Latest / Your Utmost Life / You Don’t Need a Life Overhaul. You Need One Decision Before Dinner.

Transcript

You Don’t Need a Life Overhaul. You Need One Decision Before Dinner. · Your Utmost Life

0:00
Misty Celli: It's a quarter till five.
0:01
Misty Celli: You're standing at the kitchen counter with your keys still in your hand, and three different things want the next two hours at the same time.
0:08
Misty Celli: Your husband just texts to ask what's for dinner.
0:11
Misty Celli: Your mom left a voicemail asking you to call her back, and the thing that you promised yourself this week, the walk or the class, or the hour that was supposed to be yours, is sitting right there on your calendar for tonight.
0:23
Misty Celli: You already know which one will lose, don't you?
0:25
Misty Celli: You've known since lunch.
0:27
Misty Celli: It isn't because you're not disciplined enough, love yourself too little, or haven't found the right system yet.
0:33
Misty Celli: It's because there's a belief underneath all of that that sounds completely reasonable and it's running your evenings without your permission.
0:41
Misty Celli: The belief is this leading your own life takes something big, a new routine, a fresh start, a season that finally calms down.
0:50
Misty Celli: And until you have that, the small stuff, who's cooking tonight, whether the walk happens, whether you call your mom back or you keep your hour.
0:58
Misty Celli: Those are just logistics.
1:00
Misty Celli: You'll deal with the real thing later.
1:02
Misty Celli: That belief is costing you more than you think.
1:05
Misty Celli: And tonight is going to cost you that hour.
1:07
Misty Celli: By the end of this episode, you won't just know a different way to make that decision.
1:12
Misty Celli: You will feel what it's like to make it as yourself.
1:15
Misty Celli: It takes less than a minute, doesn't require you to let anybody down, and it's the smallest real thing I know to start leading your life as the woman you actually are.
1:24
Misty Celli: Do you ever look around your own home, your own calendar, your own day, and realize there isn't much of you in it?
1:30
Misty Celli: Or catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and barely recognize the woman looking back, the one who once dreamed big and had passion and purpose beyond meeting everyone else's needs?
1:39
Misty Celli: You keep the meals planned, the bills paid, the whole household moving, but somewhere along the way you left yourself off the list.
1:45
Misty Celli: If you have ever had that quiet thought, is this really all there is?
1:49
Misty Celli: And then immediately push it away because even thinking it felt selfish, you're in the right place.
1:54
Misty Celli: You were never meant to disappear into your roles.
1:57
Misty Celli: You are more than everyone's everything.
1:59
Misty Celli: You are someone.
2:00
Misty Celli: And somewhere inside, you already know that.
2:03
Misty Celli: This is where you remember who you are, not who you've had to be for everyone else.
2:08
Misty Celli: And you start designing a life that actually includes you, on purpose, fully alive.
2:13
Misty Celli: Welcome to your Up Must Life Podcast.
2:15
Misty Celli: I'm Misty, an identity and life design coach.
2:18
Misty Celli: If you haven't hit follow or subscribe yet, do it now because you deserve a life that includes you, starting today.
2:24
Misty Celli: Now let's get into it.
2:26
Misty Celli: Think about how your evenings actually get decided.
2:29
Misty Celli: Somewhere between four and six o'clock, the rest of your day gets settled and most of it gets settled without you.
2:36
Misty Celli: A text comes in and you answer it.
2:38
Misty Celli: Someone mentions that they're not in the mood for what you planned, and you start rearranging.
2:42
Misty Celli: Your mom needs a ride on Thursday, so Thursday shifts.
2:45
Misty Celli: By the time you sit down to eat, the evening is already spoken for, and what was yours got moved to tomorrow without a single conversation.
2:53
Misty Celli: Nobody asked you to give it up.
2:55
Misty Celli: You just did, the way you always do, before anyone even noticed it was there.
2:59
Misty Celli: You tell yourself that you'll deal with it later, when the busy stretch at work is behind you, when the kids are more independent, when January comes and things finally reset.
3:09
Misty Celli: You've got a clear picture of the woman that you're going to be once life gives you room to make that big change.
3:15
Misty Celli: You can almost see her.
3:17
Misty Celli: Meanwhile, the evenings keep getting decided the same way.
3:21
Misty Celli: And some nights, standing at the sink after everyone has eaten, you notice it.
3:25
Misty Celli: You can't remember the last evening that felt like it was yours.
3:29
Misty Celli: Not one where you did nothing, but one where you actually chose something.
3:34
Misty Celli: You open the fridge to put away the last dish and realize you are the only one who noticed the evening happened the way it did.
3:41
Misty Celli: Nobody took anything from you.
3:43
Misty Celli: You just weren't quite in it.
3:45
Misty Celli: As if you've been slowly erased from your own evenings, one small default at a time.
3:50
Misty Celli: And you couldn't tell anyone exactly when it started.
3:54
Misty Celli: What stings is how capable you are everywhere else.
3:57
Misty Celli: You make a hundred good decisions a day for the people you love.
4:00
Misty Celli: You just haven't been included in very many of them.
4:03
Misty Celli: And somewhere underneath all of it, you know that.
4:05
Misty Celli: You've known it for a while.
4:08
Misty Celli: Underneath all of that waiting, there is a belief, and it sounds so responsible that most of us never think to question it.
4:15
Misty Celli: It goes something like this Leading my own life would take a big change, and I don't have room for that right now.
4:21
Misty Celli: It makes sense that you'd believe it.
4:23
Misty Celli: Everything you've been sold about changing your life is big.
4:26
Misty Celli: A 30-day challenge, total resets, the vision board retreat that's going to change everything, the season where you finally put yourself first.
4:35
Misty Celli: You look at all of that, and then you look at your actual week.
4:38
Misty Celli: Your husband, your parents, your work, the house, and of course, there's no room.
4:43
Misty Celli: So you put it off until there is.
4:45
Misty Celli: Let me show you what this belief looks like when it runs someone else's life, because it's always easier to recognize it in someone else's first.
4:53
Misty Celli: She's waiting for the right season.
4:55
Misty Celli: She has a list in her head of everything she'll do definitely once things calm down, and she means every word of it.
5:02
Misty Celli: But because she's waiting on the big change, she doesn't count the small decisions in between.
5:08
Misty Celli: To her, those are just logistics.
5:10
Misty Celli: Who's cooking, whether the walk happens, whether she calls her mom tonight or tomorrow, she makes those calls the way she always has, by checking on what everybody else needs and sliding herself into whatever's left, if there's anything.
5:23
Misty Celli: What she can't see yet is that those small decisions are her life.
5:28
Misty Celli: They aren't a pause before it.
5:31
Misty Celli: Her days were never going to change all at once because they didn't get that way all at once.
5:35
Misty Celli: They got that way through thousands of small choices made from her roles instead of from herself.
5:41
Misty Celli: This is the erased woman.
5:43
Misty Celli: Remember that feeling of being slowly erased from your own evenings?
5:46
Misty Celli: It has a name.
5:48
Misty Celli: She wasn't erased because she did something wrong.
5:51
Misty Celli: She loved so faithfully that she kept handling the small decisions to whoever needed her.
5:56
Misty Celli: And after enough years, she forgot she was allowed to make them any other way.
6:02
Misty Celli: If you've heard yourself in that, I want you to know it isn't a character flaw and it isn't proof that you've waited too long.
6:08
Misty Celli: It's a pattern and it's one that you can interrupt in a way much smaller than you think.
6:13
Misty Celli: Waiting for the big change is one of the most convincing ways to never lead your own life because it sounds like a plan while it keeps you exactly where you are.
6:21
Misty Celli: I say that with care because I understand why we do it.
6:25
Misty Celli: A big change feels like it would be worth the effort.
6:28
Misty Celli: A small one feels like it wouldn't count.
6:30
Misty Celli: So we save ourselves for the overhaul because somewhere underneath it we believe that if we're going to do this, we want it to mean something.
6:38
Misty Celli: We want to feel it.
6:39
Misty Celli: And a small decision on a Tuesday evening doesn't feel like that.
6:43
Misty Celli: In the meantime, we keep giving away the everyday.
6:46
Misty Celli: Let me ask you a few questions.
6:48
Misty Celli: How did your life get to where it is now?
6:50
Misty Celli: Was it one big decision?
6:53
Misty Celli: Did you wake up one morning and choose to stop including yourself?
6:57
Misty Celli: Of course not.
6:58
Misty Celli: It happened in small moments, one moved plan and one quick yes at a time.
7:03
Misty Celli: If small decisions were strong enough to erase you, they're strong enough to bring you back.
7:08
Misty Celli: The road out looks a lot like the road in.
7:11
Misty Celli: Here's another way to look at it.
7:13
Misty Celli: If leading your life really required a big change, then nobody would lead until conditions were perfect.
7:19
Misty Celli: But think about how often you lead everywhere else.
7:23
Misty Celli: When your team is in the middle of the hard work, you don't stop and redesign the whole department.
7:28
Misty Celli: You make the next good call.
7:31
Misty Celli: When your family hits a rough patch, you don't wait for a perfect season to step in.
7:35
Misty Celli: You decide what's needed tonight and you do it.
7:38
Misty Celli: You already know that leadership happens one decision at a time.
7:42
Misty Celli: You've just never applied that to yourself.
7:45
Misty Celli: And then there's the evidence you already have.
7:48
Misty Celli: You've tried the big change, the fresh start Monday, the January reset, the color-coded routine that was going to fix everything.
7:56
Misty Celli: How long did that last?
7:58
Misty Celli: The overhaul collapses because the first real evening that tests it, the first unexpected request at a quarter till five gets decided the same old way.
8:08
Misty Celli: The big change never had a chance because the small decisions were still running on the old pattern.
8:14
Misty Celli: So here's what's actually true.
8:16
Misty Celli: Leading your life isn't a makeover.
8:19
Misty Celli: It's a decision made from who you are, not from what your roles expect.
8:24
Misty Celli: Then another, then another.
8:26
Misty Celli: Think about how a thermostat works.
8:28
Misty Celli: You don't burn the house down and rebuild it when the room is too cold.
8:31
Misty Celli: You move the dial one degree and the whole system responds.
8:35
Misty Celli: That's what one identity first decision does in your day.
8:38
Misty Celli: An identity first decision has one simple question at its center.
8:43
Misty Celli: What would honor the woman in my three words?
8:45
Misty Celli: That's it.
8:46
Misty Celli: It doesn't mean choosing yourself instead of everyone else.
8:49
Misty Celli: Most of the time, it means finding the choice that honors both you and the people you love.
8:53
Misty Celli: The one that you'd never think to look for when you're running on autopilot.
8:57
Misty Celli: You can't ask that question though, unless you know your words.
9:00
Misty Celli: Without them, the question has nothing to stand on, and the default wins every time.
9:05
Misty Celli: So you have a choice.
9:07
Misty Celli: You can keep waiting for the big change.
9:09
Misty Celli: Keep promising yourself that the next season is the one.
9:12
Misty Celli: Keep moving your plans to tomorrow.
9:14
Misty Celli: Keep watching your evenings get decided the same way.
9:18
Misty Celli: And they will keep getting decided that way.
9:21
Misty Celli: Not because you're lazy and not because you don't care, but because the small decisions are still running on the old pattern.
9:28
Misty Celli: And patterns don't wait for the right season to break.
9:31
Misty Celli: Or you can make one decision tonight that sounds like you.
9:35
Misty Celli: Not a new life, not a new routine, one decision made from who you actually are.
9:42
Misty Celli: Those are the only two options, and one of them starts tonight.
9:46
Misty Celli: When this belief is running your week, you don't count the small stuff.
9:50
Misty Celli: You figure it's not where your real life happens, so you let it go without a second thought.
9:55
Misty Celli: Your own plans are the most flexible thing on the calendar.
9:58
Misty Celli: Everyone else's requests are fixed, and yours is the first to move because moving it seems like no big deal.
10:03
Misty Celli: You keep a someday list.
10:05
Misty Celli: Someday when the house is quieter, someday when work slows down, someday when your parents' needs settle, and someday keeps moving further out, like the horizon.
10:16
Misty Celli: The worst part isn't that someday isn't coming.
10:19
Misty Celli: It's that some part of you already suspects that and you keep adding to the list anyway because stopping means you have to admit it.
10:26
Misty Celli: And you feel a low hum of disappointment you can't quite name.
10:30
Misty Celli: You're doing everything right.
10:32
Misty Celli: The house is running, dinner happened, everyone got what they needed, but you sit down at the end of it and realize you couldn't tell anyone what you actually wanted tonight.
10:40
Misty Celli: Not because you didn't know, but because you stopped asking.
10:43
Misty Celli: This week it costs you the one thing that was supposed to be yours.
10:47
Misty Celli: Quietly move to tomorrow and then to the next week.
10:50
Misty Celli: Over time, it costs you something deeper.
10:53
Misty Celli: Every evening decided by default teaches you and everyone around you that your plans are movable, erasable.
11:01
Misty Celli: Your husband isn't doing anything wrong when he assumes that your hour can move.
11:05
Misty Celli: He's learned it from watching you move it over and over.
11:09
Misty Celli: The people who love you most start knowing you as the flexible one instead of the woman with a life of her own.
11:16
Misty Celli: And the strangest part is that you can feel them counting on that flexibility.
11:21
Misty Celli: And you let them, because saying anything different feels like becoming someone you don't recognize.
11:27
Misty Celli: And years from now, if nothing changes, you'll still be waiting for the big change, and the evenings will have kept adding up.
11:36
Misty Celli: Ten years of small decisions made from your role is a decade of a life that looked full from the outside and felt like it belonged to everybody but you.
11:45
Misty Celli: That's the cost I'd want you to see clearly because it doesn't arrive all at once.
11:50
Misty Celli: It arrives one evening at a time the same way it can be undone.
11:54
Misty Celli: That doesn't have to be where this goes.
11:57
Misty Celli: When you start making even one decision a day from who you are, something shifts in the evening.
12:02
Misty Celli: Not everything, but something.
12:04
Misty Celli: You sit down at the table and realize you're actually there, not managing, not holding it together, not already planning tomorrow, just there as yourself in your own evening.
12:15
Misty Celli: It doesn't happen through a dramatic speech or a battle at the dinner table.
12:19
Misty Celli: You just stop handing over the one thing you meant to keep, and the people around you start to notice you have plans of your own.
12:26
Misty Celli: And more often than you'd expect, they're glad.
12:30
Misty Celli: Something in you starts to trust yourself again because you kept a promise to yourself, even a small one.
12:36
Misty Celli: This is what it looks like to live as an utmost woman.
12:39
Misty Celli: She doesn't have a perfectly overhauled life.
12:42
Misty Celli: She makes her next decision as herself.
12:45
Misty Celli: If you're ready to make tonight's decision from who you are, go to yourutmost.com forward slash starter and grab the free kit.
12:54
Misty Celli: In 15 minutes, you'll have the three words that question needs to stand on.
12:58
Misty Celli: I want to tell you about an ordinary Wednesday evening.
13:02
Misty Celli: This is as ordinary as it gets, and that's exactly why it matters.
13:05
Misty Celli: I was looking over my agenda for the rest of the week.
13:08
Misty Celli: Every week I protect one thing that's mine, one hour that belongs to me and stays on the list no matter how the week moves.
13:15
Misty Celli: That week I'd planned the evening carefully.
13:17
Misty Celli: Dinner was already figured out, purchased, and prepped.
13:20
Misty Celli: I'd chosen that meal on purpose because it left room for my hour.
13:24
Misty Celli: Then the request came, the way it always does.
13:28
Misty Celli: Casual, no big deal.
13:30
Misty Celli: Tacos.
13:31
Misty Celli: What I'd planned just didn't sound good anymore, and tacos sounded great.
13:35
Misty Celli: It wasn't a big ask.
13:37
Misty Celli: Tacos aren't hard to make, but I didn't have the ingredients which meant a trip to the store, which meant reconstructing the whole evening.
13:44
Misty Celli: And I could see exactly where that reconstruction was going to land.
13:48
Misty Celli: It was going to land on my hour.
13:50
Misty Celli: My one thing for the week was being tested right there.
13:54
Misty Celli: Would it move to tomorrow or would it stay?
13:57
Misty Celli: There was a time I wouldn't have even recognized that as a decision.
14:00
Misty Celli: I would have grabbed my keys and gone to the store and my hour would have quietly slipped to tomorrow and then to whenever.
14:06
Misty Celli: Nobody would have asked me to give it up, I just would have.
14:09
Misty Celli: That evening I stopped and reminded myself of who I am as a woman.
14:14
Misty Celli: Then I asked what would honor that woman.
14:16
Misty Celli: Honoring her doesn't mean forgetting everyone else.
14:19
Misty Celli: It means caring for myself and the people I love at the same time.
14:23
Misty Celli: So I didn't shove my own needs aside and say, sure, I'll run to the store and make them for you tonight.
14:28
Misty Celli: But I didn't swing the other way either.
14:31
Misty Celli: I didn't tell him to handle it himself if he wanted them that badly.
14:34
Misty Celli: Neither of those sounded like the woman I am.
14:37
Misty Celli: What I chose was to honor myself and honor his request.
14:40
Misty Celli: I let my husband know that I needed my hour tonight.
14:44
Misty Celli: Dinner was already planned, prepped, and purchased.
14:46
Misty Celli: Then I told him that I'd be more than happy to schedule a grocery order, pick it up on my way home from my appointment the next day, shift the rest of the week's meals around, and make some tacos tomorrow night.
14:56
Misty Celli: He was over the moon and I kept my hour.
14:59
Misty Celli: And our evening was great.
15:01
Misty Celli: I was present, alive, and refreshed at the table instead of tired and quietly resentful.
15:06
Misty Celli: The dinner he hadn't been looking forward to turned out to be one that he really enjoyed.
15:11
Misty Celli: He even told me it was delicious.
15:13
Misty Celli: He felt heard and taken care of, and so did I.
15:17
Misty Celli: I want you to notice what happened there, because it's the whole point of this episode.
15:21
Misty Celli: The old pattern would have told me I had two options, give up my hour or be the wife who said no to tacos.
15:28
Misty Celli: Neither was true.
15:29
Misty Celli: When I made that decision from who I am instead of from my role, I found a choice I never would have seen on autopilot and it honored both of us.
15:37
Misty Celli: That decision took less than a minute.
15:39
Misty Celli: It didn't require a new life, a new routine, or a calmer season.
15:43
Misty Celli: It required me to know who I was well enough to pause and ask what would honor her before I handed my evening away.
15:51
Misty Celli: One decision is enough to start because the pattern was built one decision at a time.
15:55
Misty Celli: Each time you make one from who you are, the next one gets a little easier.
16:00
Misty Celli: Small decisions compound in both directions.
16:03
Misty Celli: An identity first decision usually doesn't cost the people you love anything.
16:07
Misty Celli: My husband still got his tacos, he just got them a day later, and he got a wife who'd had her hour.
16:13
Misty Celli: Most of the time, the choice that honors you and the choice that honors them can live together, but you won't find it if you're already reaching for your keys.
16:21
Misty Celli: And on the occasional night when someone isn't thrilled, their reaction doesn't make your decision wrong, it just makes it new.
16:29
Misty Celli: You don't need a free evening to do this.
16:32
Misty Celli: The question takes about one breath.
16:33
Misty Celli: You can ask it standing at the counter with your keys in your hand and a quarter till five, right in the middle of the busiest night of your week.
16:40
Misty Celli: If you're not sure which choice would honor the woman in your three words, you don't have your words yet.
16:46
Misty Celli: That's exactly what the starter kit is for.
16:48
Misty Celli: It's three words tested against what's already true about you.
16:51
Misty Celli: So when the moment comes, you have something real to decide from.
16:55
Misty Celli: Picture next Tuesday around a quarter till five.
16:58
Misty Celli: You're at the counter, the texts start coming in the way they always do, someone has a change of plans, someone wants something you didn't plan for, and sitting on your calendar for tonight is the one thing that's yours this week.
17:10
Misty Celli: You feel the old reflux and begin to reach for your keys.
17:13
Misty Celli: But this time, though, you pause, one breath in, recall your three words, then the question, what choice honors the woman in my three words?
17:24
Misty Celli: And the answer comes faster than you expect.
17:26
Misty Celli: Maybe it's a yes with a different day attached.
17:29
Misty Celli: Maybe it's I can help with that after my walk.
17:32
Misty Celli: Maybe it's just keeping the plan you already made.
17:34
Misty Celli: Whatever it is, it sounds like you.
17:37
Misty Celli: You send the text, you keep your hour, dinner still happens, the people you love are still taken care of, but this time the woman you actually are made one decision in it.
17:46
Misty Celli: Later that night, you get ready for bed and notice something.
17:49
Misty Celli: The low hum of disappointment is quieter.
17:52
Misty Celli: You didn't overhaul your life today.
17:54
Misty Celli: You didn't fix everything.
17:56
Misty Celli: You made one decision as yourself, and it felt like stepping back into your own life.
18:01
Misty Celli: Picture doing this again on Wednesday, and then Thursday, and then Tuesday after that.
18:07
Misty Celli: Small decisions made as her, adding up quietly until one day you realize your evenings feel like yours again.
18:15
Misty Celli: That's what leading your life looks like.
18:17
Misty Celli: One decision before dinner made by the woman you actually are.
18:21
Misty Celli: That's all it takes to start.
18:23
Misty Celli: The erased woman keeps waiting for the big change and keeps handing over the small decisions in the meantime.
18:30
Misty Celli: The utmost woman doesn't wait for a perfect season.
18:33
Misty Celli: She leads her life the same way she leads everything else, by making the next good decision as herself.
18:39
Misty Celli: You've heard the difference now.
18:40
Misty Celli: You'll notice it tonight.
18:42
Misty Celli: Sometime between four and six, a decision will show up and you will feel the old reflux start.
18:47
Misty Celli: Seeing that moment is the first step.
18:49
Misty Celli: Choosing differently is the one that changes your life.
18:52
Misty Celli: You're a woman who makes good decisions for everyone she loves all day long.
18:56
Misty Celli: Tonight I'm asking you to make one for yourself, and I want to make that as easy as possible for you.
19:01
Misty Celli: Your first step is the three words.
19:03
Misty Celli: Yours, tested against what's already true about you.
19:06
Misty Celli: So when the moment comes at a quarter to five, you'll have something real to decide from.
19:11
Misty Celli: It's free and it takes about 15 minutes.
19:14
Misty Celli: This is phase one of three.
19:16
Misty Celli: Discover design do.
19:17
Misty Celli: The words you find here are the foundation.
19:20
Misty Celli: Everything you build next, your daily rhythms, your decisions, your whole week get built on them.
19:26
Misty Celli: Head to yourutmost.com forward slash starter or grab the link in the show notes so you have your words before tonight's decision shows up.
19:35
Misty Celli: Say this one with me.
19:36
Misty Celli: I don't need a new life to lead this one.
19:39
Misty Celli: I need one decision that sounds like me.
19:42
Misty Celli: If this one landed, would you leave a review?
19:44
Misty Celli: It helps the next woman waiting on her big change know she can start tonight.
19:48
Misty Celli: And if you know a woman who's always saying she'll make changes once things calm down, send her this episode.
19:53
Misty Celli: She doesn't have to wait.
19:55
Misty Celli: Next week, one good evening isn't enough on its own.
19:58
Misty Celli: And the women who keep showing up as themselves know why.
20:01
Misty Celli: They have something that decides for them before guilt gets a vote.
20:04
Misty Celli: Next week, you'll find out what it is and how to build it into the week that you already have.
20:08
Misty Celli: If you haven't hit follow or subscribe yet, do it before you go so you're here for next week's episode.
20:14
Misty Celli: Go make one decision tonight that sounds like you.
20:17
Misty Celli: Until next week, remember you are more than everyone's everything.
20:21
Misty Celli: You are someone, and you are worth living your utmost life as your utmost self.