(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
(0:00 - 1:10)
Welcome to season two of Goals and Grace. I've been thinking about this season for a while now, not just what I wanted to talk about, but what I hope happens because we spend this time together. I don't want this podcast simply to give you more things to think about.
You already have plenty to think about. I want it to help you become more intentional about the life you're creating, because whether you realize it or not, you are building a life right now with your calendar, with your yeses and your no's, with what gets your attention and what you're willing to tolerate, with the conversations that you keep avoiding, with the relationships that you're nurturing, and perhaps some that you've been neglecting, with what you do when you're tired, and with what you believe about yourself, and especially with the ordinary decisions that don't feel particularly important when you're making them. All of it is becoming something.
(1:10 - 1:37)
The question is, is it becoming the life you actually want? I'm Rev. Dr. Juliet Spencer, and I'm known as the Decision Architect because I believe everyone deserves to make decisions their future self will thank them for. This season, we're going to go beyond making individual good decisions. We're going to talk about what those decisions are building.
(1:38 - 2:39)
You can make a lot of perfectly reasonable decisions and still wake up one day and realize, uh-oh, this is not exactly the life I meant to create. Have you ever looked at some part of your life and wondered, when did this happen? Now, you might have noticed that even though it's not particularly awful, maybe there's not even anything terribly wrong, which is why this can be kind of hard to recognize. You have a job.
People respect you. You're getting things done. The bills are getting paid.
The family is functioning. You're serving, showing up. You're handling things.
And if somebody asks how you're doing, I'd be willing to bet you would say, I'm fine. And you are. But somewhere underneath fine is a quieter question.
(2:40 - 3:27)
Is this really how I want to live? Maybe your days feel rushed from the moment you wake up until you finally collapse at night. Oh, I've been there. Or maybe you've become incredibly productive, but you can't remember the last time you did something simply because you enjoyed it.
Maybe your career has grown, but your relationships have gotten whatever energy was left over. Perhaps you're doing meaningful work, but you can't remember the last time the work actually felt meaningful. Or if you were like husband and me for a while, maybe you've been so busy taking care of everybody else that you stopped asking for what you need.
(3:29 - 3:45)
And if you're like a number of my clients, maybe you're just tired. Not the kind of tired of, I just stayed up too late last night, but you know what I mean. The real bone weary tired.
(3:45 - 7:18)
The kind of tired that makes you wonder, is this what life is supposed to feel like? And here's what I want you to hear. You don't have to hate your life to want to change. It, you don't have to feel ungrateful for what you have in order to recognize that something no longer fits.
Gratitude and desire are not opposites. I can thank God deeply for what I am and still believe God isn't finished with me. I can appreciate the life I've built and still recognize that some of the architecture needs to change.
And I can anticipate with gratitude, the blessings I have yet to receive. So here's something I've noticed. Most of us don't intentionally design our entire lives.
We tend to accumulate them, don't we? A job we took because it was the right opportunity. And the next thing we know it became a career or maybe a temporary responsibility somehow becomes our permanent responsibility. We say yes to something once, maybe we volunteer to teach a Sunday school class at church.
And before we know it, everyone assumes that we'll always do it. We tell ourselves, Oh, this is just a busy season. And then five years later, we're still calling it a season.
We develop habits because they helped us survive a particular time of our lives. But circumstances change, even when the habits remain the same. One decision just gets stacked on top of another.
And one commitment gets stacked right on top of another. And suddenly we're standing outside a life we built without ever consciously choosing the blueprint. That's one reason I've become so fascinated by decisions.
Big decisions matter, of course. I mean, who hasn't thought, should I take the job? Should we make the move? Should I start the business? Should I stay in this relationship? Those big things matter. But your life is shaped just as powerfully by the decisions that seem too small to deserve much thought.
Should I check my email again tonight? Do I say yes, because I genuinely want to, or because I don't want someone disappointed in me? Do I go ahead and make the phone call or can I get by with a text? Should I go for a walk? Do I speak up or is it just much more comfortable to stay quiet? Do I rest? Do I apologize? Do I keep carrying something that really isn't mine anymore? Do I spend another year telling myself, well, someday? Friend, these choices are laying bricks and eventually the bricks become a life. This is especially tricky for high achieving people. And the reason is because sometimes success can disguise the problem.
Let me say that again. Because sometimes success disguises the problem. If everything were falling apart, you would know something needed to change.
(7:19 - 7:55)
But what if you're succeeding? What if people admire what you've built and there are so many people who recognize that they can count on you? What if your resume looks fabulous and your business is growing? What if doing all the things you prayed for the opportunity to do is what you're doing? And then it becomes much harder to admit. I'm not sure I want to keep doing it this way. We tend to assume that if something is successful, it must also be right.
(7:55 - 8:40)
But they're not the same things. You can succeed at something that is costing you too much. You can become really good at maintaining a life that doesn't fit you anymore.
You can achieve a goal and discover that the person you had to become to achieve it isn't the person you want to remain. And you can be deeply grateful for a season that God used and still recognize that season is ending. That isn't failure.
That's discernment. So, I want to give you a question today. And I'm actually going to introduce something new for Season 2 of Goals and Grace.
(8:41 - 14:07)
I'm calling it the Architect's Question. Every week, I'm going to give you one question I want you just to sit with. It's not the kind of question I want you to answer quickly while you're listening and then forget about.
Rather, the Architect's Question will be a question worth carrying around. Maybe you write about it in your journal or you put notes about it in your phone. Who knows? You might even want to talk about it with your spouse or a trusted friend or a colleague at work.
Could questions interrupt autopilot? And today's Architect's Question is, If I keep living exactly this way, where will it take me? If I keep living exactly this way, where will it take me? You'll no doubt notice that I didn't ask whether your life is good or bad because that's just too simple. Instead, it's a question about trajectory. It's taking the time to say, if I keep working this way, where will it take me? And if I keep treating my body this way, where will it take me? Or if I keep spending money this way, where will it take me? If I keep avoiding this conversation, if I keep giving everyone else my best energy and my family whatever's left, if I keep saying yes when I really mean no, where will it all take me? If nothing changes, where does this road go? Now that's a really different question from can I keep doing this? Because if you're anything like the people I coach, the answer is probably yes, you can and probably do it well.
You can carry a tremendous amount and you can push through. I have no doubt you'll be able to figure it out and make it work. My guess is that you have been doing that for years.
But can I isn't always the right question. I think often the better question is, do I want to? Do I want the life this is creating? Psalm chapter 90 verse 12 says, so teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart. I love that.
Teach us to count our days. We do that because remembering that our days are finite changes how we value them. Your time is your life.
When you give something an hour, you aren't just giving it an hour, you're giving it an hour of your life. And unlike money, you can't earn that hour back, which means stewardship of our lives isn't simply about squeezing more productivity into our calendars. It's really an intentionally asking, what deserves these days that God has given me? Who deserves my presence? What work deserves my energy? What needs to end and what needs to begin? What have I been postponing as though I have an unlimited supply of tomorrows? And maybe most importantly, who am I becoming while I'm doing all of this? The goal isn't simply to architect a more efficient life.
I don't want you to listen to goals and grace this season and become exceptionally efficient at being miserable. I want you to become intentional about the hours you are creating. I'm not concerned about you trying to optimize every hour.
I want you to become intentional about what those hours are creating. Maybe you're listening and you already know the area that isn't working. It could be a career, your productivity calendar, your marriage or your health, your spiritual life, setting healthy boundaries, your relationship with achievement.
That was something that I had to spend some intentional time diving into because I had become my own roadblock. I know I digress, but we all have things that we need to address. We need to listen to, we need to ask, are they working? Are your expectations of yourself still appropriate? And maybe another voice immediately says, uh-oh, but I did choose this.
All right, so you may have chosen it at some point, but now you have more information. You've changed more than likely since you made that initial choice. Or perhaps the circumstances have changed.
Maybe your responsibilities have changed and your understanding of yourself as well. You are allowed to revisit the blueprint. Architects do.
(14:08 - 15:16)
They discover that something doesn't work as intended and they redesign it. They don't stand in a badly functioning room for the next 30 years saying, well, this is where I originally put the wall. They ask what needs to change? That's what we're going to do during this opening series of Season 2. We're going to look at the life you're building and talk about priorities as well as about the exhaustion of always being the reliable one.
We'll spend some time talking about courage and about achievement and worth. And ultimately, we're going to ask what it would mean intentionally to build a life your future self will thank you for. I want nothing more than for you to have the life you want.
A life grounded in your values and in your faith. A life where success doesn't require sacrificing everything you supposedly became successful for. So here's today's move.
(15:17 - 15:48)
I invite you to identify one area of your life that needs redesign. Just one area of your life that needs redesign. And you don't have to automatically choose the thing that's going the worst.
In fact, you might look for something more subtle. Something that's working, but costing too much. Something that used to fit, but it doesn't fit your life choices or your lifestyle now.
(15:49 - 17:29)
Maybe it's something you tolerated because changing it feels inconvenient. Perhaps it's that you've been managing rather than intentionally building. So once you identify that one area of your life, write it down.
And underneath it, write, if I keep living this way, where will it take me? And then I pray that you will be brave enough to tell yourself the truth. The good news is you don't have to solve it in one day. You don't even have to know what the alternative looks like yet.
Transformation often begins when we stop pretending we don't know what we already know. In closing, my friend, just remember you are building a life today and tomorrow, in the next meeting, in the next yes and the next no. In what you pay attention to and in what you decide can wait.
And you have more influence over that architecture than you might realize. So this week, don't just ask, what do I need to get done? Ask, what am I building? And is it something my future self will be grateful to inherit? I'm Rev. Dr. Juliet Spencer, the Decision Architect, and this is Goals and Grace. Until next time, choose with intention, move with courage, and trust the grace that meets you along the way.
May God bless you with goals and grace.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
