Differently: Stop living by default. Start living by design.
Differently is for when you need to get out of your head and back into your life.
Created and hosted by Carla Reeves, creator of The Differently Journal, her work is built on over 20 years of helping people use writing to navigate real life. Not as a habit to keep up with, but as a way to calm your mind, get clear, and move forward.
You are always writing your life, whether it’s in your mind or on paper.
It's time to take the pen back.
Turn overthinking and self doubt into clarity, confidence, creativity and momentum.
In today's episode, I share 4 ideas that could deeply impact the way you go about realizing your goals this year.
After more than a decade of coaching individuals from corporate CEO’s, to creatives to multi-million dollar entrepreneurs and hundreds of conversations to help people make lasting change in lives - these 4 discoveries stand out for MOVING LIFE FORWARD, DIFFERENTLY.
These are not things that we typically think about, but they are the roots to making meaningful, lasting change.
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Thank you for listening!
SPEAKER_00
I'm Carla Reese, and this is Differently. After a decade of coaching individuals from corporate leaders to creative artists to multimillion dollar CEOs, I'm convinced we are far closer than we realize to what we deeply desire. And it's a willingness to do differently that can change everything. Whether you feel stuck in survival, navigating a change, or seeking more for your life, may this be your weekly nudge to take a risk to build a life that is uniquely bold, authentic, and in alignment with your deepest values. Welcome and happy new year, differently listeners. You may have noticed the new look for the podcast as well as the theme, which is move life forward differently. If you're new to the show, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. And if you've been here a while, thank you for coming back and moving life forward differently. That's what we're all about here. And today's episode kicks that off for the new year. As we start the new year, it is on my heart to share with you differently. This podcast was inspired because I spent years of my life feeling trapped by my circumstances and the limited thinking of my mind. I felt powerless and small, and I really had a huge pivot point in my life years and years ago and made it my mission to figure out a different way of doing life. And for the past two decades, I've been changing the way I move through life. That has taken me from what once felt like surviving and at the mercy of life to intentionally building a life and helping others do the same in their lives. I am deeply grateful and honored for the seat that I have into people's lives through my private coaching programs. And I feel especially a lot of gratitude after doing a lot of reflection over the holidays for the incredible people that I work with. And if you happen to be listening, just know that being in these important conversations with you have had and continue to have a deep impact in my life. Thank you. After all of these years, and it's been more of a decade of coaching uh individuals from corporate CEOs to film directors and producers to multimillion dollar entrepreneurs and hundreds of conversations. Um there's four discoveries that stand out when it comes to moving life forward differently. And you must know these because what our mind and what the world around us says we need to do to have what we want are not the things that actually get you what you want. And today I want to share four of those things with you. Number one, true lasting change isn't about surface solutions. It's about addressing the root. And what I mean by this is that if you want to experience, let's say, more love in your life, instead of planning more date line date nights and scheduling getaways or more quality time with your loved one, make it your mission this year to actually dissolve the barriers that keep you from being more present, more open, more intimate, more vulnerable, and more loving to your spouse on the daily. I remember years ago working with a client who started coaching, feeling like she actually needed to leave her marriage, that there was no hope. And the first part of our work together was looking at how her own thinking was impacting her marriage. You know, so often when we're in a relationship, it's so easy to look over there and want to blame and just feel like at the mercy of your circumstances that if they would just change, things would be better. But that leaves you powerless. And what this woman did was really looked at what she could do to make a change. And what we discovered is that she had thinking and beliefs that she wasn't valued or appreciated. And that belief about herself stemmed way back to childhood. This deeply rooted belief prevented her from ever feeling truly valued, seen, appreciated by others, especially by her husband. We all have lenses like this that shade the way we see life. And if you don't ever clean the lens or upgrade the lens, it's likely that you are actually viewing your current reality through your past and through ideas about yourself that are likely not true. My client couldn't even see what was actually happening in her marriage because of this faulty lens. And as we cleaned up her thinking and had her start showing up in her true value, um she could see the marriage she actually had, and it was pretty darn good. And when she started showing up in a new and different way around her husband, her husband changed unexpectedly. And I remember her coming back time and again to our calls, telling me how surprised she was by what her husband was saying or doing. And their marriage is still strong today. It turned out that what she thought was a problem in her marriage was really a root issue in her own thinking. Number two, true lasting change isn't about accomplishing more, achieving more, getting better. It's actually created by thinking and doing differently. Resist the urge to fall into the someday illusion trap. And if you don't know what that is, you can go back to all the way back to episode number three and learn more about the someday illusion. Make sure you stop to ask yourself this year, what is it that you want to feel more of in your life? And make sure that your goals and actions are setting you up to start feeling those feelings now because you feeling better will be incredible momentum for realizing your goals. And you won't have to wait for the achievement to start experiencing that. You can start experiencing it now. Contrary to what our again, our minds, our world wants to tell us is usually not about doing more, getting better, being faster. What I have found is that that just keeps you in the same loop, operating under the illusion that it's going to get better. An example of this was this year, this past year, I set out with an intention to live more. This is a new season of my life and our life. And we've raised our boys. I've built an established business, worked really hard building our life and marriage. And we're at a place where we want to just really enjoy the fruits of a lot of labor and really experience living more, adventuring more while we're still young and feel good. Haha. I'm laughing as I say that because our kids would often remind us that we're not young, but we feel young. And making this change this past year to live more didn't involve just adding more things to our calendar to get away or take trips, or it didn't involve get me getting better at delegating or working harder so that I could get to a place where I could live more. It actually required me to strip away all the patterns of thinking that would often sweep me away into always feeling this urgency, this shortage of time, and this need to hurry through life and everything I was doing. I had to address the things that were preventing me from feeling more alive, more adventurous, more peaceful or more present, so that when we did actually add things to our calendar, I could actually live it. This involved, you know, really looking at my own addiction to productivity and to-do lists and always moving and learning to settle my mind more. And this has had an impact, not just when we're taking a getaway, but I feel it as I sat here preparing for this podcast. I feel calmer when I am working, I feel more present and able to transition from activities throughout the day and enjoy it all more. This is doing differently, and it all begins with thinking differently. Number three, true lasting change doesn't happen in one big swoop. It's actually created over time with small, consistent, aligned actions. The new year is often a time when people set out in this giant burst of activity and energy in hopes to arrive at a better feeling place. This is awesome and inspiring. I love this time of year, but it what I've also found is that the deep changes people want don't live inside of more achievements and they aren't sustained with big bursts of energy. They're maintained with small, steady movements over time. The deep changes that show up again and again inside of my coaching conversations are things like having the strength to step away from work at five o'clock so they can actually have dinner at the table with their family, or learning to set down the to-do list, like I talked about, so that they can be present while they're playing with their children instead of lost in their head or watching the clock so that they can get back to the to-do list. It's things like tending to that nagging concern that their marriage has grown cold and separate, and because their life is so crammed full of busyness and they don't have any energy left to deal with it. The smaller motions that actually create and sustain change over time is making courageous choices and doing whatever it takes to carve time every day that reflects my marriage is a top priority. These are examples of the real things that, when approached with intentionality, make the meaningful change you're actually looking for. Most people are spinning around in circles, hoping that the motions they're making are going to lead to the life they want to be living. When in reality, altering these areas requires different kinds of muscles and a commitment to start right here, right where you are in the midst of the circumstances you are in. And when these muscles are developed, they have the power to really build you a life that you love living and that you never have to escape. Number four, true lasting change starts on the inside. The changes I've made in my life and the ones I have witnessed in others all these years through my private coaching work has revealed again and again that the things we deeply want are not material. They're non-material. They live in the unseen world. Things like deep connection, peace of mind, like really being able to feel and give love, intimacy, meaning and purpose in what we're doing, self-expression. These kinds of things are obtained not by having more time or space in our calendars, not by completing the to-do list or reaching that level of revenue in our business. They're achieved by calming the mind and getting quiet and listening on a soul level. When people make the choice to begin working with me, they know that something different needs to change because they've tried a lot of things. They've achieved many things in the life in their life, and they aren't getting the results they want. And quite frankly, they're exhausted. And they're at a point where they realize they've always what they've always done isn't generating what they actually want. They often have the material things, the accomplishments, even the relationship they want, but they struggle to experience the great life they have, or they're codependent on their circumstances to feel good. The real meaning and fulfillment arrives when they begin cultivating a rich inner life, which then becomes a lens that they get to change the way they see, approach, and experience everything on the outside in the external life. And this provides the grounding and stability to center themselves even when they're navigating hard things. What if this year you also focused on your own inner life and building an environment that you enjoy hanging out in 24-7? This might mean that you, you know, take time to create more space in your calendar for thoughtful reflection, prayer, meditation, reading, writing, walking. These kinds of things are the very things that I've seen that prove to be life-changing over and over again. I have one client this year who added reflection time to her calendar, and it's been a game changer for her to be able to intentionally navigate some very tumultuous times in her personal and working life. In review, moving life forward differently, it's not about surface solutions, it's about addressing the route. It's not about accomplishing more, achieving more, getting better faster. It's about thinking and doing differently. It doesn't happen in one big swoop or burst of energy, but in small, consistent actions over the long haul. And moving life forward differently starts on the inside. You don't have to keep spinning your wheels. Let this year be the year that you make meaningful traction that gets you off of the autopilot survival and feeling like you're on the hamster wheel for good. Let this be the year that you feel a deeper sense of peace, a sense of influence and control over your life that you haven't had before. And when you really settle in to build a life that has you know you're making the most of your life. And I believe you will set yourself up on a more fulfilling path of great traction. My commitment this year is that this podcast be a conversation that you can immerse yourself in weekly, that stretches your thinking, that calls you to do scary things for the sake of something much bigger in your life and where you're reminded that a meaningful life begins inside. Happy New Year, differently, listeners. I look forward to seeing you next week. Have a beautiful day. Hey, thanks for tuning in to this episode of Differently. I hope it stirred your thinking, and I invite you to take one inspired action from something that stood out to you. If you want to hear more conversations like this, be sure to hit follow under the Facebook iPhone app.
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