
As she worked through these emotions, she realized that it is completely okay to pick up party invitations at Walmart. Kayla realized that everything doesn’t have to be perfect all of the time.
Internal Work
As soon as she realized that she wasn’t sure what she wanted, the first thing she did was text Jillian. Jillian’s advice was to carefully assess what things in life bought Kayla joy.
I needed to start paying attention to the things that I enjoy, the things that I felt really good at. And then to start testing and scaling out those things.
Kayla started to pay attention to what made her feel good at both of her jobs. She also started to take a closer look at her personal life. Instead of glossing over the day, she looked for the parts that she loved and the parts that she didn’t enjoy.
After careful consideration, Kayla determined that she loved event planning and wanted to spend more time doing that. She proved to herself by working with Jillian to create a work retreat that she was good at creating events even if her family wasn’t involved.
Just Say No
As she realized what she enjoyed, Kayla had to start saying no to things that she didn’t enjoy. Throughout this process, Kayla was overwhelmed with two jobs and attempting to learn this about herself. Saying no became more about survival than anything else. It was difficult to learn how to say no, but it became obvious that she needed to do this on a regular basis.
In her personal life, she started to say no to extracurriculars for her kids because she just didn’t have the time to drive three kids all over town.
We are going to figure out, for all of us in our family, what is really important to each of us. What each of us feels like we are supposed to be doing and our family is working so much better because of that.
As a family, learning to say no has really allowed them to focus on their values.
It’s really important to remember that saying yes to one thing means that you are saying no to something else.
Once she realized that she had to make choices, she started paying attention to where the yes’s and no’s were falling. It was important to Kayla to make sure that her values were reflected in these answers.
Moving Forward
All of this internal work allowed Kayla to move forward. One of the steps she had to take was quitting as Jillian’s personal assistant.
After spending a week in an emotionally difficult place of jumping back and forth between quitting and not, a moment of clarity happened. When she woke up, she had to do tasks for both Jillian and her other job that day. However, she felt like the tasks at her other job were more in line with the life she wanted to build for herself. With that, she quit her second job as Jillian’s assistant.
I love people doing these exercises and doing this internal work because it does become a filter, it becomes the clarifying lens of what the right decision is.
When she started making these decisions, she felt like life slowed down while she intentionally worked through each decision. Once she moved forward in this area of her life, she was able to move forward in other areas as well. In the past two weeks, she has assessed her college GPA, determined what classes she would need to become a certified event planner, and agreed to go on a trip with her parents.
It is amazing once we get a little bit of clarity in one area of our life and we start taking action how then the ball really starts to move a lot quicker and we start to get some traction. Its just that process of getting unstuck.
Everyone in her life has noticed a positive change. As you move down this path of intentionality, surround yourself with people that know and love you. Make sure to be authentic with these people and take their suggestions seriously. You never know where this journey will lead you.
Find Your Courage
If you have been enjoying these episodes and want to dig deeper, then check out our Everyday Courage workbook. The free workbook can help you to take these ideas and turn them into action. Let’s create your best year ever!
Related Episodes:
- Find Three Compelling Goals for the Decade
- Celebrating Before Your Best Year Ever
- How To Lean In And Find Focus
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