Reclaiming My Dreams After a Season of Major Instability
I made it through a very chaotic summer only to remember that life moves swiftly on! Instead of losing grip on my goals, I’m sinking into satisfaction and structure. We’re talking reactivating forgotten strengths, the rescue and reset rhythms I’m leaning on most, and why goal setting doesn’t have to feel gross.
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Listen to Episode 236 of Celebrate Cultivate
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Hello. You are listening to Celebrate Cultivate. I am your host, coach, and voice in your earbuds, Kaileen Elise Sues. Thank you so much for all the great feedback on last week's episode. I am so happy to be back on the podcast, sharing with you, connecting, and even just, like, those little exchanges in the DMs with your favorite driving tips and all of that has just brought so much life to me. I feel like in the last few weeks I am coming back to life after a really tough summer, and having these, like, interactions with you definitely makes my day. I don't know if you know this, but I am also coming back to sharing my newsletter, publishing on Substack, and posting on Instagram. I'm really not trying to be in all of the places in a perfect way. That has definitely stopped me from feeling successful or even, like, wanting to post in the past. So I am giving myself permission to show up and share in the places that I enjoy spending time in and doing it in a way that is imperfect, and maybe not up to my inner critic's standards, but in a way that I still feel like is worthwhile for me, but also worthwhile for you. I used to really worry about adding to the noise just because I feel like there is so much out there that we consume, and I don't want to be a burden or, like, something on your to-do list that you have to get through And now that there's all this AI content out there, I feel like it's even more. But I just want you to know that if it's coming from me, it's fully human, it's flawed, it's messy, it's imperfect, and it's going to be inconsistent if you're looking at things from a small timeframe. But I am really wanting to encourage myself and encourage all of you to show up and create and make in ways that feels messy maybe, or not, again, up to, like, the standards that you hold for yourself, but also that gives you room to grow. My son recently started at a new school this year. They have a different grading structure, and one of the things that they've really been talking about is just at the age that he is, it's so important to make mistakes, and it's so important for us to lean back and let them flounder a little bit because if we are always going in and saving the day, then they're going to learn that we will always swoop in and save the day. And the same thing is true for ourselves. You know, I think as adults, we get really comfortable at being proficient and knowing how to do things. It is so humbling when you do something and it's not as good as you want it to be. And honestly, I think that's one of the reasons why there is such a huge draw towards using AI for things that you can do yourself because then it's sort of like this, A, checks and balance. You know, if you're doing stuff on your own every day, like how I am a solo entrepreneur, unless I have a coach that I'm working with or in some sort of program, like, I'm the last person to look at it. So years ago when I was curious about AI, I mean, this is probably like two years ago now, and I was using it kind of a lot, like every single day, I was like, "Oh, it's, it's making it so that I don't make mistakes," you know? But I've already gone into why I didn't enjoy the experience overall. And the thing is, is that you can't avoid making mistakes. And of course, I don't wanna send things out that are full of typos and, like, not good for you to read. But it's also, to get back to the point I was trying to make earlier, which is, like, I don't wanna be adding to the noise. I have to also trust in your discernment and your ability to choose what is worth your time and what is not. And it's not really my decision what is worth your time. So if I show up inconsistent and fully human, but expressing myself creatively and bringing you along for the ride, then I'm not adding to the noise. I'm giving you an opportunity to get a, a breather from some of the noise that's out there. So again, that's just a little, a little ditty as we ease our way into the topic for today, which is how I am reclaiming my dreams after a season of major instability When I talk about this past summer, and when I think about it, one, it wasn't like a major crisis of anyone's health. There was no death in the family. You know, there wasn't like a job loss or anything like that. Some of those big things that I've been through before in different ways, it wasn't like that. You know, it was this major inconvenience to our family and to our everyday rhythms. It was very destabilizing, and even though we're back in the house, we're still dealing with some of it. The final bits and pieces remain unfinished and need to get past that, you know, finish line so that contractors can get paid and things can get signed off, and it is really frustrating to be back in the house and see how slowly things are moving now. There were some mistakes made, and nothing's major, but again, it's like, it's not a huge crisis, but it is something else on my shoulders, something else I have to deal with. And so I am kind of coming back to life in my everyday life, again, also in a very busy, chaotic season of my children's lives. So reclaiming my dreams and kind of like bringing my, what I want back into focus is, is really interesting because I've made it through that storm, you know, and I'm still like cleaning up the debris, but I'm, I'm on the other side for all intents and purposes. And now I'm remembering this thing that happens when you make it to the other side of a hard time, and it's that life swiftly moves on. So without really any delay, it's like all of that summer chaos was happening, and we were moving from Airbnb to Airbnb and feeling really unrooted, and now we are back in our house, and the kids are in school, and they're doing their things, and I'm, you know, bringing people into A Year of You, and I've got a new goal-setting workshop that I'll tell you about in a little bit. And so it's like life is moving on, you know? Like, it just is. And so I am having to consciously pause and give myself this reminder that if I want to refocus on my dreams, reclaim my dreams, I have to do it. Like, I have to make it an effort to do that. And so for this season, my focus is on two things, two kind of like key anchor words that I've come upon through my own exploration, then also through some working with a dear friend. And so these two words are satisfaction And then also structure. So for me, satisfaction comes when I sink into my five senses and I am present in the movement of my daily life. Satisfaction also kind of gives me this reminder that it's okay to not enjoy every moment of life. Like, not everything is gonna be rainbows and butterflies, but it is nice to put a little extra effort into making a yucky thing feel less bad. As an example, if you have to go to a doctor's appointment and you really don't want to, like, it can be nice to dress up in an outfit that makes you feel good or block off time to get a pedicure afterwards or y- buy yourself flowers on the way home. You know, there's like we... There's things that we just have to do in life, and it's not always gonna be fun. But we can add to it, or we can take stress away to make it a bit more satisfying. When it comes to structure, again, I'm not just prioritizing what feels, like, good and easy, but also what feels worthwhile and meaningful because it is really tempting, especially if you believe in alignment and flow and manifesting and trusting your intuition and all of these things that we, we believe in, right? We are orienting our lives around these concepts. And so it just can get tempting to be like, "Well, I'm only gonna do things that feel like flow, and if I'm doing something that doesn't feel like flow, that means I'm doing it all wrong." And then we can beat ourselves up when things don't feel right. And it's not that everything you do has to feel flowy. It's okay to stretch. It's okay to strive. It's okay to effort. It doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. So this summer was, like, a lot of hard work, hard work I didn't wanna do, but I had to, and it reminded me or it helped me, like, oh yeah, like, hard work isn't always bad. It kind of unearthed some skills that were buried deep inside of me, and it made me remember, like, there are things that I am good at that I don't always use in everyday life, and it kind of took some work to get some of those strengths reactivated. Like, one is a, a good example is that I've never really liked or been good at starting with a totally blank canvas, which does make having my own business difficult 'cause I feel like sometimes, like, every day can just be like all this big open canvas of nothing to do. But I'm actually very good at making things better, making things feel nice and it is hard sometimes to have to not start from scratch, but to build upon something that exists, but it's also super, super satisfying to me. It might not be to somebody else, but when I worked in my corporate job many years ago, I was really good at taking what my boss did and improving upon it. In coaching, in this business, I have taken a lot of what I've learned from Bella or Jess Lively over the years and made it my own and improved upon it. And, you know, full respect to my boss and full respect to Bella for all of the things that they created, but there is, you know... And it's really, really hard to start from scratch, right? Like, I'm giving them full credit, but there is something that I'm very good at, is like fine-tuning, elevating, adjusting. In the Airbnbs that we lived in, I took the house that I was given and then made it cozy, made it mine. And so that exercise kind of reminded me of these different things. I was like, "Okay, I, I can, I can do this." So this idea of having structure and increasing satisfaction or not even just increasing it, but like noticing it, those are key things that I am doing to help reactivate the parts in me that do the dreaming and set the goals and make what I want a priority in my life because those kind of took a back burner when we were in this little summer crisis situation. So one thing that is helping me reclaim these dreams also is leaning really hard on rescue and reset rhythms. I have a whole blog post about this. Actually, I think I had a past podcast episode, so I will include that in the show notes. So if you're like, "What is a rescue and reset rhythm?" You can go back and listen to that old episode. For me, they are really, really handy, even in, like, my everyday life right now, but especially in those, you know, more difficult seasons, and even coming out of it. Like, I know I need to prioritize some of these things. So one that's super simple is, like, putting music on repeat that makes me feel good and reminds me of who I am and connects me to good memories, but also, like, just helps me sing and get, get those feelings out in a different pathway. And so if you know me, you , you know I'm a huge Maggie Rogers fan, and I wrote an entire Substack, which I will link to in the show notes, about this idea that, like, Maggie Rogers' music is really helping me through a super tough season, and she commented on my Substack. Like, Maggie Rogers. I have sat... I can't e- I think I've been to, like, three or four of her concerts. I have listened to endless hours of her music, and my daughter loves her. Like, it's just crazy that she, A, saw my Substack post and then, B, took the time to comment on it. It made me feel so special. And the name of the piece was A Little Less Alone, which again, like, makes me feel a little less alone that she even commented on it. So rescue and reset rhythms, turning on music, like, is a huge one for me. And similarly, just taking a minute to pause and breathe and ask my inner voice, "What do I need?" It sounds so simple, I know I've told you this before, but this tiny pause can really ground you in the moment and give you access to a feeling of clarity of, like, just knowing what you need in this moment. You cannot live your life 100,000 steps ahead. And believe me, I just sat down and, like, looked at the next three weeks of our pickups and drop-offs and sportsing, sporting events and husband travel and all of the things. And you know, I was like, I, I literally spent like two hours mapping all of this out, and I don't have all the gaps filled. You know, it's just you can only kind of take things step by step. And e- even when you're well-meaning and well-planned, like, there's gonna be balls that drop. There's gonna be things that happen. And so taking that moment to pause and breathe and ask yourself, "What do I need?" can really help bring you back into the moment and focus on, like, now what is available to you and how can you move forward? When we were in the middle of the summer of chaos I was really anchoring myself into the smallest everyday rituals that felt like home and I've noticed that now that we're back, it's just as important and just as useful. I have an episode from not, I think it's kind of a long time ago, about elevating your daily rituals, so I will also link that in the show notes so that you can go back and listen if you're like, "Okay, I have..." You know, the shift in the seasons, which we're in right now is we're in fall, that is a really nice time to reevaluate your everyday rituals, look at the ones that, you know, served you from summer but you don't wanna carry forward, and find a way to add that structure and satisfaction to your current rituals. The one that I come back to day in and day out, it is a little flexible. It's not this super rigid thing, but my first thing routine is my favorite ritual that I've cultivated over the last few years. Now, it's really rooted in something that is core to a morning for me, which is hot coffee. Okay? Like I know for sure I'm gonna have a hot cup of coffee. So if nothing else, like that is the ritual, right? And then we stack on top of it. I have a five-year journal that I love writing in. Right now, I'm still in the first... Technically, I'm in the second year of this version of the five-year journal, but last year I really didn't write in it very much at all, so it's not paying the dividends that a five-year journal often does. The way it works is, like you have entry for today and today this date, a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, or it goes forward depending on where you are in time and space in that particular journal. So right now, I'm just like jotting down super short entries about what's happening in our daily lives, and I write about the day before 'cause I'm doing it in the morning with my coffee. And then if I'm feeling more journal-y and like I need to or want to connect with my inner voice, then I'll do eight minutes of journaling in a different journal. I also do a daily photo cleanup, so this is kind of in line with that five-year journal where I'll put in the date from yesterday into my iPhoto or, what do we call it now? It's not even called iPhoto. It's just Photos on my computer or my phone, and look up that date and just look at all of the pictures that I've taken on yesterday's date and clean it up. Delete some, trim some of the videos, like just kind of spend time with those memories and those pictures. It was really... I've been like categorizing quite a few of them into different like- Albums. So if I have some pictures of outfits, I'll put that in my style album. Or if there's ones of the house, I have, like, an our house photo album that I've been relying very heavily on as we resettle back into this house, 'cause, like, there's some spaces that don't feel like they did, and part of that is just because it's, like, not how it was. And I don't want it all to go back exactly how it was. We talked about that in last week's episode. But it's also nice to have the reference photos. So I have, you know, I've been categorizing the pictures, and that's been really fun, too. And then the other thing that I added to this ritual stack that I haven't really talked about at all is I started doing Duolingo, and I'm almost... I think I'm... I don't think I'm quite to 100 days yet. I'm pretty close. Or maybe I'm just past 100 days. I feel like I should know that. But either way, I'm doing Duolingo for Spanish, because my son is taking Spanish, and I took Spanish in high school. I took one semester in college. I do not know Spanish very well. I don't speak it very well at all. But it's fun. It's, like, a nice way for me to reactivate some of those brain cells. It's, again, like another one of those things where it's like, wow, there are so many humans on planet Earth who speak more than one language really well, and, like, I don't. So, you know, it's humbling, and it, it, like, activates a different part of your brain, and it's also... I mean, that particular app is sort of like candy. It's addictive, and it has lots of incentives, and, you know, it, like, makes it feel like it's better than scrolling on Instagram maybe. I don't know. My phone is usually bricked in the morning, so I don't have access to my email or Instagram when I first get up with that first cup of coffee. So that's my first thing routine, and it is, like, a nice little 20, 30-minute way I start the day. I don't always do everything. In fact, this morning, I had missed, like, the last three or four days of my five-year journal. So this morning, I just caught up on those and, like, just jotted down what we did each of those days, and that was pretty much it. So it's flexible. But it is a way that helps me anchor into that feeling of home and the Really time and space of my life, because I am in a season of life that's really busy and full, but I'm also in a season of life that I was dreaming of for so long. Even, like, in those early baby days with the little ki- or, you know, when each of my kids were little, it's always just like, "What are they gonna turn into? Who are they gonna be?" And so now I've got these, like, fully formed kids with personalities and obligations and different things that light them up and that frustrate them. And so there's just a lot of moving parts to life right now, so it is helpful to anchor back into, like, w- the quiet stillness and remember kind of why I was dreaming about this in the first place. So having a connection to the past and to the present helps me reclaim my dreams, because if I'm not in connection with my past and my present, it's really hard for me to look at the future. Which brings me to the next piece of this puzzle, which is defining my desires for what's next in my life in a way that feels dreamy and good and magical and sparkly and all of those feelings that we want, but also feels doable within the circumstances of my life right now. And I have an exercise inside my Goal Setting with Intuition workshop that walks you through exactly how to do this. We take the concept of SMART goals, which I'm sure you learned about SMART goals at some point. It is a concept that was cited to have come from a corporate planner in 1981. So this is, like, an old concept. It's kind of masculine in nature, and it, it's just, you know, everybody knows what a SMART goal is, right? So I took it and I transformed it to give it a vibe upgrade for what we want and how we are operating in our lives. And so SMART desires are spacious they are meaningful, they're aligned, they're resonant, and they're timeless. So this is an intuitive way to define goals within a structure that you're familiar with, and you've probably set goals that were SMART in the past. So it's not like a wholly different way of doing things. Goal Setting with Intuition is a three-day workshop that I'm bringing back. If you took Spring Forward this year or last year, this is the autumn reboot. And so if you want to join me in setting SMART desires, if you want to get clear on what you want and release the shoulds on your shoulders that are getting in the way of you really taking action, and also if you want to set a plan to call in what you want, then get on the waitlist and come join me. Goal Setting with Intuition is gonna be on October 27th, 28th, and 29th. We'll be meeting live, but the replays will be available. Everybody who's done Spring Forward in the past has always told me that it feels so, like- useful in a way that sometimes when you think about, like, doing a workshop, it's like, okay, this is a really good idea. I'm super excited about it, but then nothing really comes of it. I've definitely had that happen before. But we have worksheets that we go through, so you print these out if you have, you know, a printer, and you can write pen to paper as we go through the different worksheets and exercises. And when you finish the workshop, you will feel really clear on what you... Not just what you want, which I know is a huge hurdle for some of us. I, I'm still, like, looking forward to sitting down and defining these for myself for this season. Because at the end of October, like, we're gonna be facing the holiday season and then the new year, and it's just really easy to put yourself on the back burner and put your aspirations and your desires, like, on hold until the new year. And instead of doing that, we're gonna get together and we're gonna talk it out, and we're gonna get clear. And it might be that how your holidays unfold is part of your desires. But then at least you will come out of the workshop and enter into the holiday season clear on the fact that that is one of your objectives. I think one of the things that a lot of the women inside A Year of You have been sharing with me is that they don't really want to be goal-setting because the way that they used to goal set doesn't feel in alignment with how they're living right now. But also not setting goals doesn't feel in alignment either. And I made the analogy recently that if you woke up in Paris just, like, randomly, you'd be like, "Oh, cool, I'm in Paris. Like, how did I get here? Why am I here?" But if you and a girlfriend or you and your partner or just you on your own were like, "Okay, I'm gonna go to Paris in six months," you buy the ticket, you start to plan your itinerary, you pack your bags, like, maybe you go shopping for it. Like, you're doing all this prep work, and the end result is you go to Paris. That is so much more satisfying. That is so much more fulfilling. Like, you know that you wanted to go there, and you did it. And even if there's little mishaps and hiccups on the way, which there always is when you travel, like, it's part of this overarching goal that you set for yourself. Having goals is, and dreams, defined and written down and planned and committed to is not anti Flow. You know, it's, it's not at all. It's just, it is a different way of experiencing life, and I think that we sort of think, "Okay, I'm either gonna be super flowy or I'm gonna be super rigid, and there's no in between." But in reality, life is all about living in the middle, and we, we can't really get away from it. We try so hard to, like, live in the extremes. It's just like, I don't know why our brains are programmed like that. All or nothing. It's good or bad. It's all of the stuff. But in reality, it's way more of that messy middle that we live in. And so having goals set helps you keep a sight on what you desire while also navigating, like, the hiccups of everyday life. So those are some of the ways that I am coming back and reclaiming my dreams, kind of setting a path for myself so that I'm even ready to define and reclaim my dreams. That's it for this episode. I hope that if you are interested in joining us for Goal Setting with Intuition, that you'll come check it out over on the website. I'll put a link to it in the show notes, along with those other two episodes from the archives. And if you want to tell me in the DMs, like, what are you reclaiming as your goals for this season, or are you in a position of wanting to revisit setting goals? I would love to connect with you. I am over on Instagram @kaileenelise. Thank you as always for listening. I'll be back with a new episode next week with our monthly visioning practice for October. I will talk to you then.
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