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It's the start of a new year and you know what that means.
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New Year's resolutions.
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It's that time when we promise to turn into superheroes overnight.
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By February, our gym cards are just fancy bookmarks, and our health eating plans, well, less to say the chocolate didn't eat itself.
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But let's face it, if resolutions were that effective, I'd be a piano playing, novel writing, astronaut, and a fitness guru.
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Instead, I'm still figuring out which is the E chord on the piano.
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This year, let's do something a little bit different.
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Let's not set all these big, grand resolutions.
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Instead, let's focus on being our best selves, our best husbands, best wives, and with all of our quirks.
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After all, being married is about loving and growing old together, not about who can avoid the cookie jar the longest.
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Welcome to another episode of Amplified Marriage.
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I'm Natalie.
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And I'm Bryan.
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Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, as you heard us say.
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countless times.
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Grab a tea, grab a coffee, a cookie and a blanket.
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Get ready for our chat.
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And 1st of January, 2024.
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Boom.
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Are we ready for this new year?
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Yes, we are, man.
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I am excited to talk about this today, but here's the thing is that Natalie and I are not huge, uh, resolution people, even though the opening was all about grand resolutions, we're not resolution people were actually about setting goals.
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And I know people are like, well, what's the difference there actually is a difference between a resolution in my mind is oftentimes just a, um, a big idea.
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Right.
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It's just a big idea.
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And so when I look at goals this year, this is how Natalie and I have broken down this 2024.
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And it's something that we, every year we improve upon a little bit, but it's something that I even do with our, our team that I lead at, at the church.
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Um, it's called smart goals.
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And the very first thing about the smart goals is that it, the S stands for specific.
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Right.
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And when we're going into our goals, Natalie and I have specific, say weight loss goals.
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Mm-Hmm.
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specific finance goals.
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Speci specific, specific goals for the children, specific goals for each other.
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Um, all but they're all have to be specific.
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And that's the difference I think between a goal and a resolution.
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A resolution is just a, a big idea, right?
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I want to lose weight by June 20th.
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Exactly.
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But there's no strategy on how, but there's no strategy to do that, how to do that.
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And there's no.
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There's no way you can do it.
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So we just want to, we want to talk to you today.
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Just a little bit of the things that we've learned that we've done over the last 25 years of being together
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and what we've really implemented in the last nine ish
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years.
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And, and we'll be honest right from the beginning, the truth about goals is that even what I said in the opening, if goals were easy and it was easy to achieve a resolution, but if our goals were easy to do.
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Um, everyone will be doing them exactly.
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And so there's a reason that you have to have a system.
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The things you put in place, um, like parameter, uh, parameters and boundaries for each goal.
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And one of the things that I haven't written down further down, but I'm actually going to read it right now.
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This is what Habakkuk, uh, chapter two versus two and three says, is right, right.
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The vision.
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Make it plain on tablets so he may run who reads it.
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All this means is that when you have a vision and a goal, Natalie and I have started putting our goals down regularly onto paper.
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So we have them written out.
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Sometimes we forget where we put the paper.
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So now we do digitally because we're in 2024.
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Ooh, we're in 2024.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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But we want to have specific things that we want to do with our family this year.
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What we want to accomplish personally and all has to be specific and then written down on the system.
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That's right.
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Because I don't know about you, but I forget, well, yeah, I forget things that I have written and writing them on paper gives you a reference point.
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Um, for those times when you're like, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this.
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And then you can reflect back on it.
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Or that's the hope.
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Anyways, we're not always perfect at reflecting back until the end of the year, but I'm really trying to get into the habit of doing that self reflection, that goal reflection, even throughout the year of like, where are, how on track are we?
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And not just waiting till the end of the year to reflect on whether or not we were or weren't on track.
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Well, and, and I would say to like, um, I say this to people when they first start going to the gym, because I, at this point I built a fairly good discipline.
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I go frequently on a, on a schedule that we've determined.
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And I say this to new people, as soon as they start, I said, um, it's, it's not about the frequency.
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It's about the consistency.
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Yeah.
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So I will tell you straight up that I would say 95 percent of the time that I go to the gym and I do a 35, 45 minute workout.
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I honestly.
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Most of the time I'm not motivated and I don't really feel like going to the gym.
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Like after Christmas, we're going, we're going, we're going after this podcast.
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As soon as we finished recording this, we're heading over to the gym.
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I don't really want to go now, but the thing is, is that when you begin putting things into a system.
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And so this is specific.
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You start writing out what you want to do.
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You turn that motivation into a discipline.
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So what happens is, is that the discipline becomes part of what you do.
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That's right.
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Part of what you do every day, part of your morning or part of your afternoon, wherever you choose to add the discipline that that's about.
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I'm using the gym as well, working out as an example because I've had to fight with this one for a long time.
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Right.
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But it becomes easier.
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It becomes, it becomes easy.
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Easier to go and do it.
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That's what I mean.
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Because you're disciplined, but the motivation, this is the thing.
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Are we always going to be motivated for anything?
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No.
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Right.
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If you have kids in your house from zero to 25 years old and they're living with you, you're not motivated every night to make dinner.
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Nope.
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Right.
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And there's, and you're not motivated every day to do laundry or every day that you have to do.
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So the motivation, if you base your whole future, if you base 2024 off the motivation to do it, your motivation is going to fail.
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That's right.
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But I think, I think creating habits and making them like, you know, in, in principles and things like that, we're all like baby steps, baby steps.
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If you have a giant goal, you have to have baby steps in order to get there because the moment that you.
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Miss fire or you, um, try to jump ahead and you fall.
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Figuratively speaking, you're going to get discouraged.
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And so yes, you know, um, being on a routine, I think that's the key is setting a routine that is manageable in small increments.
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And then as you, as you can fulfill the routine or fulfill the habit, then you can increase the frequency and you can increase all of that once it becomes ingrained, so to speak.
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So for us, like you're, even though.
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I hate going to the gym.
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It does not bring me joy whatsoever.
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I always feel the joy of having gone after the fact.
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So if I can remember that after this, I will be so thankful that I went.
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And then as I start to see like the pounds drop off or the ounces drop off or I start to feel just better where I'm not so.
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tired.
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I find myself making better eating choices and, and all like it's a, it's a domino effect in either direction.
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You
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know, there's a, a writer that I have read his book now twice called atomic habits by James clear.
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And he says something in the book that has stuck with me that I use with our team that I probably have said on this podcast before he said, you don't.
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Uh, rise to the level of your goals.
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You fall to the level of your systems, right?
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And so much of what we do is a series of small steps, small decisions, small things that take us to the lead.
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Like when you're, you're doing like Bible study or you're doing school study, you're setting yourself with knowledge that will benefit you five years after school is finished.
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When you finally found that job.
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And actually implement the things that you've learned, right?
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The physical aspect of your job or eating differently and getting the sugar out of your system if that's what you're doing or stopping caffeine or quitting smoking or what any one of these things, all of them take steps and things with a goal in mind, but also with a system and how we're going to get there.
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I remember.
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Uh, listening to a podcast, um, I can't remember the name of the podcast, but he, he, he said in there, he said, there's a gentleman that he was coaching, um, new year hit.
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And he's like, I need to lose some weight.
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I'm 150 pounds overweight.
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He was a big guy.
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And the guy said, I didn't know how I was going to do this, but what he started doing every day is that he got in his car and he drove to the gym and he said, and he said, remember I told you this, he sat outside for five minutes and then he went home and he did that day after day for like two weeks.
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And then he started going to the gym, um, the, the next week a little bit longer.
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So it was 10 minutes.
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He did that for a couple more weeks.
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And then after that for four weeks later, he started going into the gym, stepping into the front door, sitting on the bench, talking with the person at the front.
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And then he would go in his car and he would drive home.
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And I think I can't remember the exact length of time, but it took like.
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Six weeks or eight weeks before he stepped and stayed into the gym and then he got onto the treadmill, right?
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And then it was like six or eight months later He had lost like 20 pounds or 15 pounds of weight and he was going towards his goals because he did everything in small incremental steps To get to where you want to go celebrating the wins along the way celebrating the highs and then taking the lows What can you learn from it and moving on?
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So I think that's a great segue into here are some of the things that we implement and we have done and we just did today actually, uh, which hopefully will be sort of like.
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Uh, small baby steps that if you are starting from square one or if, if what you've currently been doing isn't working, perhaps this method, uh, might be useful.
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So my mom about, Oh, nine years ago, nine years ago, started doing something with me and her, or sorry, me and Natalie, my brother.
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And sister in law, or wow, I'm screwing this up, my brother in law and my sister, uh, Katie and Jeremy and Natalie and I, and my mom would sit down and we would write down, um, the highs and lows of the year that we were in and then the goals for the next year.
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And so for the last nine years, the day after we've rarely missed that the day after new year, January 1st, January 1st, we get together and we discuss the highs and lows of the last year.
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Um, and then we.
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We talked to each other about the goals that we have set for this, this next year coming up.
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Yeah.
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And we share, we share with each other because there have been years that have been really good and we've, we've shared in the joy of that year.
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And there have been other years that have been absolute crap.
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And Um, feeling incredibly low and discouraged and just vocalizing the discontent feeling and whatnot.
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They have been such a, um, a voice of encouragement or, or another perspective to speak into.
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It has been so valuable to me.
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Well, and, and I think even today, even with some of the notes that we have for today is that where, where, where are your main focuses?
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And I think when we, it's easy, like any other goal.
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Um, that when you are in the middle of life to get wrapped up into and forget what the main focus is.
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And I think even today kind of reset us and it showed us where our main focuses was for last year.
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And we were happy with most of them.
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Um, but there's a, some that we're going to do is do a realignment and change their perspective and we're going to shift where we want to go, um, with the family, with the kids.
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Where's our next trip?
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Where's the next goal spiritually?
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Where do we want the kids?
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That kind of thing.
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You know what I mean?
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And like when you're
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talking about the highs of the year.
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Yeah.
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People might be like, what are you even talking about?
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But like, what are the things that were awesome?
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What, what of your children's accomplishments, um, were you celebrating?
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That's a high.
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Um, some of the goals that you had set for the previous year, looking back, okay, yes, I was able to do that.
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Like I balanced my, my budget.
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Like that was huge.
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That's a win, right?
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That's a high.
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What are, what are your things that you set out for yourself?
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Um, in self reflecting that were incredible, right?
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Like what in your marriage, Hey, I want to be a better communicator.
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Yeah.
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Well, like it's one of the goals that we had last year was we wanted to date more.
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Yes.
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One of the goals, I think we both put it on separately and then we discussed it after like we want to, we want to have more dates.
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And so we have learned that the kids are at this age where they can either stay at home or when they're out doing things, Nat and I will just go literally for an hour, go have an ice cream from McDonald's or we'll go for a coffee and we'll sit in a Starbucks or Tim Hortons and we'll just chat for an hour, hour and a half and then, and then go home.
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But to have more of those dates.
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It actually makes a difference.
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And so we looked at that this year and we're like, Oh man, we actually did that.
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That was something we fought for, for the whole year and it was a, it was a win.
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And
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now it's a goal for next year.
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And it's really exciting that we piggyback off of what, what worked this year and we then can, um, Together, work towards making that more often, more
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frequent and more part of our, of our core values as a husband and wife that we want to like, here's the thing, our kids are getting to the age now, I won't say too much because Natalie might start crying, which has happened in the last few weeks, but our kids are getting at the age where within the next 10, eight years, seven to six to eight years, probably all of the kids will be out of the house.
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Our goal.
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And all of this is so that when the kids are gone, that I still love her and she still loves me.
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Exactly.
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She still knows me and I still know her so many times.
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Maybe this is you if you're listening, whatever country you're listening from.
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Maybe this is you, but you are so focused on your kids that you don't remember who your spouse was.
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Yeah.
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And that is, is actually sad.
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It's sad because you get to the age where all of a sudden.
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Now that the kids are out of the house, you don't know each other and then you actually start fighting and then divorces happen because now your whole focus is on your kids.
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Can I tell you a simple, simple truth that our culture would have you deny is that your kids are not your whole world.
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Mic drop.
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I wish I would've had the.
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thing though.
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Exactly.
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But Hey, we set that standard, um, because you know what?
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Let's face it.
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My husband was here before my children were, my husband needs to remain a priority in my
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life.
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And so in all of these things that we're saying on the highs and talking about the, the thing about, we didn't talk about the lows was the lows actually help you determine it.
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Was it, and here's the thing I preached yesterday at church or this last Sunday.
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And I said, there's two things that you, you see in scripture when the Bible talks in Matthew about being, uh, those of you who are burdened and heavy laden are, there's what happens is that there's one you put on yourself.
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Like these are burdens that you put on yourself and then the heavy laden is people that things that other people put on you.
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And so in our relationship.
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What is the pressure that you're putting on yourself?
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And I would say that needs to go against is, um, is that a realistic pressure?
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Is that an abnormal pressure?
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Is it something you can even reach?
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Is it a standard that you can meet?
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And then you look at your lows through the lens of, Hey, I can accomplish this.
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This year was tough and we came close, but it was a mess.
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But how can we make that better going into the next year?
00:15:52.750 --> 00:15:53.429
Exactly.
00:15:53.490 --> 00:16:04.330
And like what, here's the thing of being able to do a spiritual audit and doing a spiritual reflection of like, where.
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Has my walk with the Lord, where has that been on a scale of one to 10 for me this past year?
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Um, is that a priority for me?
00:16:12.424 --> 00:16:13.174
Absolutely.
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What, what do I want?
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Um, for, for that element of it, do I want to be doing more devotions?
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Do I want to be more intentional during my prayer time?
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Do I want to be more intentional in reading the Bible?
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Whatever it might be.
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That also plays a thing because listen, for me, a huge gauge of my emotional.
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And, um, physical wellbeing, if I find myself super snappy and whatever, it's one of two things.
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One, I need to connect with my husband or you're hungry while, or maybe three things, but.
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I can definitely tell when I've made the Lord a priority and when I have sort of had other things come in the way.