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107. Plan Your Joy · Impact Ready

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  Hey team, welcome to the Impact Ready podcast.
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  I'm so glad you're here today. This episode I want to talk
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  about planning for joy, planning your joy.
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  We always talk about how to time block and schedule things into
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  your life. And the main reason we talk
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  about any of that is because being prepared to be impactful,
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  being prepared, being consistent, that is one of the
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  best ways to have a great effect.
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  It's also one of the best ways for you to be the creator of
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  your life and actually get what you want in your life.
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  And so I've been thinking about this a lot, especially in light
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  of what's going on in my family's life, what's going on
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  in the world, what's going on for clients.
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  There is so much on our plates. There's so much that we have to
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  think about, so many responsibilities.
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  And just as we plan for those things, just as they are
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  incredibly important to be time blocking and scheduling, we also
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  have to think about planning joy into our lives because we think
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  that joy is just something that falls into our laps and that's
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  the only way that we really experience it.
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  And it can happen that way, absolutely.
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  And that's part of the beautiful thing about life is unexpected
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  things happen, miracles happen, beautiful things happen, But
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  it's not always like that. And if it's something that we
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  want more of, if we want more joy and peace and fulfillment
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  and fun, couldn't we be intentional about it?
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  Couldn't we be just as intentional about planning for
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  it as we are the other things in our life?
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  Why wouldn't that work? It does.
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  It does work. I was recently working with my
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  mastermind group, group of people that I meet with twice a
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  month and we're all working on our businesses and we always
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  meet and talk about the things that are important to us and the
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  plans and the goals. It's awesome.
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  But what I realized is when we recently met in person, everyone
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  was talking about how they were feeling a little bit burned,
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  just a little bit burned out, a little bit tired because
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  everyone in this group is pushing hard and grinding and
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  trying to create this great business and the structure and,
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  and the dream, everything that they're doing is is worthy and
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  beautiful and awesome. But they're feeling a little
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  burned out. And what I noticed and what came
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  up in our conversation is a lot of it's because they're not
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  planning for the fun and the joy in the play.
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  They're so great and just skilled at time blocking and
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  scheduling all of the things that need to be done for the
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  business, for the work aspect, and then also for family, right?
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  But they leave themselves out of the equation so much.
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  And this is particular to this season because there's, you
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  know, everybody's working really hard on specific things, but I
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  noticed it was kind of across the board and I noticed that in
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  my clients as well, they all are pretty high performers.
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  They work really hard. But that thing that is often
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  missing for people is the joy piece.
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  And so I want to talk a little bit more about how to
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  incorporate that. How do we plan for joy?
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  How do we create a space for the stuff that really makes life
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  worthwhile and beautiful? Because really, that's what it's
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  all about. And you hear me say this all the
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  time. All of our pursuits, almost all
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  of our goals, all of the achievements that we're working
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  towards, they're to experience a feeling.
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  And often we want to experience feelings like pride and
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  confidence and achievement, worthiness, joy, excitement,
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  enthusiasm, creativity. We want to experience those
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  feelings. What is stopping us from
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  experiencing them now? That's the big question.
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  We should be experiencing them now.
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  That is what life is about. And we don't know what life
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  holds for us. We can't say how much time we
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  have left. We don't know if we have 40
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  years or 10 years or a year. And so to delay the stuff that
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  life is all about, it just seems crazy to me.
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  And yet we do it all the time. One of my best friends, his name
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  is Mark. We have this saying that we use
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  together. And it's often us saying we need
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  to get a carrot on the schedule or we'll say I need a carrot or
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  yeah, let's plan this. That's going to be a great
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  carrot. And what we're referencing is
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  that idea of a horse being encouraged to keep moving along
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  because you're hanging a carrot in front of its face.
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  And so we're calling these moments of fun and joy and play.
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  We we refer to it as the carrot. And so we'll often be texting
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  with each other and saying like, hey dude, we got to get a carrot
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  on the schedule. And it's our language for how we
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  plan for joy. And it's silly, but we know
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  exactly what we mean when we're texting back and forth about it.
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  Mark is one of the hardest working guys I know.
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  He's gotten a million projects happening at once and he
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  recognizes the importance of having a carrot on the schedule.
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  And same for me. It's something that we
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  intentionally try to plan. There's a lot of power to that
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  and it speaks to the fact that we don't want to be working all
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  the time. We can't always be in the
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  structured, levelled framework of the world where we produce
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  and we create and we follow a plan.
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  We have to have these infusions of joy and play and fun.
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  You know, people always like to call it work life balance.
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  I don't know if there ever is a true balance, and I'm actually
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  really OK with that now. I just think we have to find the
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  right mix for us in every season of our life, for our family, for
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  what fills us up, what makes us feel purposeful and allows us to
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  feel like we're the creators of our lives.
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  So how do you plan for joy? That's often the question that
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  people ask me. It's not difficult.
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  It's the same way that you would time block or schedule anything
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  in your life. The first thing I would say is
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  to identify what brings you joy. What is important to you in this
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  season of your life? What is it that makes you feel
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  light, makes you feel like the best version of yourself, makes
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  you feel like you are operating in a high frequency?
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  When you can figure that out, then you can start to identify
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  where to plug it into your schedule.
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  So the first step is figure out what brings you joy.
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  Second step, communicate that. Communicate it to your spouse,
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  your kids, whoever you need to tell so that you can be on the
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  same page about, hey, this is really worthy to me right now.
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  This is important to me. We need to prioritize these
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  things. You know, there's times in, in
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  my life where Leanne and I have looked at each other and we just
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  say, you know what, we need to have a little bit more fun.
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  Even recently she was like, I need to have more fun.
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  And it's true because we've been working at a pace that's really
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  fast and hard. We're dealing with, you know,
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  breast cancer treatment and all this stuff that's really heavy
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  and we need to be infusing more of the joy and more of the fun
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  into our life. And she's right.
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  We got to schedule it. So this is just another reminder
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  for us that we need to prioritize that kind of work.
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  And then the third thing, really simple, put it on the damn
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  calendar. Put it on the calendar.
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  It doesn't have to be a big trip.
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  It doesn't have to be a big getaway.
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  It can just be the little things.
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  But if you schedule them, they're much more likely to
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  happen, like 80% more likely to happen when you put them on the
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  calendar. This stuff works, guys.
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  It really does. We just have to be intentional
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  and thoughtful about what it is that's important to us.
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  And I know that the work and the progress and the pursuits, I
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  know how important those are, but I also know how important it
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  is to be present and enjoy in your life.
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  And we just have to prioritize it.
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  So I would say my challenge to you this week is to discover
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  what is the carrot for you. Can you schedule and plan to
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  have a few carrots on your calendar for yourself, for your
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  family, so that you don't get that burned out feeling and you
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  can really enjoy every day of your life and not just the days
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  where you feel like you've done enough or you've hit that
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  milestone. That's not what a life is about
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  really. You can mine it out every single
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  day, feel the joy, experience a little bit of fun, and it's just
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  a matter of being intentional about it.
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  So I hope that's helpful today, find the carrots, figure out
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  what brings you joy and put them on the calendar, See what
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  happens. I'm really excited.
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  I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for listening.
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  And as always, thank you for being ready to impact.