Traci opens up raw, unedited and solo about how her reflections on last year led her to realize how joy matters. YOUR joy matters.
You'll hear true confessions, requests for accountability and how she plans to stay focused on her joy this year.
: [00:00:23] I guess I've been doing a lot of thinking. It's that time of year of course with the whole New Year's kicking off a new year often means reflection and sometimes even big commitments to change. I am not a fan so much of the resolutions but I do find that it is a great time to just take a look at what I can celebrate as accomplishments for the past year and also where I could tweak here and there for improvement. But you know this can be a slippery slope for me I need to be mindful that it's not all about what I can do better but more about recognizing what I did do well and recognizing also some areas where I can open up for more learning more play for sure and most importantly more joy. I think the message that I hear resonating with me in these last end of the year last year and first two weeks of this year so far is that joy matters because really Joy does matter.
: [00:01:37] And this is an awareness which hasn't always come easy for me for several reasons.
: [00:01:41] I think the primary one is I'm almost always focused on thinking about how much YOUR joy matters and it does... it really, really does in fact as you know I've built my business around working with people to help them find sustain and maintain joy in their lives and in their work. But I've also compromised areas of my life in regrettable ways by putting joy of others before my own. Ok… but here's the thing. This was not an act of martyrdom. Oh no. It usually occurred because I was never 100 percent sure where the source of my happiness and fulfillment was actually originating. I would confuse my happiness with feeling successful and most definitely derived fulfillment from the accomplishment that drove the successes. Of course I've had things in my life I've enjoyed. I mean, don't get me wrong but I could never remember exactly what those things were when it came time to actually go out and really enjoy them. The times I did take, as we've talked about a lot on the show, to do something joyful or fun were often tainted by my mind being located somewhere other than where my body was at the moment. But never fear… because my hands were always adept at knowing exactly where my phone was. Russ has often taunted me that if he wants to see a full meltdown then all he needs to do is just have my phone and I guess (True Confessions) he's right.
: [00:03:25] I want to proclaim that most of these challenges are behind me and I feel truthful, sincere and authentic in saying that today as I have reflected on 2017 I recognized real progress. In the past, it was more about the struggle than appreciating the experiences and thank goodness this year was definitely more about the experiences than the struggle to appreciate them. For me this is something to celebrate. It began by finally being able to identify what I liked to do for play. I always talk about, “You have to have awareness before you can have change. In order to have sustainable change you have to have action.” I had to really begin by identifying what it is I even really liked to do, how I like to create and most definitely identify the people I want to play with in creative ways. This meant I needed to show up in personal relationships and the key to that is they needed to be relationships that were not founded on work. That's hard for me because I love my work so much and I love the people I work with and we end up spending so much time together that friendships evolve.
: [00:04:55] In life we need to have friends outside of our jobs and our business. I had to put down the phone to check the e-mail. Then I had to pick it up to reach out which is a little bit of an oxymoron. But if you think about it …you can't reach out unless you reach out and these days phone and text is probably the best way to do that. I had to really manage the balance between using the phone as a technology tool for work but also using it as a lifeline to reach out not only just in terms of challenges or when I was feeling down or upset but also when things were good. You know someone once told me that it's always better to reach out when things are good because you get more comfortable doing that. So then, God forbid if there was anything wrong or that you needed somebody, then you would already be comfortable picking up that 100-pound cement phone. My challenge is if I have to ask for what I needed then I'd actually probably rather die than let you know I need something. But I’m making progress in that area as well.
: [00:06:09] Taking action in these areas has given me the ability to find out what was working for me and what wasn't. But more importantly, it gave me clarity to understand how vital it was, and has been, to keep doing the things that are working. So if you catch up to where I am now? I will say that I give myself a B plus on my 2017 reflection versus my 2018 identifying things for myself that are joyful and goals and things that I want. I say B plus because when I very first went to start the exercise over the New Year holiday, I began with the reflecting and all of a sudden I found myself in this yucky negative place. For example, last year I launched a new program offering in my business. I had a goal that I wanted to get ten new clients in this particular program and just as a reminder to myself more than anything, I just want to say that it was a brand new, never promoted, never executed, never worked on, brand new, stone cold launch of a program that was not my most inexpensive program. In my goal of getting 10 new people I thought it was attainable although I knew it was aggressive.
: [00:07:58] When I'm doing my reflecting I've realized I was actually beating myself up because I didn't get 10 and I did not get 10. I reviewed all the numbers and I realized I got eight.
: [00:08:15] Hello… eight out of ten. And also as a result of getting the new business and working so hard on the new program overall revenues were up seriously like 72 percent or more. I was actually excited and can celebrate the fact that I can access these numbers and calculate these performance increases and increase in the number of business clients because I had actually stayed true to my 2017 goal of having all of my financials, books and things like that all caught up and current as opposed to doing it all at once before taxes. I have to admit has been the case. So shout out to me! I had to celebrate these things. I got eight new clients, my revenue was up and I had all my financials at my fingertips to prove it. I have to say when I was looking at all of this and dove immediately to the negative and then pulled myself out by flipping it and looking at the positive, I could hear a dear friend and mentor’s voice in my head saying, “Hey Traci when you change the way you look at things; the things you look at change.”
: [00:09:37] They certainly did. I encourage you this year to really take a look at the way you look at things. If you're feeling that heavy drudge of I shoulda, woulda, coulda. I didn't but I was gonna then pause in that moment and say, “Hey wait! I did do this or I have done this or I made progress here.” Take a moment to really appreciate in that moment. I will say one of the things I think I took away from the experience that was so valuable was that I have a huge awareness now that in 2018, I don't want to wait until the end of the year to celebrate all that I have accomplished. I am making and taking time to touch base with myself on a weekly basis. I’m really going to take a look at what I have accomplished and celebrate it. I’m also going to adjust my course by reviewing and staying on track so that it's easier to course correct than it is to go back and have to do a U turn or realize you've jumped off a cliff but it's too late because you've already jumped! I'm going to share with you before we wrap up something you might find interesting and in even if you don't guess what you're going to hear it. J
: [00:11:14] Because I need to say some of the things that I want to be accountable to for myself this year.
: [00:11:23] And I can assure you that if I do these things for myself personally, I am going to show up way better for you this year. And I am so grateful and so appreciative of your support and your listening and your feedback and your comments and all kinds of fun stuff that you do with us when interacting with our show.
: [00:11:47] This year instead of talking about my business goals. I really wanted to take a few minutes and just hit the highlights of some of my personal goals this year and be really accountable for that. As we go throughout the year I can give you updates. Here we go. Probably my biggest and most exciting personal goal this year is that I have committed to training and running a half marathon. I’ve done one before but it's been almost eight years. This year I'm turning 50. March 31st. I'm not really freaked out about 50 but I felt like if I could do the half on April the 15th. Provided that I can sustain my physical well-being. I plan to do that for myself for my fiftieth birthday.
I discovered over the holidays that reading fiction at night was actually really good for me. It helped me decompress and check out and kept me from being on my phone or on Facebook. So I'm going to do more fiction reading at night. No business books, no tips and tricks of social media or how to grow your business. It's all going to be about fiction.
I am going to get all of my health checkups. Yes, I know. Don't judge me. I was very bad about that last year and maybe even the year before… but this year… I'm doing all of the mammograms, colonoscopies and physicals… all those things. Welcome to 50!
I proclaimed that I want to write more handwritten notes and not necessarily just thank you notes but just writing notes to people in general because I just love it so much.
I realized when I got all the holiday cards that is just so fun to get something in the mail that is not a bill. So, I'm going to send out more handwritten.
: [00:13:57] If you want one from me please e-mail us your address at Traci@journeytoThere.com. You can email me there and I will be more than happy to send you a handwritten note.
I want to and I hope this might resonate with you as something for you to do this year. I want to say thank you to myself. As odd as that may sound at first, just think about it. I really want to say thank you to myself because I push myself. I'm hard on myself. I exhaust myself.
: [00:14:38] I just really, really, really want to recognize and have gratitude for and thank myself for the things that I do for myself in order for me to even be able to do what it is that I do. I love what it is that I do. I'm always full of gratitude to thank others and appreciate others. But this year I'm going to say thank you to myself. It comes down to the fact that 2017 was the year I discovered my joy mattered. And it does. My joy matters and your joy matters. Think about how will you find joy this year.
Let us know! You can call us on speak pipe. Go to our website, www.JourneytoThere.com. You're going to see the super cool little microphone on the right hand side of the page and just click on it. You can leave us a voicemail and tell us how you are going to find your joy this year. And even some of your fun goals that you working on. You can send us an e-mail to traci@journeytothere.com. You can comment on our website or leave a comment on our Facebook page. Go to our Twitter. Whatever is the easiest way for you to communicate. I want to hear from you. And we want to have more engagement with you this year. That's another one of our goals. Thank you. Don't forget that your joy matters and start by saying thank you to yourself for all that you do, to take care of you. Have a great year!
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