Christine: You are listening to the Your Empty Nest Coach podcast with Coach Christine, episode number 13: Future You Has All the Power; I’m Telling You, She Does. … Hello, my empty nest friend! We are at lucky episode number 13, and it is lucky because I get to spend time with you today. Thanks for making time in your busy schedule to listen. You are the best! Today’s episode is something that has really, truly, I can’t stress this enough, changed my life. It’s been such a huge part of the changes I have made over the last eight months, that I decided to make it my free gift to you.
Christine: You are listening to the Your Empty Nest Coach podcast with Coach Christine, episode number 13: Future You Has All the Power; I’m Telling You, She Does. This podcast is for you, a mother who years ago walked away from a career to raise your child. Sure, you’ve been busy volunteering, car pools, maybe part-time work and taking care of everyone. But your main gig, that has been your child. Now, that they are in their later years of high school, the empty nest looms ahead for you and it is freaking you out. I’ve been there and I get it. Together, we’ll turn our freaking out energy into freaking awesome energy.
Hello, my empty nest friend! We are at lucky episode number 13, and it is lucky because I get to spend time with you today. Thanks for making time in your busy schedule to listen. You are the best! Today’s episode is something that has really, truly, I can’t stress this enough, changed my life. It’s been such a huge part of the changes I have made over the last eight months, that I decided to make it my free gift to you.
What I am going to do in this episode is to walk you quickly through my entire free program, “The Empty Nest, a Guide to Uncovering My Future,” so you get an idea of what it is all about. I recommend that you take no less than seven days to get through my free program. This episode alone, may not be everything you need, but it may get you started on your dreaming, and then, when you’re ready to really dive in, take my free class.
I have seven steps to help you find future you. Step one is to dream. When I speak about dreams in this episode, I’m talking about those big, future goals, plans and ideas that totally inspire you. Remember those big dreams you had when you were like five through nine or ten years old? You didn’t care if your plans were realistic at all. You dreamed. You could have been a pirate on the moon fighting space aliens. But that’s what you wanted to do. You imagined, and you played it all out in your head. We are going to tap into that part of you. She’s still there. You’ve just been hiding her, really hiding her, for a long time.
The first thing you need to do is dream. I want you to dream big and I want you to not limit yourself. When you think to yourself things like, I’ve always wanted to be a hair stylist and then, automatically, your mind or your thoughts kick in to tell you why it isn’t a good idea. I want you to tell that part of your mind to just sshhh, for these exercises, and then, ask it for help. Give it a job.
Your mind loves to do two things. One, keep you safe doing what you’re doing. It likes routine and knowing you are safe. It also likes to solve problems. When you notice your mind, or your thoughts pushing back on you, as you start to dream, tell it not to worry, that you are just dreaming and ask for its help. Then, get to work dreaming. Not just any dream, I want you to dream big. I do not want you to have realistic dreams, something that really could happen anyway. I want you to have the “if I could wish for anything into existence tomorrow, what would it be” type of dreams. I’m also, not asking you to make a plan to make these dreams happen right now. I want you to dream about high-level big things that you would like to be able to say at the end of your life, that you have accomplished. Figure out what is really important you. Pick a time frame, five years out, 10 years out, 20 years out, and what are you doing in this dream of yours? That is step one. Ideally, spend a full day, multiple days or even a week or more on this. It might take you a few weeks just to tell your mind to sshhh when you are dreaming. It isn’t used to doing this. Is it? Don’t worry. It is worth the wait.
Step two is to write it down. I want you to schedule time for yourself to write down your dreams. Give yourself a minimum of 15 minutes, maybe 30. Heck, give yourself a half a day if you want. These are your big dreams. Get your favorite writing utensil, and a notebook, your favorite beverage and write down every dream that you came up with. No editing. Anything that pops in your head that seems outlandish, write that down too. This isn’t a contract. It’s simply an exercise. It should be fun and enjoyable. Don’t edit as you’re writing things down.
Congratulations! You are starting to find the real you again. She’s so worth getting to know. Remember, sshhh your mind on the “you can’t do thats” and “how will you do that” statements that pop into your head. We aren’t figuring out the how, we are dreaming about the what. You might think that this is kind of vision board time, but my friend, we are not even close. You have more work to do. Remember, too, that you can add things to this page at any time. Save it. We’ll come back to it in more than one step of this process.
We’re onto step number three, now that you’ve written everything down. You’ve gotten it all out of your head. Step number three is to pick one thing. Don’t overthink it. Look at your page and the first thing that jumps out at you, circle it. That’s all. Just circle it. Don’t change your mind. I want you to play it out through the remaining steps. Don’t change it. Got it? Awesome.
Step number four, this is really fun, to imagine in detail. This is where younger you, who liked to play make-believe, comes into play. I want you to spend a minimum of 24 hours throughout your day, imagining every detail of what your life would be like with what you chose in step three. I’m talking about what time do you wake up? Where do you live? What is your home like? Is it in the same location? What kind of foods do you eat? Who is your inner circle? What does your day look like? Do you work? How often do you work? Do you have a commute? Do you travel? Do you exercise? Get the idea? I want you to seriously imagine living into this choice.
As you go through your day, I want you to think about what would be different about your day if that choice was your reality and how does that make you feel? You may find there are things you love about your choice and you may find there are details that you really aren’t so thrilled about. When you really truly put your mind to work on this and imagine the details, you’ll learn more about yourself.
Once you feel that you have full understanding of what that choice means in your life, imagining every detail, now move onto step five and ask yourself how did I get there? Even if you already have a good feeling that you don’t love this choice, this is worth the extra step to gain clarity. The power in step four and five combined is unbelievable. Deeply imagining your possible future and then asking your mind how you got there, you’ll receive all the clarity you need. From who? Not from me, and not from your inspired family members or co-worker, but from you. You know the answer. It won’t be the same as anyone else’s.
You are listening to a podcast that is the realization of me doing this exact exercise. I said I want to help future empty nest women, but I couldn’t see any way that it would work. I work full-time and there are zero external factors that would say I can make this work. When I lived into this dream for a few days, seeing the details and finally asked my mind how I got there, I quite matter-of-factly received the direction, well of course, you woke up at 4:00 a.m. and worked on it before your day job. What?! That is a bit much. Trust me, anyone I share this with, tells me it’s too much for them too. It may be. That wasn’t their answer to their dream. It was my answer to my dream. I saw clearly how it would work, once I had the answer.
When you ask anyone other than yourself how to proceed, you are traveling down their path, not yours. Which might work, and might not, but who ultimately knows you better? Yup. Your brain loves to figure things out. Let it take this one for you. It doesn’t even need to make sense to you, the answer that you get. You don’t need to like it, but you’ll get some creative answers and this exercise is so much fun.
Now, we are at the most important question of all. Step number six, do I love it? Do I still want it? My answer initially to this was 4:00 a.m., nope, don’t want it. Then, I realized after living in my future, in my imagination, that I have my how, on how to reach my dream and I liked it. If I say no to this, five years from now, I’ll be exactly where I am today, with just some extra sleep. I ultimately want that dream and that goal more than I want some extra sleep.
There are some other things I’ve run this through with and seriously have realized that the details of that future life aren’t anything that I want, but I almost got to experience what it would be like. It’s almost like when you plan a vacation and you live in all of the details, and all of that fun and excitement of the upcoming vacation is something that you feel everyday, even though you’re not in the vacation already. It was fun, and it was worth the work. When I chose not to pursue those, it wasn’t giving up on a dream, it was me getting one step closer to knowing the real future me. Everyday I’m one step closer and I love it. You need to love your choice. This is step six. Do you? If not, no worries. Keep all the work you’ve done. Make notes on your reasons why and then jump back to step three. Pick another one and do the whole thing over again.
This step seven is kind of like a yes or no, go in two different paths. If you’re like me, you’ll find some of these choices that you said no to will pop up again, in your thoughts every once in a while. If you keep your notes, you may quickly address your why reasons that you had back then and see that those are the same and I really don’t want that, or maybe over time, they change. For the other path, if you find you love your choice, you can move to figuring out the how details, one step at a time. That would probably be another podcast episode, or maybe three.
Here’s the thing, once you get to know that version of future you, so tremendously well, it becomes about not letting her down, not letting you down. Everyone else doesn’t really matter. It’s highly motivating. If you’re intrigued by what I shared on this episode, and would like to dive in more, consider taking my free course, “The Empty Nest, a Guide to Uncovering My Future.” I walk through all of these steps in that program with videos and a workbook. You will find a link to this course on my website, youremptynestcoach.com and click The Future Freebie Course in the menu.
The questions I have for you in this episode are:
1) Do you have any idea who future you is?
2) What is the biggest dream you can think of for you, right now, and how does it make you feel?
Fly on over to our Empty Nest Flock at youremptynestcoach.com/community to share your answers with the entire flock. As of this recording, I have both a forum and a Facebook group available to see if one gathers more traction, and already am seeing that Facebook is becoming the clear winner. As of right now, you may pick your favorite to interact with the flock.
Why join our flock? The adjustment to you not having your kiddos at home full-time isn’t always easy, but it sure can be a ton more fun with a flock of friends. I look forward to seeing you there. As always, I provide content to make you think, my empty nest friend. My hope is that I am able to provide you with thoughts that impact your life in a positive way. My next episode’s title is What to do Before Going to College: Now That the Decision Has Been Made, What Should We Do Next? I have a guest joining me for the episode. This is a big step in my podcasting. I would love to read your feedback or review here in an upcoming episode.
Either provide a review on Apple Podcast, or tag me on social media. If you have a question you would like me to answer on the podcast, you may submit it in my Empty Nest Flock or email me at podcast AT youremptynestcoach.com. Include your question and how you would like me to refer to you, meaning should I use your name, a pseudonym like future me in Fredericksburg, or anonymous. Thank you so much for listening, my friend.
Remember, you are amazing!
