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Life Audit: Designing an Intentional Life · Many Things with Steph Libby

0:01
Hello.
0:01
Hello.
0:02
Welcome to another episode of Solitary Creature.
0:05
I'm Steph and I am documenting the messy long process of living a more mindful and intentional life.
0:14
How can I move my life forward? That's the big question for today.
0:19
Call it a rut.
0:20
Call it feeling stuck.
0:22
Call it decision paralysis, call it overload a crash out a burnout.
0:29
How do you create sustainable momentum? How do you get going and keep going and trust that you're moving in the right direction.
0:38
That's why we're talking about goal setting and planning, specifically a life audit.
0:44
It's exactly as it sounds and you may have already done one yourself.
0:49
It's, I think, become quite popular of a practice.
0:53
For anyone that's not familiar, you take stock of different areas of your life, career, relationship, finances, health, evaluate all those areas and then set.
1:05
Intentional changes for improvement and create a plan.
1:09
It's an act of self-reflection.
1:11
You're designing an intentional life.
1:13
The goal is authenticity, alignment with your core values, being able to recognize your true desires and what you really want for yourself and for your life, and filtering out all of the external noise to make room for your own voice and path to feel more happiness and fulfillment in your life.
1:32
But a life audit is not.
1:34
Just about setting a goal.
1:35
You audit regularly, you routinely revisit it, you set new goals.
1:41
a lot of people do it like every quarter and look, call it what you want, right? Life audit is just another way of looking in the mirror and creating a plan.
1:52
But to me, like it sounds.
1:54
Very substantial and very official.
1:57
Sometimes the language we use can help motivate and for whatever reason, something about this life audit has really clicked for me.
2:06
I don't know if it's just 'cause like I'm a type A person, so you throw audit in there and, and that sounds.
2:13
Amazing.
2:14
It just sounds like very dutiful and rigorous, it sounds serious, so maybe I'll end up taking it more seriously, who knows? But it life audit sounds like something Oprah would write an article about.
2:28
So I am all on board.
2:31
My life doesn't feel like it's working right now.
2:35
And I wanna take a deeper look at that and figure out how to fix it.
2:41
And I'm just gonna have a small disclaimer here because I am recording in a old millhouse in cold New England.
2:50
It's snowing out, so my heater is kicking on.
2:54
And by heater old water.
2:56
Radiators like the big ones in old timey movies.
3:00
So if you hear like a whistling in the background or some sort of noise in the background, I'm gonna try my hardest to extract it and take it out, but I don't know that I have the skills for that yet.
3:10
So please just bear with me.
3:12
I it's really cold today, so the heat just keeps clicking on and on.
3:16
So anyways, that's my caveat.
3:19
I can't remember how I found out about the term life audit, and it was probably Instagram.
3:26
Very likely Instagram, but the idea was intriguing.
3:29
It just sits on the edge of, it's like on the edge of woo woo and like new age and spiritual stuff that I can get behind and like actually wrap my head around.
3:39
'cause sometimes that stuff is just too esoteric for me and that's coming from someone who loves pretty esoteric stuff, but.
3:46
To be fair, life audits have been around for forever and it's evolved into different versions and I feel every few years it goes through like whatever the name is at the time.
3:57
And I think a couple years ago someone just started calling it a life audit and it became more popular, but I think even therapists have done this exercise, like the Wheel of Life or if you hear anything like that, that's also a life audit.
4:09
It's, it's essentially the same exercise, different dressing, different name.
4:14
I'm awful at goal setting.
4:16
I can set a goal.
4:17
I love setting goals.
4:19
I love the process of setting an attention.
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I love the excitement and the rush I get when I think about what I want and how to get there.
4:27
It's always the follow through That is tricky and that's probably how it is for everybody.
4:31
But I can set a goal, but I'm awful at tracking it, at measuring it.
4:37
I'm often going back to start.
4:39
I lack consistency.
4:41
I always have.
4:42
That's probably why consistency is such a sticking point for me with other people.
4:47
But setting a goal is fun, right? Like imagining.
4:51
What getting to the other side looks like is invigorating, but once the goal is set and it's time to actually get to work, it's such a bummer.
5:00
I ride this high of thinking about the possibilities, about the outcome, and then I come crashing down.
5:06
When reality sets in and I'm looking ahead at all the work in front of me, it's overwhelming.
5:12
It's disappointing, it's daunting.
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I question my ability.
5:15
I get hit with a wave of imposter syndrome, worry sets in, fear sets in, and eventually.
5:21
Paralysis sets in, I do nothing.
5:23
I get depressed.
5:25
Then eventually I get re-inspired and the cycle starts all over again.
5:29
I'm desperate to break that cycle.
5:31
I've wasted so much time being stuck in the cycle, and at the heart of that cycle is a lack of confidence.
5:39
A lack of trust in myself and a belief that I'm just not good enough.
5:43
And if you don't believe in yourself, it makes it almost impossible to stick with anything.
5:49
I end up telling myself that it's a waste of time and effort.
5:53
Why? Why do I, I don't, why do I do that? Why do I self-sabotage? Why do I give up before I've even started? Why do I have this narrative in my head that I am undeserving or not as good as anybody else when most of the time the people I'm comparing myself to? I started right where I'm starting and that big response I have to goal setting, that cycle that I fall into demonstrates how bad I am at goal setting because I think if you set good reasonable goals, it shouldn't feel that overwhelming or impossible.
6:23
I set myself up for failure from the jump almost every single time, even when I set up mini goals to hit, to help me reach that bigger goal, specifically to combat the daunting feeling.
6:36
One of two things will happen.
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One, the mini goals are so broad that they are immeasurable, so progress can't really be tracked and evaluated.
6:44
Two, the mini goals are so specific that I leave no room for life, and life always happens, and then I feel like I'm falling behind and then there's a wave of pressure and I can't get caught up, and then I crash, so I end up falling back into that cycle again.
7:01
The trouble is I like most people want those big results right away.
7:06
We want to feel the change, we wanna feel the impact.
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And for some goals, that's really, really difficult.
7:13
There's not always the instant gratification, or at least we don't sit with the small goals.
7:18
We're hitting long enough to appreciate the gratification maybe we could be getting from them.
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When I don't feel like my sacrifice is paying off, when I feel like I'm not getting anything in return for my hard work, I give up.
7:31
And I know that that's a very bad trait, but that's like a hard, deeply rooted response that's very hard to break.
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It's a big mindset shift.
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And it's something to consider with my goal setting as well, like how to, how.
7:46
You are setting goals to break the cycle, but within those goals you also need to break that cycle.
7:51
As I'm thinking about setting these goals, I'm also thinking in the back of my head, are there ways to either create small goals that could give me that little dopamine hit that I'm looking for, that I get when I'm.
8:04
Picturing the goals.
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Or like when I set up a vision board, it's the same result.
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It's great, I want all these things.
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And then it's okay, all that creative energy is done.
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I created my vision board.
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And then it's well, now I have to like actually go after those things.
8:15
So are there ways to either create small goals that could give me that little dopamine hit that I'm looking for, that instant gratification or some sort of gratification and.
8:29
How can I take time to appreciate the small bits of work I am doing to get closer to those bigger goals, like sitting down with myself and giving myself a pat on the back because accomplishing anything is always done in tiny bits that accumulate.
8:45
It's funny to me that I find that statement incredibly inspiring and motivating and also completely overwhelming, and I guess.
8:55
That's the crux of the problem, isn't it? So since it's the end of the year, I'm recording this in almost mid-December, and I love a New Year's resolution.
9:08
I thought a life audit would be a great thing to try.
9:12
I'm at a place right now where I'm trying to figure out a lot, relationships, career, creativity, my body, my mental health, thinking about my future, and setting my next.
9:21
My next financial goals really honing in on what I want out of life.
9:26
I want to redesign my life.
9:28
I wanna be more intentional with my time, my emotions, my money, my body.
9:32
I wanna feel passionate about life.
9:35
I wanna feel fulfilled and whole and well-rounded As a person, I wanna stop dreaming about the person I wanna be and start working towards being that person.
9:47
My life needs a reboot.
9:50
A glow up.
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I need to feel like I have purpose.
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So here we are, a life audit.
10:00
So first I have to say I love the name.
10:04
I, I, it sounds very serious and formal and also a little mellow, dramatic.
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Either way, it's supposed to help you get real and identify what matters to you.
10:14
So you know where to focus your energy in order to create the life you want.
10:17
And again, it's all about intentionality.
10:19
It's the what and the how, but also the why.
10:23
You're diving deeper into what you want and why you want it and how you're gonna get it.
10:28
And going through this exercise of a life audit has made me feel more empowered, more in control, instead of just like feeling like life is just happening to me and.
10:42
I'm, and feeling like I am just trapped in the current, trying to keep my head above water.
10:50
I thought a life audit would be helpful because I always feel really torn.
10:55
I can be really decisive about some things, but a lot of things, especially when it comes to prioritizing and really going after goals that have no external motivators, I falter.
11:09
I thought a life audit would help me figure out what truly are the most important things I want so I can prioritize those over others.
11:18
Because as I struggle with a lot of things, that's also an area that I struggle a lot with.
11:24
I create so many goals that I can't possibly support them all and make time for all at once.
11:31
So even if I were to follow through on, a number of items, I would still.
11:35
I end up feeling like I'm not doing enough.
11:38
I'm not good enough.
11:40
So this way, with an audit, I can be honest with myself and make a real course of action, a real plan, not chaos, mass as a plan.
11:50
That's where I've fallen into and the past, and I'm hoping that by sharing this life audit and my thoughts around it on this podcast, that it'll help hold me accountable.
12:01
I think I like having a wide chaotic plan because it means I'm not really committing myself to anything in particular.
12:09
If I have no direction, then there's no real stakes.
12:12
I'm not going out on a limb for anything I am.
12:15
I'm really risk averse by nature.
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I don't like taking chances, so it's a really comfortable place for me to think about tackling.
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Everything at once, which deep gen I know is impossible.
12:26
So I already know from the start like this isn't gonna work out.
12:29
No big deal.
12:31
All this to say that I obviously need to do things differently and I feel really ready to do whatever it takes to actually build and design a life.
12:40
I actually want a life that feels authentic and true.
12:44
A life that feels like me, not just living a life that I happen to fall into.
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So there are a million places online where you can go and, and read about life audits.
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But the, the cliff, no.
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Basically is this.
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Step one, reflect on your life.
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Pick six to 10 key areas.
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I'm using mind, body, love, friends and family, creativity, work, money, fun slash hobbies and home.
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And then you rate each area one to 10 and explain why.
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So I'm actually gonna walk you through a bit of what I did because I just think it might be helpful.
13:25
What I liked about this exercise is it made me look really holistically at my life.
13:30
Too often I have this tunnel vision and that makes it really hard to see the big picture I get so.
13:37
Focused on this one thing that happened to me, or I throw all my energy at one time towards one particular part of my life and completely neglect the rest, and then my life and emotions capsize from the imbalance.
13:51
I really thought going into this that I already knew what the outcome would be.
13:55
After all, I'm someone who feels really at home with personal development, what's this life audit gonna tell me that I don't already know? That's where my thought was going into it.
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Aren't I always pondering these big questions? I was pleasantly surprised, honestly.
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It went in a direction I didn't necessarily think it was going to, and the calm I walked out of when I, I finally completed the life audit.
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Which took me several days, but once I finally completed, I actually felt a lot better than I have in honestly, probably weeks or months.
14:27
And I feel like I have a crazy clarity now that maybe I should have had all along, but I just had clarity that like I did not expect, i've never put a number on my happiness in any of these areas, and I'm not sure that I looked at these different parts of my life in relation to one another.
14:48
I am mostly, I, I've mostly just compartmentalize each as their own separate silos, so nothing feels conducive to the other.
14:57
And, and putting a number on my mental health, my body was a.
15:01
Powerful exercise.
15:02
I usually live in a very black and white kind of mindset.
15:07
I'm trying to get out of that black and white mindset more and more, but that's usually where I live.
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And especially with evaluating happiness, I always think of happiness as like black or white.
15:15
I'm either happy or I'm not.
15:17
I never really thought about the fact that it could be a scale and like a rating and that, there can be like a, a middle, there can be, like, you can, you can exist in the in between.
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And I, I just had never thought about it like that before.
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I either feel good about my body or not.
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I feel good about my finances or not.
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It had not occurred to me and I really had to pause and think about how I feel in each area.
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And I don't know if I've taken the time to pause like that before.
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In the past, working in these silos, I've ended up with really amazing but separate visions or goals, but none of them really aligned together.
15:54
They didn't, wins in one area wouldn't necessarily help me win in another area, but by looking at them all separately and then together, it really did help me see a path through from one to another this time around.
16:07
It just clicked.
16:07
I feel like I've been struggling and, and things just like really clicked with this life audit, so I'm not saying that it'll definitely work for you, but I, I honestly feel like if you haven't tried it and you're struggling in a lot of the same ways, like I have, and that's what's drawn you to this podcast and you're listening to it and you're just like.
16:22
I, I say give it a whirl like I thought it was, I did think full disclosure, I did think it was stupid when I first read about it.
16:30
I just thought this is just self-reflection dressed up as a new term or whatever.
16:35
Like it's not gonna be anything but it, something clicked.
16:39
I don't know how to describe it.
16:40
I don't know if it was like right method at the right time or, or what, but something has really clicked this time and I'm very excited about it.
16:48
Another thing that this life audit did that was really interesting was it reinforced the idea of.
16:53
Prioritization.
16:55
Usually I lie to myself and say that I'm prioritizing, but I'm not.
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Instead I make everything a priority and then nothing's really a priority, and then I just have really bad decision paralysis because there's no obvious first choice or clear direction.
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It's all just.
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Gets jumbled together, and that feels really overwhelming.
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And the message becomes like you have to do everything at once, which is impossible.
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And I feel like a failure because I have no focus.
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And then I haphazardly work on things, but it never amounts to anything.
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And I don't get that snowball effect, which is what I, which is what I really want.
17:37
Now I had a lot.
17:40
Of really, really low scoring areas, which wasn't really a surprise.
17:45
And at first that did feel really overwhelming and that is like a big caveat that I guess I would, I would give to all of this.
17:52
I was like.
17:53
I'm surprised that I was as receptive to the scoring idea as I was given the fact that I felt so low about everything and I felt burnt out lately, and it just, I, it could have easily.
18:05
I, I do see how like doing this kind of take total stock of everything in your life could seem very overwhelming at face value, especially if you're in a place where everything already feels very overwhelming.
18:17
But, and at first it did for me because my mind immediately went back to that mode of okay, now how am I gonna attack all of these things at once? But that's not the point.
18:25
Even just recognizing that habit of mine, that like knee jerk reaction to fix everything all at once was revelatory.
18:33
Like first I think it shows how deeply ingrained my fixer mentality is.
18:39
I think it also really showed how unreasonable I can be.
18:43
And also opened my eyes to how I'm creating and feeding into my own stress by not focusing and prioritizing I'm part of the problem.
18:54
So all of that aside I wanted, I, that was long-winded, but I wanted to just like, give a sense of my mindset going into it.
19:04
And and now I'm gonna, so now we can look at.
19:09
Where I, where I scored and why.
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So I'm gonna start off with mind.
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I gave mind a six for my score of one to 10.
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It was my highest scoring category.
19:20
So I'm gonna talk about the least.
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I think my mindset in a lot of ways is, is in a healthy, good spot.
19:27
Am I stressed? Yes.
19:28
Am I a little sad and confused? Yes.
19:30
But I know I have the foundation to get my mind right.
19:32
And I know that when I'm not feeling right in my mind, it's.
19:37
I, I'm trying to figure out things in other areas of my life.
19:41
I rated a six.
19:44
Things to work on to make it a 10.
19:47
Because that's also a, a part of this.
19:49
I don't know if I said this, after you rate it one through 10 and you think about like, why am I giving it that score? What's working, what's not working? You want to think about what your life at, like a level 10 would look like in that area.
20:01
Things to work on to make it a 10.
20:03
Like confidence, emotional regulation, codependency, more positive mindset.
20:08
Basically like everything we, I talk about on this podcast, but, i, I just wanna feel confident in my own body.
20:14
I wanna feel like I have control over my emotions.
20:16
I wanna feel like I have boundaries and I am po.
20:20
I, I would like to be a more positive person, just around.
20:23
I would like to, my first thought, when confronted with something not to be pessimism to me that would be like a level 10 l, a level 10 for mind.
20:32
Just feeling at home in my own body and in my own mind being able to manage my stress and the emotions and the things that feed into my stress, that would be great.
20:42
The next category I had was body.
20:45
I read it a two.
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Also, probably not a shocker if you've listened to some of my past episodes.
20:50
It was my lowest scoring category and this was a hard one to face, even though I knew this area would score.
20:57
Really low anyways.
20:59
Obviously, I've spent a few episodes talking about my relationship with my body, so I'm not gonna go into all of that here.
21:05
You can go back and look at those episodes from earlier this fall.
21:09
My, the relationship with my body is getting worse with age.
21:11
For me, body isn't just about weight.
21:12
It.
21:13
Skin how I dress, it's how I feel in my body.
21:16
It's my overall health.
21:17
It's is my body in pain.
21:19
So it's not just looks and physicality like that.
21:23
It's, it's a lot of different things.
21:24
Am I nourishing my body like things to make it a 10, not, not be so stiff.
21:30
Be limber, be flexible.
21:32
Eating for fuel first and fun second, having a routine, skin skincare routine, regular movement, having structure like.
21:42
I, I sometimes will do a really great skincare routine in the morning and then forget to do it at night, or I'll do it at night, but not in the morning.
21:49
So just like more consistency and more routine.
21:51
I wanna feel proud and at home in my body, like that's what a 10 would be to me.
21:55
I wanna feel comfortable and have my glow back.
21:57
I feel like over the last few years.
22:01
My, my shine has decreased.
22:03
I haven't been thinking about my body as much.
22:06
Part of that is being in a relationship.
22:07
Part of that is being in a relationship with a lot of ups and a lot of downs that took its toll physically, mentally, emotionally.
22:15
And just finding my way back to myself.
22:19
The next category was creativity.
22:22
And so I rated this a three.
22:25
And that was a hard one for me to write too because my, I like to think of myself as a creative person, so it was like really disheartening to put a three next to creativity.
22:34
But it felt right.
22:35
It did feel right.
22:36
My creativity feels really tapped right now.
22:40
My tank is empty and I think my creative outlets are.
22:43
Really limited.
22:45
It's pretty much just writing.
22:46
And I guess this podcast, but that's still just like a lot of writing.
22:50
It would be nice if there were other things I enjoy doing creatively other than just writing or if I'm not doing creative things, at least I'm at least experiencing creative things.
23:01
I feel like that's also really missing from my life.
23:04
I've really been.
23:07
Missing those days of sitting around on campus and, and talking about books and writing with people.
23:13
When I was doing it, it felt so trite and showoffy.
23:18
And I felt like we were just like sitting like silly.
23:21
Like we were all playing characters in a movie about wannabe writers and artists and that.
23:27
And that was.
23:29
But that was just us being passionate about writing and creation and words and art.
23:34
I thought it was so cringey then and now I, I really, I feel like I missed out.
23:38
So things that could make creativity a 10 consistency.
23:43
I want to be the person who gets up every morning and writes, I wanna immerse myself in creativity.
23:49
I wanna try new things.
23:51
I wanna experience new things.
23:52
I wanna.
23:53
Feel like I'm not missing out or holding back.
23:56
I wanna surround myself with other creatives and be around other creative energy.
24:00
So whether that is like making time to go to a museum, going to book readings maybe doing like a book group or whatever.
24:09
Like just I wanna be around creative energy.
24:13
And, and part of that too is like, when I think about how I would actually like, implement this into a plan, I, it could be as simple as.
24:21
Read more, listen to podcasts instead of watching tv.
24:26
Like I love listening to interviews with like other writers, artists, singers, actors in conversation with each other.
24:37
And so even that can just get my creative juices flowing.
24:41
So that was creativity for career.
24:44
I rated my, I rated that a three.
24:48
I.
24:50
Don't think this score again would come as a shock to anyone who's been listening recently.
24:55
I'm really struggling with this right now.
24:57
And things to make it a 10.
25:00
I, I feel aimless, like that's, it's a three because I feel aimless.
25:04
I don't feel like I have direction.
25:05
I don't know that I have a co career per se.
25:09
I feel like I have a job right now and I, I don't, the job that I have in the career I've been working towards, I really don't wanna make more of my career.
25:17
But anyway, I, there have been a lot of career related shifts in my life the past couple of weeks also.
25:22
So I'm gonna do like a, a separate episode about all that soon enough.
25:26
But things that could make career a 10 find work that I'm passionate about and that also pays well.
25:33
Like it is that crazy? I guess it is, but it shouldn't be, I don't think work, find work that I find stimulating work where I feel confident and accomplished.
25:43
No more imposter syndrome.
25:45
I wanna.
25:46
Like the work that I'm doing, I wanna feel like the work I'm doing adds to the world, adds value to the world.
25:52
I want a career that that merges with my creativity.
25:56
I don't wanna have a boss.
25:58
I want autonomy.
26:00
I wanna work from home.
26:01
I want flexibility.
26:03
So those were all like big things that I needed to admit to myself that I don't know if I fully.
26:10
Admitted or embraced.
26:11
I think they've always just been on the sideline well, this would be nice to have, if I didn't have a boss.
26:15
And it's if you don't want a boss, you really need to figure out what you're doing, Stephanie, because there's only so many jobs where you don't have a boss, so anyways, I guess if you don't have a boss specifically, you're always answering to someone, right? If you have your own company, you're still answering to clients, I don't know if this is helpful for you listening to me go on and on and on about these things.
26:36
I hope it is, and I hope you're picking up and I hope what you're picking up on is the amount of thinking that I'm doing, how I'm weighing these things and how I'm thinking about.
26:50
What better and best look like for me in each of these areas? So hopefully you're, you're able to do the same thing.
26:56
I always find it helpful when someone kind of walks me through their thinking, so that's like what I'm trying to do here.
27:01
At times, it has been overwhelming, as I said, like in part because I've been grappling with a lot of overwhelming feelings in general and feeling all over the place.
27:10
And it started to feel like I was.
27:13
Just making an even longer to-do list for myself or revisiting how my life sucks.
27:18
But as I kept moving through the exercise, I kept reminding myself that this is just to help me define where I'm at and where I wanna get going.
27:28
This is full life stuff.
27:30
This isn't, let's fix everything right now, right? This year, this is where do I ultimately wanna go? What is true happiness? For me, and the more I kept reminding myself of that, the more I allowed myself to open up about what a level 10 life really looks like for me.
27:47
So the next category I had was money.
27:52
And I rated that a five and that one surprised me in a good way.
27:56
Money is a big stressor for me, but when I really look at it, I'm not in dire straits.
28:01
It's not great.
28:02
It's not perfect.
28:03
I am paycheck to paycheck of course, but I'm doing okay right now.
28:07
My bills are paid.
28:08
I'm talking a little money away.
28:10
I'm slowly paying down debt.
28:12
It's definitely not a 10, but it's also not a two or a three either.
28:16
I wanna make more money and feel like I'm thriving instead of just surviving and, and it's definitely something I wanna address and it's definitely something I wanna address and work on this year.
28:26
So it's a, so it's a five for me.
28:30
Things to make it a 10.
28:32
Financial freedom, more monthly income, more savings.
28:35
Have that safety net of an actual emergency fund.
28:38
Max out retirement accounts.
28:40
Be a savvy investor.
28:41
Live a life where I live, well within my means.
28:45
Pay off my student loans, pay off my personal loan and my credit card debt.
28:48
Those are all like the things I think everyone has on their mind.
28:51
And I guess how I visualize this as okay, but look, what does that look like? What does that feel like would be if I wanna book a vacation, I know I don't have to stress about it for eight months to just be able to book a vacation.
29:04
That being said, my idea of a vacation is like camping in Acadia for 10 days, not like staying at like a luxury resort in Hawaii.
29:14
So there's, there is that part of it.
29:16
But I, I, in the past, like I've barely taken, I've taken time off of work for vacations, but I rarely take a vacation and go somewhere because I can't afford it and I can't plan that far ahead to afford it.
29:30
And, and it just sucks.
29:32
Like I just wanna be in a place where if I wanna, I.
29:36
I wanna be able to be like, if I wanna go to lunch with my friend, I don't have to stress about oh God, am I gonna take this outta my grocery money? I wanna be able to like move and groove a little bit.
29:46
I wanna be able to feel like I can live my life.
29:48
I wanna feel like I can do a little bit of traveling.
29:50
I can have an adventure here and there.
29:52
I can go and have a date night with myself.
29:54
I can go have a girls' night.
29:56
I can, just be able to like, I feel like I'm not doing things like a lot of people.
30:05
Normally get to do I don't know that everyone is stressed out when they order a pizza for themselves.
30:10
I wanna get out of surviving and I wanna feel like I am, I'm thriving.
30:16
I wanna feel like I'm not just getting by.
30:18
And, so that's, that's money.
30:21
But I rated a five because I feel like I have, I, I'm okay.
30:24
I have a ways to go, but I've also hit some financial goals that earlier than I thought I would like buying this house, so my next category was family and friends.
30:34
I read that a three.
30:36
Because this solitary creature needs to get out of homebody mode and build some community, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say I feel lonely, but I do want more connection in my life.
30:49
And I think some of this can be achieved just by being more present and therefore.
30:56
People who are already in my life, enrich and made time for the relationships I already have.
31:02
But I'm also like yearning for connection.
31:04
Like this kind of goes back to maybe some of the other categories that I have in mind, like creativity and and how like I just wanna be around people.
31:14
Who I would love to join a book group, like a book club.
31:18
And I would love to just, it doesn't even have to be like, oh, I has to be a friend and a family.
31:22
It could just be like, I would just to get out and do something within the community and be around people a little bit more.
31:28
I know I say that like now, and I'm probably gonna regret it in six months and I have to like, hold myself accountable for it.
31:33
But you know what, there's just, I would, even if it's just oh, I, I take a pottery class or something, or.
31:40
Maybe I teach a class.
31:41
It's just, it can, I love my me time and I love my alone time.
31:47
But it can be a lot sometimes to, I don't wanna shut myself off completely, things to make it a 10.
31:53
It's not that I want like a big group of friends, but I want the connections in my life to feel purposeful.
31:59
I wanna feel close to those people.
32:01
I wanna feel connected.
32:03
I fear I have too many relationships.
32:07
That feel like absentee parent relationships.
32:10
I'll see you on holidays and your birthday and maybe a week in the summer.
32:15
They're relationships that feel like they're just going through the motions, but I want them to be more than that.
32:21
Regardless of schedules or I, I, I like being a homebody, but.
32:28
It's not good to be a hermit all the time.
32:30
And I often look at my parents who are people who don't have a ton of long-term friendships.
32:37
They always seem to have couple friends that they're hanging out with and going to dinner with or, or vacationing with or whatever.
32:42
But it's like a revolving door.
32:44
Like every three to five years that friend group completely changes.
32:48
They have a fallout over the smallest things, they're stubborn or whatever.
32:52
Someone moves away.
32:54
If someone was away, they're not great at staying in touch, like outta sight, outta mind.
32:58
And I fear that I'm very much the same way, which is not good.
33:03
I, I don't wanna be my parents in every three year cycling through new groups of friends.
33:07
That doesn't sound fun.
33:08
And I'm also someone who's never been able to I'll create like office friendships, but I've never been able to like.
33:14
Go public with them.
33:15
It feels like it always just stays like at the office and we never get to let's grab a drink or let's go get dinner.
33:20
It just never gets out of the office, and I would like, not that I, I, I would like for that to like happen more.
33:26
I do wanna entertain and I do wanna host and I'm on a vacation with my friends.
33:30
I wanna do things.
33:31
I, I like my me time for sure, but I also don't wanna get to a point where it's me time all the time and I end up at my wedding or an important event or my deathbed, and no one is there.
33:45
I don't wanna be that person who has.
33:48
I don't, my, one of my biggest fears, not like a fear, but like I just feel that I'm gonna be one of those people who like dies and is dead in their home for two weeks and no one thinks about doing a wellness check or thinks, or thinks anything of it because they never talked to anybody.
34:05
There was a time in my life where I didn't talk to my parents for six months.
34:08
Like if I, if I had been murdered, no one was finding my body.
34:11
Like I don't wanna be the person who like.
34:14
My like, and, and now I don't even have a landlord, so it's like the only person that's gonna find me is who? My Aunt Barbara.
34:22
But because she comes by once a week, like I don't want Barbara to find my dead body.
34:26
Anyway next category.
34:29
My next category is fun and hobbies, and I rated that a three, which seems like such a love for who rates fun in their life at a three come on.
34:38
For some reason I was surprised at this ranking, but I think it's a very fair score for it to be that low, which is depressing, honestly.
34:46
I've been trying to get into some new hobbies, jigsaw puzzles and paint by numbers and coloring books to de-stress at night.
34:52
But I don't have a large hobby repertoire and, and also a lot of the things I consider to be fun, hobbies also fall into the creative category.
35:02
But some of my favorite things to do for fun is go camping, garden swimming going to the river, and I did so little of that this past summer.
35:11
I just.
35:13
I rated it so low because I just don't prioritize fun or relaxation and I waste a lot of time, but I don't waste it in fun, in fun ways.
35:23
It's not like I'm wasting in a way that destresses me.
35:25
I, I know watching hours of TV is very bad for me, and I find it mindless, but.
35:33
And that's like the biggest reason why I do it.
35:35
It takes no energy to watch tv, but doing all this mindless stuff actually makes me feel really bad about myself.
35:43
Things to make it a 10.
35:45
Spend time doing activities like watching TV shouldn't really count as an activity.
35:51
Going to the movies with a friend is an activity for sure, but sitting around watching the office for the millionth time shouldn't be considered an activity for me at this point.
36:00
I think a well lived life means spending a lot of time doing things you enjoy.
36:07
Otherwise.
36:10
What is the point? I, I hate my job.
36:13
I feel like I'm always going to hate my job, whatever job I'm in.
36:17
So I might as well counterbalance that with fun and enjoyment.
36:21
It's probably one of the reasons I'm so stressed all the time.
36:24
There's no release.
36:26
All that stress and frustration and anger is just cooped up in my body.
36:29
It doesn't get released through exercise or laughter or just, refocusing my energy on something else.
36:35
It doesn't get put outta my mind.
36:37
Maybe if the rest of my time felt fun and light and exciting and like I was living life to the fullest, my shitty work life wouldn't feel quite so waffle.
36:47
You know what I mean? All right, so this is my last category.
36:50
It was home, which means like your home life, your environment, all that stuff.
36:55
A home is tricky because similar to money, it's fine for right now, right? There are things that I wanna address with my environment, especially being a home buddy hermit.
37:05
But it's also not the most pressing or most urgent thing on my list.
37:10
The first thing that comes to mind is all the renovations that need to be done to this house that I simply can't afford.
37:16
But then I also think about how proud I am to be a homeowner.
37:19
I have to remind myself that this was a goal I made for myself when I was at my lowest place financially, and I achieved it.
37:26
And I'm slowly learning and DIYing and making small bits of progress.
37:31
Sure, there are days when I fucking hate this house, but this house is mine and it was my great-grandmother's and.
37:39
I'm really trying to do her justice because she loved this house.
37:45
This was her world.
37:46
At the same time, this house feels very cramped and chaotic.
37:51
Nothing feels cohesive, nothing feels like it goes together, and there's just a lot of stuff.
37:58
So there's a lot of disorder.
38:00
It just feels functionality isn't maximized here, but it's a small house with tiny rooms and not a lot of closet storage, so things really do need to be maximized.
38:11
So what could make it a 10, like big picture, fully renovated new wiring throughout.
38:16
Being able to have three pronged outlets upstairs would be great.
38:20
I don't have any three-prong outlets upstairs, so I'm also nervous that my house could burn down at any moment.
38:26
A simple and paired down living getting rid of all the junk.
38:30
Make each room really functional.
38:33
And the thing is, is that like I know that this isn't the house I live in for forever.
38:37
I know the house I actually really want is out there somewhere and this house is going to help me get to that house.
38:44
This is a starter home and there's a part of me that needs.
38:48
That feels like I need to keep that in mind.
38:50
There's someone out there with the money and the passion to update this house as their forever home, but it's probably not me.
38:57
Ultimately, I want a house in the woods, on a river with acreage.
39:00
In a more general sense, I want a house that feels like a home.
39:04
A house that feels lived in cozy, organized, functional.
39:08
Again, I can't stay functional enough.
39:10
I wanna feel like how I felt in my apartment before I moved into this house, that apartment.
39:15
But like me, it was this, it was tiny, tiny, tiny, but everything had a spot.
39:20
It was neat.
39:21
It was organized.
39:22
I, I still had a lot of things, but everything's just fit together just right.
39:27
I want that feeling again.
39:29
I don't wanna look around and feel constantly overwhelmed.
39:32
It's hard enough to get rid of my own stuff.
39:34
It's even harder to get rid of things that were my great-grandmother's.
39:38
Sometimes this house feels like a shrine to a lot of old hopes and dreams.
39:42
All the clothes that I don't fit into, tons of curtains.
39:45
And I'm like, well, I'll probably never put those up myself.
39:48
But they're nice curtains and you never know.
39:49
And there's a million knickknacks.
39:51
It feels, it feels like the kind of house a hoarder probably looks back on and is that's when I, that's when I probably should have done something differently, I just need to let go of some stuff and know that it's gonna be okay.
40:08
The whole top of my dresser is filled with makeup and perfumes.
40:11
I don't even wear makeup or perfume anymore.
40:14
And every year I go through and I call some stuff, but at this point I'm sure most of it is expired.
40:21
And I, even if it isn't it, I'm sure it does not, is not meant for my dry skin that I have now.
40:29
I just keep telling myself, but I spent money on that.
40:32
Or maybe one day I'll wear it again.
40:33
But I haven't worn any of that makeup in almost three years.
40:37
There's perfume I bought that I literally have never worn, and perfume makes my head hurt.
40:42
It's just taking up space and reminding me of another thing I wasted money on or some false sense of self that I was trying to pander to.
40:50
I think there's a part of me that wants to be like this old money.
40:55
Kind of vibe.
40:56
Like this super corporate professional.
40:59
The woman who wears designer perfume and wears makeup every day, like whatever.
41:03
But naturally, I'm more of like an essential oil low maintenance kind of girl.
41:11
It's like I can't reconcile that Steph is X, Y, Z, but I still admire people who are like A, B, C.
41:18
And just because I admire people who dress like A, B, C doesn't mean that I have to, like you can admire the way someone looks.
41:25
You can admire a fashion trend and not have to like.
41:28
And give into it yourself.
41:30
And I think that all just goes back to all this life outta stuff.
41:32
Like I, I don't know if I know who, I think I know who I am.
41:37
I just, I don't know how to like fully embrace who I am in a way that feels positive.
41:42
I feel like in the past, whenever, whenever I've embraced who I am, it just feels like I'm, it's all a negative nonsense.
41:50
I know this started off as home, and now I'm like going off on a bit of a tan tangent.
41:54
But in order to make your house a home in order for it to feel like me, I, I need to reintroduce me to myself in order to make sense of my life and go after what is really going to make me happy.
42:05
I need to get very clear on who I am and what actually makes me truly happy versus false senses of happiness.
42:11
I've been haphazardly grasping at, as a little caveat, I just wanna say that this might be the first time I've really sat down with my goals and the vision I have for my life.
42:24
I may need use resolutions, but they're usually the same succinct ones I make every year.
42:28
Lose weight, make more money, et cetera.
42:30
They're not specific.
42:31
They don't have direction.
42:32
There's no way to measure, measure it successfully.
42:36
This is the first time I've really sat down and looked at the bigger picture and assessed why I want the things that I want, and how does it all work together, and how do these goals feel authentic? Are these goals prioritized? I've, I've never done that.
42:52
I've always just quickly and haphazardly tos, some goals out there, a need jerk reaction versus a well thought out, methodical one.
43:00
I've been working on this life audit for several days.
43:04
To be thorough and thoughtful about it, I've taken it really seriously and with those several days I've been noticing small changes that make me feel good.
43:12
And and I'll get into that more in a bit.
43:15
But, I, I'm, I am really impressed with how, how this has helped me really get clear on things.
43:22
So obviously you, you, you'd rate your areas of your life.
43:26
You envision what your level 10 life to be.
43:29
And you can think big, think big.
43:31
Like I didn't, what I shared here is not everything that I've written down, it's just the cliff notes of it.
43:36
But think big, really think about how it feels.
43:38
Don't worry.
43:39
The point is not to worry about the how.
43:41
Just yet.
43:42
It's just to think about the what, what do you want, how does it feel? And I will say that that was helpful to me too.
43:48
Like I have a hard time envisioning what something looks like, but I can envision Okay, but like, how are you gonna, when it's a 10, how does it feel? And that was really helpful for me.
43:56
So I, it was strange to just let my mind run wild because normally I'm just thinking like a year ahead of time, two years ahead.
44:06
So my mind stays very rigid and my thoughts stay very like small because I'm just trying to think of, I don't.
44:15
For self-doubt, like me, that's a huge undertaking.
44:17
I don't like to dream big because I am my biggest adversary most of the time.
44:22
I shoot down every big thought I have.
44:24
I don't feel like a safe space sometimes for my own thoughts, which is really sad.
44:28
That's why I haven't pursued any of my dreams and now I feel stuck in a dead end job in a field that I hate.
44:34
The dream is to put what you want out there and speaking that aloud is risky and scary and vulnerable because it's easy for other people to try.
44:44
We live in a time when a lot of people think it's cringe for someone to try and care and to put themselves out there.
44:53
We project onto others for trying when we know we don't have the self-esteem or courage, to, to put ourselves out there.
45:01
So we get annoyed when someone else does.
45:03
I know I have, I'm very guilty of that, but it's just jealousy.
45:06
Honestly.
45:06
I'm just jealous because I wish I had the call to just be like, fuck it, I'm trying it, when I scroll through Instagram, I'm bombarded with a bunch of posts about going after your want, knowing your worth, and not settling, and equally bombarded with posts about.
45:19
Taking other people apart for no real reason and it's really easy to get swayed into caring what other people think of you.
45:25
I spend a good chunk of my life getting bullied.
45:27
I'm a tape a person, always chasing gold stars.
45:31
I live for external validation, which is part of my problem.
45:35
I don't even know where to begin with Self validation.
45:38
To only need my own validation seems like such a foreign concept to me.
45:43
So after you've done the rating, after you've really thought about what you want, what you want, and you've gotten as big as you want.
45:50
The next step is they say to create a vision board.
45:53
I create mine on Canva and I use it as my computer wallpaper.
45:57
And remember, like this is about you creating the life that you want.
45:59
It doesn't need to be achieved right outta the gate.
46:02
You have.
46:04
Your whole life to achieve it, and your best life will come as you work on these things in little bits and pieces.
46:10
The next part, after you give like a really solid sense of what you want, is to set specific goals.
46:15
So that is the part that I am still struggling with.
46:18
But I will say I'm, I'm getting like a little bit more clarity out.
46:22
So basically what I've done with my areas, I was like, okay, let me, let me think about I have these 10 areas, right? And all of them scored so low that it's okay, well like now what do I do? Because now I just feel like I just have a thousand things that like suck and I already knew that.
46:39
And so now what do I do about it? So I thought about what are the, what are three of them that I get? What are the three areas I get excited about focusing my time and energy on? I, I didn't really think about what ones need the most improvement per se.
46:54
I just felt like what do we wanna, what is gonna energize me? Because what I'm dealing with is like a lack of energy.
47:00
So even if I take something that needs a lot of improvement, it's probably, and, but I'm not feeling energized by it.
47:06
I'm not gonna do it.
47:07
So I thought about the three that I felt the most energized about.
47:11
And for me, for me that was body creativity and fun and hobbies.
47:17
The way I thought about it was like, I figured if I can work on my body, it'll gimme more energy.
47:25
I can eat the right foods, taking care of myself, like that'll just gimme like a, that'll give that energy boost that I need.
47:30
I figured if I can do more fun, if I prioritize fun and hobbies, then that might help me figure out what I wanna do for work.
47:38
For a career.
47:39
Like where do I see myself? What is I think if you just tried a lot of different hobbies, I think sometimes what you wanna do for life or what you'd feel comfortable doing, or maybe a skill that you didn't know you had, or a passion you didn't know you had, like might.
47:52
Reveal itself to me.
47:53
So that's why I like thought body fun and hobbies.
47:56
Those were two that I felt really excited about, focused my time on.
47:59
And they also made sense together, and then the next one was creativity.
48:03
I thought, if my job, if my, if my money is okay for right now, like I want creativity, and creativity feeds into the fun and the hobbies for me.
48:14
So I thought I wanna write, and I think ultimately what I wanna do for a career really does.
48:20
I know what I wanna do for a living.
48:21
I wanna be a full-time writer.
48:23
I wanna be a full-time storyteller.
48:25
I don't know how to get there, but like I have to prioritize my creativity in order for that to happen.
48:30
So the three things.
48:33
That I put as my top are body, creativity, fun, and hobbies.
48:37
What I was also thinking is that like I feel like those three areas, everything else is gonna trickle from it.
48:44
So I want that snowball effect.
48:46
I want to not have to do tackle 10 areas separately.
48:49
I want things to build on each other.
48:50
So my thinking was like if I focus on fun and hobbies, if I focus on creativity, I think.
48:59
That's gonna help reveal some answers about my career.
49:01
I think it might also open up opportunities to make a little bit more money.
49:05
So I thought career and money will maybe, I think it'll feed into that.
49:08
And then I think those things will feed into my home and my friends and my family.
49:11
If I'm doing more hobbies, if I'm putting myself out there, if I'm focusing on creativity, I could see myself making more connections, spending more time with friends and family, making new friends, meeting new people, things like that.
49:23
So I thought again, like it'll just it'll just snowball and if the creativity and my fun and my hobbies can all help me earn a little bit more money like when I used to teach writing classes or when I've sold stories or things like that, like that might all, all also help me with like my home ambitions.
49:41
And then I figured.
49:43
Love and mind and all of that would continue to build.
49:46
This episode's getting really long.
49:48
It's probably gonna be something that I'm gonna have to.
49:51
Separate into, I'm gonna have a follow on.
49:55
But the idea is that I'm gonna revisit this regularly, so I'm gonna kind of button up some of these goals a little bit more and share those with you before the end of the year.
50:04
And then my plan is to like, I don't know if I'm gonna visit it monthly or quarterly but I'm gonna, the whole point is that different seasons of life's life, I think will call us to focus on different things and goals will evolve over time.
50:18
And this isn't a one and done thing.
50:19
So part of why I always fall short on my goals is because I have no system in place.
50:23
I can't so if I, I think if I can set up a regular time to revisit these goals and instead of starting over with goals from scratch all the time, just continue to refine and tweak those goals and how I'm measuring those goals and re.
50:37
And, and also my definition of happiness and what a 10 looks like could change.
50:42
So just staying on top of that I think will really help.
50:47
I would love to know if any of you guys have done a life audit and what you took from it and what were some of your errors and, and what was your highest scoring, what was your lowest scoring? And if it's something that you've worked on and revisited regularly and you're like working instead of being in the beginning, you're like in the middle of it or even maybe on the other side of it.
51:07
I would love to know what.
51:09
What your experience was like.
51:11
As always, you can find me on Instagram at Solitary Creature Pod.
51:15
And I will see you in the next episode.
51:17
All right, thanks.
51:18
Bye.