Latest / The Habit Lab / Episode 48: The Structure Spectrum- From Chaos to Control

Transcript

Episode 48: The Structure Spectrum- From Chaos to Control · The Habit Lab

• 1:08
  Speaker 1: We all have areas in our life we might feel stuck or overwhelmed.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: So join me, jenna Zint, habit coach, teacher and follower of Jesus, as we go after little bits of better by building offensively small habits that create big impact.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: This is the Habit Lab Podcast.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Hello everybody, I am Jenna Zint.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: This is the Habit Lab podcast.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I wanted to share a little glimpse into our morning this morning.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: It might sound familiar in some parts, some of it's unique to diabetes, but I think well, I just had my last episode about diabetes and kind of hit home the point that we all have things that are unique to our family, that, whether they're medical or emotional or just situational, I think maybe leave ours as diabetes, but leave it fill in the blank for what you could relate to this in your own life.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so it might sound familiar because you might have actually felt overwhelmed as well by some curveball that life threw at you.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: As you guys know that my daughter has diabetes, which means that our life requires a lot of regular maintenance and planning for that maintenance.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And this morning it was a tough reminder of what happens when I am not on top of our schedule.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I missed some crucial diabetes maintenance.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: How about this.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I missed realizing that, like the runway before it became urgent to stop everything was, I missed that runway.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: So then it just turned into an urgent situation of having to pause all of our morning routines to change our insulin pump, to charge a couple things that I won't get into the details of.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: But it became urgent because I missed the runway and it made everything else come to a screeching halt.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: This morning and gosh, there was such a ripple effect.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: All three of my kids ended up getting to school late and our morning was filled with a lot of high emotions and tears.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: And then I was late for my coaching meeting that I had after it and the lady was so gracious and kind.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing I have learned to grow through those moments, because maybe, like a year or two ago, I really would have gotten stuck in shame that it was happening, but shame would have wasted my energy that I want to give to my kids having their emotions.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I feel like sometimes getting stuck in shame is like putting a hole in your emotional energy bucket.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: So I actually want to keep that energy to give out to my kids rather than letting shame steal it, you know.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: So instead I was like I'm going to be curious and I was reflecting on the drive back, after I dropped off the children and no one's crying and I walked people to rooms and I talked to the front desk and got an excuse for medical.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: All those things happened which I knew, which helped shame not take over.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: But on the way home I realized that how much of that chaos could have been avoided if I had actually planned better and stuck to my plan.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: And I realized that when I don't prioritize my time management, I have strategic daily rhythms that I have built because of learning from situations like this in the past that when I miss it and I don't prioritize it, there's a very, very real emotional cost for my whole family.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: The good news is that I have actually built this muscle of planning from my journey with habits.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: It's been slow over years.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Some of you listening might be more like naturally good at this.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not a type A personality, so this has been like a slow growth for me.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: It's been like years of, like you know, doing two pound weights where maybe people can do 10 pound who are type A off the bat.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I had to do two pound forever before I built to like five before I've built to 10.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Now maybe I'm doing 20, whatever the metaphor, I had to do two pound forever before I built to like five before I've built to 10.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Now maybe I'm doing 20, whatever the metaphor you want to do.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: But it was a real slow process for me, like turning a battleship, but the habits and rhythms that I've built that have worked for me, that are just, I think because I'm not type A, it's more unique to be simpler and not as rigid or intense, and then also like life focus, I found a lot more time management resources were kind of more professional business ended versus like I think family life needs a way softer container for that.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: So anyways, I took like the, the habit, the habits of time management and that I've developed over the first, the last couple of years, and that's actually what a lot of my mini course that I've just I've been talking a lot about.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: It's out now the link's in the show note If you're listening to it.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Before November 6th I'm offering a bonus group coaching call if you buy it, because I want to actually help guide people through it.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: I love courses but I've noticed that people can buy them and not use them, so trying to help solve that point, I decided to do a group coaching session to answer people's questions, to give them a little more insight, to point them in the right direction and then have some accountability to actually do the course and buy it.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: So, anyways, I just realized how important these time management tools and habits are for me.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: So I made the course around it because I wanted to share what I've learned.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: And I would say it's like a simple course, like if you were an expert time management and you have this dialed in, this probably isn't for you.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: But if you're someone who's like maybe had it in seasons past but kind of feel I think of it like your rhythms feel wobbly.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: So I always said that I was a hot mess.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: So if you're in that category, awesome, this would be helpful.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: But if you're just kind of in like how did it pass, something happened and everything feels wobbly, I think this course would actually be really helpful.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: It's simple but they're powerful strategies that help us me doing the habits help us as a family, avoid the unnecessary chaos.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: And I was just thinking of this morning being such a great picture, because even I think the reality of chaos is actually it costs.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: There's a relational cost.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: So my relationship with structure was that I valued relationship.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: So how I saw it modeled growing up.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Actually, this is fresh on top of my mind because my Habit Mastery course this week, one of the exercises as I lead people through like a little sozo around structure, because usually there's like a spectrum that people are on.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: If you think about a spectrum there's an extreme on both ends.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: So I leaned on the extreme.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I'm going to oversimplify it just to get the mental picture for you and this spectrum and your relationship with structure.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: There are people who worship it and I think that's, like you know, 10 on one end.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: The worship's an extreme.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Obviously, I think the people who are on that end of the spectrum have found, you know, like almost have been able to manufacture, the reason they love it so much and cling to it so strongly is they can manufacture their own sense of safety through controlling that structure gives them Okay.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: So that's one end of the extreme.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: And then the other end of the extreme was my end, where we avoid it at all costs.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: So that comes from.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: That is chaos and whatever reason you're at that end or either end like there can be a lot of reasons people are on, wherever they're at on the spectrum and remember so worship it, be one extreme and avoid it being the other extreme there are going to be.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Most people are going to fall somewhere in the middle.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: You are not at the extreme but I would say, like the leaning towards, I really, really like structure and it's my tendency.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: You'd be more towards the worship it side or the no structure, or I just can't figure it out or find it that you'd be more on my end of the avoided at all cost.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: But I think the reality for me is one of the reasons in this little sozo around structure, which is sorry I should explain.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: In my church we say sozo but it just means kind of like doing some heart work, emotional healing around some of your thoughts about a topic so specifically around structure it's.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: The reality is that most of us don't have a textbook.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: We could give you a textbook answer of what structure is meant, but we have our own in our own life, experience and relationship or structure.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: We've actually have our own definitions and that has come from some learning, like most of us saw it modeled some way, or we had an experience or we learned to use it this way as a reaction to whatever we experienced growing up or in high school or middle school.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: So recognizing, like how maybe skewed our perception is, and then like bringing it back to like, oh God, like what is heaven's intent with structure, like what's the Lord's perspective, like a healthy, beautiful, like how, what was the gift structure was meant to be with, to be to us, and it's cool, cause, like that would be the middle, that would be the perfect, you know, center of that spectrum that I'm talking about, that we'd aim for, center of that spectrum that I'm talking about, that we'd aim for.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: And so what I'm going to say is, on my end of the spectrum, one of the reasons I realized in doing this heart work I had avoided habits and structure for so long was because I saw it modeled and again saw it modeled, and then also my little girl learning like I watched people and then decided at eight or six that this is what it meant.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: So it's not necessarily accurate, it's just my experience, my perception.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: I saw that people who use structure it was rigid, it was a form of control, it was trying to get me to do what they wanted, and that they valued their structure, like what I saw is highly structured people valued that over me, over relationship, and I then made it this such black and white, like um paradigm in my brain where you either chose relationship or you chose structure.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: That could not coexist.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of where I why I ended up like never, purposely trying to be a hot mess.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: But on the avoid side of structure is because I was like, oh, I am so relationally oriented that if I have to choose, I'm going to choose relationship all day.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: But the reality was, I feel the Holy Spirit, just as I've done the work and sat with God about looking at my big picture relationship with structure.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I'm like the reality is living in chaos and not being planned means that I'm often in survival mode and I'm often reacting to life, which that actually has a huge effect on relationship, because I'll avoid it Whatever the routine structure is, you know, like this morning's example with Audrey's diabetes.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, for the record, I did not avoid that this is talking about old Jenna, but until you can't avoid it.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: So my examples would be like three weeks worth of dishes or no one can sit on our couch because it's become a laundry couch.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: It's the real estate for where all our clean clothes live.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: That would be like my old self in the avoiding it until, oh, we don't have any more clothes.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Now we have to actually do the laundry.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry that my kids want to play.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I'd rather watch that movie.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: We got an invite to dinner but because I've avoided structure and the ease that maintenance is, I now have to pause and it is costing my relationship something.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I'm totally talking with my hands right now.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: It makes me laugh when I do that, because you cannot see me, you can only hear me, anyways.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: So the reality is like oh, I had underestimated the cost of living at that extreme of no structure, of the chaos, the cost of chaos on my relationship.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: So now I found this beautiful.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: I would not say I'm perfectly healthy.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: I'm still on a journey of coming out of structure avoidance, but for me, I think, wherever you're out on the spectrum, I'd like you to think where did you learn that?
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: What was your perception?
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Where did you see it modeled?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: That caused that end.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: I actually want to have one of the girls who was on the call.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: She had a beautiful.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: She's more on the worship end of the spectrum and when I was talking about why she got on that end or how people could end up.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I wasn't speaking directly to her.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: She was saying she realized that Early on, in a very chaotic childhood, she learned she could manufacture her own safety and comfort with structure.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: So then it became her favorite tool because it was the way she could keep herself safe in a really not safe home environment and I felt so much empathy.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: So I think the reality is either extremes there's a ton of empathy because there were strategies that we developed based on what we saw and they helped us for a season.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: But I think you have to kind of time like seasonally, oh I feel the Holy Spirit, and in different life, like chapters in your life reassess, oh, is that definition serving me or is it actually costing me more than I'm realizing?
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Am I not actually counting the cost of my current, slightly skewed perspective relationship with structure?
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: So just if you're listening, super simple, like Lord, what is your definition?
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: What is heaven's perspective of structure?
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: How is it meant to support life?
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: And I love the analogy I go back to is like how much structure is found in nature?
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: But it's so flexible and it's bendable and it actually supports and promotes life, which I had never seen.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: So that was kind of where my definition was missing was that it was not this rigid form like how crops grow and babies form and the weather changes.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: It does happen on a calendar year for thousands of years, but it is not as rigid as October 1st.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: It will change to 70 degrees and it'll decrease by two degrees every day until we hit November 1st and then that's when we get rain, two inches a day.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: That level of structure would be on the worship control side.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: It's not how the Lord we can see it modeled around us side.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: It's not how the Lord we can see it modeled around us.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: So, anyways, just encourage you to spend a little time, if this resonated, to just self-reflect on that spectrum of structure.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Where do you land?
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: How'd you get there?
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: What part of your definition is feeling-based versus maybe logic-based?
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: How did you see it modeled?
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: And then ask the Lord like what's the right perspective of structure?
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: And then I always walk away with a little aspiration, something I explain more in my masterclass, but for the point of this podcast it just means like a hope statement.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: And then I use something that psychologists call a bridge statement, which means I'm in process.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: But this can be true now.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: So I would say like, for instance, my little aspiration around my hope statement, around my relationship with structure is I'm on a journey to discover the gift that structure was intended to be to my life.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, oh, gifts are good.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I think about scripture where he's like what good dad gives his son a rock when he's hungry?
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, my perception is that structure is a rock.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: But I think I have the wrong perception, because you wouldn't give me a rock when I said I'm hungry, you would give me food.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: So for you, just go on a journey, see where you're at.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: And if you want some help in realigning your habits to not feel chaotic or not feel over controlled, I would say for sure, grab my mini course, that Habit Reboot.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: It's pretty reasonably priced, it won't take you a ton of time.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: The goal is just to, like a lot of us, you don't have to reinvent the wheel.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: You can go, look at what has worked in past seasons, modify it for the factors and schedule of this current season so that you build something that works now.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: You don't need a whole new life.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: You can actually just revive some of your routines that have worked for you in past seasons.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: So if you are feeling tired, feeling like you're putting out fires all the time and want more peace and want more predictability and more rhythms in your day.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: You should totally grab my little mini course and I think you could reclaim some of your time and build habits that support kind of the pace and emotional energy that you want in your house, in your home, versus reacting to what happens, like I had to do this morning.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Anyways, yeah, so I hope you have.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I'll put in the show notes, I'll ask, I'll put those questions that I was posing to you about your relationship with structure, um, and so that you can think about them or journal them.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Just Chat chew on them with jesus is what I think of it.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: I'm like I'm just gonna put this in the crock pot marinade.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: It'll be ready in 97 hours.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: It'll be real tender for me to think about.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, you guys, I hope you have a great week.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Bye.