School is ALMOST out for summer and I know you’re so ready...even us homeschool moms - WE READY! lol
As I encouraged my kids to wrap up the school year, I found myself intuitively giving them a crash course on setting goals for summer.
But WHY NOW?
When I questioned my motives later, I came up with some pretty darn good reasons!
In this episode, I explain WHY you should set some fresh goals for summer… even more, WHY you should teach your kids to do the same!
I’m sharing about how I just did this with my kids and some helpful tips to help you not only do the things you want to do but BE the person you want to be over the summer, INTENTIONALLY!
P.S. End of School Cupcake Giveaway is here!
(valid Thursday 5/13/2021 thru Tuesday 5/18/2021)
For 5 days ONLY, you can enter to win a FREE 4 pack of The Nourishing Cupcake Jars!
There are 2 simple ways to enter:
1) -subscribe to The Nourishing Mompreneur Podcast
-scroll to the bottom to Rate and leave a Written Review
-screenshot your review and send it to hello@nourishingmichelle.com
2) -Follow me on Facebook @ www.Facebook.com/NourishingMichelle
-SHARE the FB post that is pinned to the top of my page on YOUR timeline
-leave a comment on the FB post to let me know you’ve shared it.
That’s it!
Enter once or twice by following the details above to enter this limited-time GIVEAWAY! I can’t wait to share something sweet with you for helping me spread the encouraging messages found on this podcast with others just like YOU!
Love and appreciate your support! ~ Michelle
LET’S STAY CONNECTED
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Michelle5Hiatt
Email: hello@nourishingmichelle.com
Full Episode Transcription:
4:44
Welcome back to The Nourishing Mompreneur Podcast, where we get encouraged and empowered as we pursue our greatest potential within the walls of our home. Hey Mama, my name is Michelle Hiatt, and I'm so thankful you're here. Do you feel like your life is good, but something in you feels unfulfilled? Do you feel stuck in the trenches of motherhood, exhausted and working so hard, but feeling like you're getting nowhere? Do you have big dreams you hold in your heart, but you've been living small? Are you motivated for more, but don't have the clarity or the courage to do anything about it? Do you want to discover God's best and see if it's really possible to be an excellent wife, an intentional mother, and be successful in business, all for the glory of God? As a wife of 16 years, a homeschooling mom of five, and an entrepreneur, I know exactly how you feel. Every bit of it. I truly believe that the most important work you will ever do is within the walls of your home and that there is purpose in every season. If you are a fellow business-minded mama, with a heart for home and a love for Jesus, let's process this journey and grow together.
5:46
Hey, Mama, so as you know this podcast project has been very much of a purpose project for me air quotes purpose, what really means that it's something that I'm doing not for my gain, but just to walk more deeply in the purpose that God has called me to. Being obedient, pressing record uncomfortably, every time. Showing up, serving authentically, this is really where I'm at and what I've been doing, but it's been interesting to see how it has evolved.
6:13
I originally thought that I'd be talking a good bit about business strategies and entrepreneurship mindsets. I've been very much immersed in business for the past three years and feel like I've been in this business school training process. But so far, it's ended up to be a lot of me pouring out my faith, the things that I'm learning with you. I've been talking a lot about Bible things because that's just where I've been at and where my focus has been. But the cool thing is how evident it has been that walking as a child of God, being a believer in business or even not in business. It's just about, again, pursuing God's best for your life looking for the more. As you move along as a woman of faith, perspectives, the mindsets, the character qualities, the principles for success, the same ones that are gonna help you grow your business, they're gonna help you do that thing are the same principles that are going to help you thrive at your home and with your family. They are so well connected.
7:13
So I hope that through this podcast, you're able to bridge the gap so that you can pursue your greatest potential in all the things by growing as a woman of faith because it is like I said, it is so connected. You can't separate the two. When I think about these podcast episodes, one of the things that I struggle with is feeling like goodness, I can't cover it all or be completely thorough I love I'm kind of an all or nothing person. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it all the way and when I have an idea or a topic, it's hard for me I want to think about you know, leave no stones unturned and talk about every aspect of that conversation and be really thorough and comprehensive. But it just, that's just not how life works and that's just not how these conversations work.
7:59
So these really are open-ended conversations. I'm really sharing pieces of my heart and my journey and the mompreneur wisdom that I have to uplift you and hopefully push you along in your journey. So all that to say, this is just another conversation. I've talked a lot. I've learned a lot about setting goals in my life. I do things differently at different times to find out what works and definitely I've learned what does not work. Today is a practical conversation that's just going to get the ball rolling with setting your goals and intentions for summer. So I'm super excited to have this conversation with you guys.
8:33
Right now, I don't know when you're listening, but right now it is the end of the school year in case you're listening at another time. I found myself this week this Monday morning, touching base with my kids for what I kind of call our Hiatt huddle. It's basically the time of day where we get together in the morning and it's pretty much us just getting on the same page. I'm pumping them up, encouraging them, giving them vision, checking in with them on where they're at making sure we all kind of have a good focus and we're just working together as a family unit in that way. You know, it's interesting as a mom, you are mentoring and coaching your kids whether you realize it or not. I think of this as a huddle because I feel like so much as a mom, I'm not just a mom, I'm a coach. I'm a mentor and it's important that we recognize that and understand that role and responsibility so that we can steward that opportunity well because somebody is going to be giving our kids their mindsets, their worldview, their game plan for life. So let it be you that has the primary influence and just take control of that role of authority as their mama that you have in their life.
9:42
So anyhow, back to back to what I was saying Monday morning, very end of the school year, feeling like "Okay, let's get focused. Where are we at? Where do we need to go?" It is May now and it is time to finish. I found myself leading them into writing out fresh goals. It just kind of happened intuitively but it felt so right and when I thought about it later, I was like why are we doing this now? The timing just didn't make sense. It's the very end of the school year, we're going into summer where it's not the time to be writing out goals and thinking like it's the first of the year what, why are we doing this now, why does this feel right? Why is this important? And when I thought about it, I realized that the timing is actually very important. It's definitely important for our family right now, and what we're going through and the season that we're in, but I want to go over with you some of the reasons why now is a perfect time to write or rewrite those goals and to encourage you to look inward before life breaks up for the summer.
10:47
And just like everything, this is going to be good for you as a mom as you move forward and make progress towards your goals towards whatever you're working towards and whatever you have on your plate, but this is really important for our kids too, because remember, like, if you are a mompreneur our kids are a part of that journey. You can't separate it. If you are pursuing business or whatever you do. It is a family decision. It is a family endeavor. So embrace that and connect it and do these things together so that you guys can grow and your kids will be so far ahead of you than where you're at today.
11:22
So first, let's talk about why. Why is it a good time to set some of those goals? Why is it a good time for our family to do that? Well, because we're weary. We're ready to quit. We're so ready for summer by the way. We're needing to refocus and dig deep so that we can finish the year strong before we transition into summer. We've got to dig deep. We're tired. We've got to refocus. We've got to do what we've got to do to finish. It takes strong intention and grit to finish the year strong.
11:58
Although as a mom, you know you never actually finished there's doesn't work like that life doesn't work like that. It kind of, you know life comes in waves. It's more like that, but you're shifting, when you shift into a different groove it takes some intentionality, it takes some grit, it takes some some courage to do that. So this is a good time before transitioning into summer to set the goals.
12:20
Another reason why it's important is because life is always full of change and transition. Each season should be looked at with fresh eyes and given fresh vision. It's so funny that I'm talking about this coming from a girl who naturally I resist change I always have I'm the kind of person that I would love to fight for what's comfortable, naturally just have life the same have life steady, just stay consistent, stay faithful, that's kind of in my nature. Now my husband on the other hand, he's the opposite he's up, he's down. He's all over the place. He loves change. Things are always different. He's hilarious. And our life has been peppered or full of a lot of change. I mean, we've moved a lot, we've done a lot, it's been awesome. My life will never not be exciting being married to my amazing husband, but he's awesome and I wouldn't have it any other way. He is like true entrepreneurship like through and through.
13:19
Anyways, I've learned that change is inevitable in life. We know this but sometimes we we have to stop resisting it and just accept and embrace that. So change is inevitable. It's coming, whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not. But we can use it for a purpose when we plan ahead and we set some goals. So take advantage of the change in the transition of summer and give it a purpose, give it some fresh vision.
13:49
Okay, another reason why it's a great time is because transition always requires extra intentionality. So I kind of just talked about this but this morning as I was praying and as I anticipate some family changes for our summer we're actually planning to move houses this summer. Fingers crossed in faith claiming it right now. But I was praying this morning I was like Lord, help me to stay faithful as I anticipate not just shifting into summer season, but also a lot of move and change as as a family on a personal level. I'm like God, help me to stay faithful. I've got to be extra intentional and really be ready for that move. Like I talked about in a few episodes back living ready. This is where it counts right here.
14:37
It's easy to feel lost in transition. I'm a checklist person. I love having lists and checklists, and that's all good and great, but how I explained it to my kids is, "kids your goals, it's not a checklist. Don't look at it as that way. Look at it more like a map. When you don't know what to do when you don't know where to go. Go back to your goals and make sure you're on course."
14:59
For example, during the summer, there's a lot of slivers of time where your kids they might be wandering around, they're gonna feel restless in between activities in between maybe school subjects even right now. Maybe they don't know what to do or this is a time when they want to say I'm bored. Mom, what do I do? These are the times when you can direct them back to their goals. They can go back and look at their their map and see, okay, where do I want to go? It will give them direction when they might feel a little bit lost in transition. Planning ahead can fill in those gaps. So like I said, there's a clear plan or an idea of what to do in those empty spaces. And when those times happen. It doesn't mean that you necessarily work more it means that you're more intentional with the time that you have.
15:47
Another reason why this is so important to do, especially with your kids is that it gives our kids a growth mindset. Learning doesn't only happen in school during the school year, we should always be learning and curious and getting better every day. We want to push our kids to keep making progress in the areas that they need or desire. If we're honest with ourselves most of the valuable things that we learned in life probably came after high school or after college. Am I right? Many of them had nothing to do with textbooks, many of the lessons in life that are most vital and that helped sculpt us into the woman that we are today, those didn't come through the tests in school. Education is far beyond the books. So always encourage your kids to chase their interests to find the answers to the questions that they have to explore and experience the world around them just to keep learning to keep reading to keep growing in whatever capacity that looks like but school is not confined to a specific "this is the first day of school, this is the end day of school" it is life and we want our kids to have a growth mindset for lifelong learning. So that starts now and we can instill that perspective in them right now.
17:04
So how can you help your kids set goals? So this is obviously for you, Mom and for our kids. But let's talk a little bit about how how to do that and I'll tell you how I did it with the kids this week. Again, there's different times in different seasons where you do things differently, but this is what worked well for me this week. This is what felt right for my family. So hopefully you can glean something from this and it'll give you a little bit of maybe ideas and inspiration for your family. If you're on board with setting some goals, a few tips. Always, we want to keep things simple. We don't want to complicate things. Keep it simple, especially right now as we're going into summer. Nobody wants complicated anything, at least I don't. But write down some categories and look at them almost as buckets and have one or two goals for each bucket.
17:53
So some different ideas, I gave my kids some specifics. One of them was health. We went over health. We went over education and learning goals. We talked about relationship goals. We set goals for fun. These are just a few areas. I think I gave them five different topics or buckets and I said I gave them some questions to ask themselves some ideas and I said look at this category and just think about "Who do I want to be? What do I want to do in this area? How do I want to grow? How do I want to make progress? You know, what are my intentions for this" And just write one or two things possibly in this category that you can be working on as we transition into summer.
18:34
Give them the categories but let your kids come up with the ideas. This really needs to come from them. Because if they're going to do it, they need to want to do it. It has to be important to them. It's not about what you want for them. It's about what's important to them and so this is a great time to give them guidance and direction but to really step back and listen and see what's on their heart and what's in their head.
18:57
So for example, some of the goals when it comes to health some of my kids they want to walk more they want to get more active. So we talked about different ideas, okay. They want to play practice soccer three times a week. Okay, awesome. We talked about with one of them like a little workout plan and so yes, we kind of guided that through just different health goals, kind of what we did, I'll just kind of go back for a second is I gave them the categories or the buckets. They wrote their goals out and then we took a walk together. We just took a walk in the driveway they brought their goals, and I just listened and I asked them their questions and they shared it with me. So it was it's all about quality time building relationship, having a conversation and then through our conversation I was able to as their mother, give them more clarity on that and help kind of get a little bit more specific on the things that they were already wanting to do and trying to communicate and articulate on their paper.
19:50
It's always cool to see how we can even intertwine too, like one of my daughter's I was like, "All right, why don't you take your 10 minute walk in the morning? Yes, it's good. Let's get more active this summer. Let's, feel better. Let's feel more confident about ourselves. Let's do these things and maybe as you're walking, you can read that chapter of a book that you want to read." You know, how can these things work together where you can kind of kill two birds with one stone? There's a lot of creative ways that you can do that. So as a mom you can kind of help them brainstorm and get more clarity and kind of help them come up with more specifics on how it's actually going to happen, how they can execute the goals that they have.
20:26
Another thing like I just mentioned, some of the education and learning goals. A couple of my daughters are like we want to read daily. One of them said "I want to read a book every couple weeks," another one said "I want to read 20 pages a day" and I was like why don't we just do one chapter a day, and so we kind of talked about that. My son, he wants to learn more about forex, and crypto, and Bitcoin and all that stuff. It's like totally foreign to me, but he wants to learn about that, so awesome. I've got him set up with an education opportunity so he is going to be going through kind of a course to learn about that because that's really valuable in the world that we're living as our money systems are changing and all that another conversation another time. Don't get my husband started on that he like is really into that stuff right now.
21:10
Anyways, for you moms we want to think about business goals, financial, our kids love opportunities to make money. That's always a great thing to do for my son. I'm setting him up with some opportunities to learn new skills so that he can work and make money. Not even just making money now but learning the skill so that he can make money for the rest of his life. If you can install a floor, if you can learn different skill sets for making money, it is the most valuable thing you can ever do even if he's not earning an hourly wage. If he's being able to be an apprentice and learn new skills, it can provide for him or his family for the rest of his life. So setting him up with opportunities to not just maybe make money, but to learn the skills how to make money and earn money with the work of their hands.
21:55
Relationship goals- that's an awesome one to talk to the kids. Who are the people that you most want to spend time with? They kind of gave me some different friends and that helps me as a mom kind of set up our schedule. And another one too, is scheduling in fun. This is an important one especially for you, mom. So if you are driven, if you're ambitious, if you would categorize yourself as a mompreneur, you have to intentionally schedule days to get out of the house and have some fun. You've got to schedule in your play because as you know when you're home for me like my home is my workspace. I do everything at home, I work I'm a mom, I'm a wife, like the work never ends and so when I'm home I'm kind of naturally just always on. It's hard to fully relax sometimes when I'm home so getting out of the house is a really helpful thing. Especially for you mom to unplug and fully engage with the kids but schedule in fun, schedule in play because that is really important especially for summer. We don't want to work the summer away. We don't want to play the summer away. We want to do all of it but we have to kind of plan ahead of time to allot the time with a purpose.
23:10
One of my daughters said she's like "I want to ride a horse. I want to learn to ride a horse." I was like okay, that's good. Well, it gave me the idea as a mom. Okay, let me look into some summer camps for horses. Again, when you can hear what your kids are wanting, what their desires are, what they're thinking about. It helps you as a mom, not just plan out their summer but help them accomplish the goals that they have and help kind of just everybody's schedule work together. And as a mom, there's a lot more categories, this is some of the basic things that I went over with my kids but don't forget the thing about your marriage too mom, this is a great time, take that trip, take those dates, do the things that you need to do. I'll have to do a separate podcast sometime on how I learned not to set goals and what's worked best for me the past years. But hopefully these are some ideas that are going to get you started and encouraged for summer.
24:02
So again, let your kids come up with their ideas. spend some quality time with them, listen to their heart, just let it be beautiful moments with them. As far as building a relationship, help them get clarity and then what I did is once we did that, I typed it up for them to help them get the right verbage because how we read our goals, how we communicate those to ourselves is really important and again, that's kind of another conversation but don't do it for your kids, the goal here is to set them up for success. And if you set your kids up for success, you're setting yourself up for success. You're setting your whole family up for success. So these things are for everybody. And of course as a mom, you'll want to go a little bit deeper for yourself.
24:45
Okay, a couple more important thoughts. As you set your goals for summer, go into it planning for interruptions, plan for those distractions, plan for everything to work against you as soon as you take a step towards your goals. That's just kind of how life works. I'll never forget, I was listening to this talk from John Maxwell and he's so funny, he's just such a great man. He was talking about the road to success. I can't remember exactly how he said it, but he just put his arm up. If I was with you, I could show you but he just kind of put his arm up on an angle and he's like, this is what it looks like basically showing it looks uphill and that is so true, but it's especially true during a season like summer where there's going to be more interruptions. There's going to be more opportunities to do this or do that. Set your goals in a way that you can actually stick with them when life happens and keep the promises you make to yourself. That's really important. When you set your goals for yourself and for your kids you want to do it in a way where you can actually sustain it. You can actually stay faithful with that. You want to keep the promises that you make to yourself because that builds confidence. You don't want your kids to set a goal that's unattainable.
25:57
If nothing else, if you're like you know what, Michelle, I'm not into goal setting this summer. This is not where I'm at not interested. No thank you. Yes, ma'am. If nothing else, create a book end to your day meaning just focus on some good habits that are going to be unwavering. So in the morning, this is what we do, in the evening, this is what we do. Our mornings and our evenings, we have a really strong healthy habit, healthy flow, healthy rhythm, healthy routine, but during the day, it's all just open ended. We'll go this way, we'll go that way, we can float around it can look however it looks but we start our days this way we end our days this way that creates consistency and really a competence and a comfort for our kids and it helps keep our family in order and on track even when we want to keep the days wide open. That's totally okay too.
26:50
And one last thing I want to bring up and this is kind of a bonus topic and this is a whole, a loaded conversation but I didn't know this initially when I first set goals. I would always focus on the things that I do, but I want to really encourage you to set some expectations on how you want to feel. Setting goals, setting intentions, making progress, it's not just about what you do, but who you are. How you feel is so important. Consider setting some emotional expectations for goals. Attach how you want to feel with the task at hand.
27:28
So for example, a couple of my daughters that want to maybe they want to just get more physically active maybe they want to lose a few pounds, whatever. Why? Why do you want to do that? Well, I want to feel more confident. Right? Attach your emotions to that because it's not about a number on a scale. It's not about fitting in clothing, it's about how you feel about yourself. If you feel confident, hey, that is success. So just know that feeling joyful at the end of the day. If you are joyful, if you've had a chance to laugh with your kids, if that's the emotions and the feeling that you want to have. That is success. At the end of the day if you're grateful. If life has been crazy and all everything went wrong, but you still had a peace within, that is something to acknowledge and that is something to celebrate. But just like anything you kind of have to set that ahead of time because life is going to come and as soon as you start to pursue anything you're going to feel the resistance and the uphill of that climb. So decide ahead of time not just what you want to do, but how you want to feel, who you want to be, how you want to respond in that. Because that is something that should certainly be brought up and acknowledged and celebrated and it's really important.
28:48
Okay, that's all I got for now. I hope this conversation is an encouragement to you to be more intentional about what you want to do with your time, especially this summer. Who you want to be and even how you want to feel in the various aspects of life. Now is the perfect time to set the tone before you transition into summer before school's out as you finish the year strong and teach your kids to do the same. Always start as you intend to go, so start your summer in a beautiful way with good intentions and I know it's going to be an amazing time and you'll be able to look back with complete gratitude and complete joy and say "Wow, this was an awesome summer even if nothing else, even if I didn't make all the progress that I wanted to even if I moved slowly forward. Hey, there was so much joy and laughter and even in the midst of transition, I had peace. Even in the midst of a loss or a hard time, my faith was strong." And those are things that we can decide and plan for now.
29:47
Father God, I pray for the mom listening that you would give her fresh vision and clarity for summer Lord, give her wisdom on what she is to do and what she's not to do. Help her to define what success should look like for her in this season. Help her to stay faithful and at the end of the day to trust you at all times and in all things, God. Help her to raise her kids with strong mindsets for success and to use these moments as she sets goals with her kids, as she spends time with them, as she listens, as she initiates these conversations, help her to use these as opportunities to really just cultivate great relationships. Lord, I pray that you would help her to know just how loved she is and what an awesome mom that she already is, Lord. Thank you that we are always growing and learning and that your grace just covers over all of our weaknesses and all of the areas where we fall short. Lord, I just bless this mom listening, bless her in all of her endeavors today. Give her the strength to finish this school year strong.
Hey Mama real quick, before you run off and do all the things, if you found value in today's conversation it would mean the world to me if you left a review on my podcast. I know you know how precious time is. The biggest thing that you can give me for taking the time to share on this podcast is to leave a written review. This helps me on my mission to encourage and empower others who are pursuing their greatest potential from home.
Head over to iTunes and scroll down to the bottom of The Nourishing Mompreneur Podcast to rate and leave a super quick review to let me know what spoke to your heart. AND if you're feeling a little extra today, take a screenshot of today's episode and tag me on social. I value your time so much and appreciate you connecting with me. Find me at NourishingMichelle.com/connect
