Finishing Strong #alittleQC

Um, if you have found the password to the device, then this, this So then I came back. All right, I'm not clear. Nah. All right, is that any better? Hopefully that's better. I know Instagram can hear me. Y'all can let me know if you can hear me better now. Awesome. There we go. A button got clicked on accident, so there you go. So I started— for those of you all who found me accidentally, I started sharing online. I went daily for a while, then I disappeared for a while, and y'all said, no, come back. So I've been coming back weekly for months now, and some of you all have become friends. Some of y'all have become my friends. Some of y'all did not know who I was before, and now you do. So there you go. But I'm here to be encouraging to you and hopefully give you something that inspires you to live your life well this week, that also gets you going, and that hopefully helps you to live with a little more focus than you did before. Okay. So, um, here's what I want to do this morning. I want to talk a little bit about what it looks like to finish strong. I actually, um, I actually just finished the 21-day journey with a group of women in the Inner Circle. We spent 21 days every day doing something, taking small steps to, um, look at our lives for 2020 as we prepare to roll into 2021. We've already gotten many emails from you all saying, the Inner Circle, I can't join the 21-day. How do I do this? How do I do that? Well, the Inner Circle The premium tiers for that open and close at certain times. It's not always open. You can always join the inner circle and be a, um, a Patreon supporter where you get some extra content from our podcast episodes and little things that we share, um, on the inside. You can always do that by going to chrystalhurst.com/innercircle, but, and I'll put that up on the screen for the YouTube and Facebook people. You can always do that. But the, the other tiers where we do challenges together, where you get to be in the community group, where you get access to, um, courses and other speakers and get lots of other more intentional things for those women who are like, I want to actually do the work, like teach me, I want to do the work that opens up here and there. The next time it opens up is January the 1st through the 4th. So you can join now and be a Patreon subscriber and get the extras, or you can wait until January 1st and join and become a part of our next journey together, which is going to be our 90-day journey. So here's the deal. Um, the thing is, most of us know what to do. I'm a firm believer that a lot of us have information that we simply don't use. How many things have we bought in our closets that we never get around to wearing, courses that we've purchased that we never get around to finishing, um, tools that we buy that we don't use to the fullest, but we tell ourselves that we're going to, and then we don't. And, um, faith comes by hearing, but then it is the evidence of things that you don't see put into action. You have to act on faith in order for it to be faith. And the same is true of anything else that we do in our lives. If you don't use it, then it is no good to you. Okay? If you don't use it, then it's no good to you. So what I want to do in our next 90-day experience is take what you already know and help you put it to use. There are goals that you have. Some of us need help in setting short-term goals because we come up with these big things and then we don't break them down into little pieces. And a lot of us know what we need to do. You hear the dripping sound because that is— those are the comments coming through. And the thing is, is I'm doing my live this morning without my studio mic. So I'm sorry, that means you're hearing— that means those are comments. So you're gonna hear it because I actually don't know how to turn it off. I'm sure I could if I tried really hard, but I want to finish telling you what I have to tell you. Sorry, this is what happens when I I will look really quickly to see if there's a way for me to turn it off. But sometimes, you know, this is how we learn, right? I was watching a video this morning about this girl that was talking about doing videos, and she's doing these videos every day until December 31st. And she was just saying, the best way for you to learn is to do it, and you're going to make mistakes, and you're going to do this, and you're going to do that. And I was like, oh, I know that that's the truth. That happens to me all the time. So anyway, the 90-Day Experience will open and the goal is to help you achieve your goals. It's to help you set goals and to help you achieve them. And most of us just need to know what— we don't need to know what to do. We need to know how to break that down into manageable steps. We need encouragement and we need accountability. And so what I train you how to do is to set goals. How to make those goals such that you can be accountable to yourself, to someone in your real life, or to our online community. And then to offer encouragement along the way by saying, hey, check-in, check-in, weekly check-ins. How do you do it? Most of us don't need anything other than that. And the truth be told, you can find a friend, you can ask your husband, you can do it with your small group at church and do it for free. But I know But some of us have tried that friend and it didn't work. I have a friend, she and I have tried to lose weight together like 3 times. Bottom line is we don't need to help each other, not her and I. So that's what it is. It opens up January 1st through the 4th, and you can check it out by going to chrystalevanshurst.com/innercircle. Again, the entry level is always open, and that's just a way for you to say, hey Chrystal, I appreciate what you're doing. And then the other levels, which are more membership-oriented, we will get geared up to open that back up January 1st. Okay. All right. So here is the deal with the next thing I want to tell you about. If you missed the Christmas Collection episode from last week, be sure and watch it. We will be doing giveaways all week this week on Instagram. But the only way that you can win on Instagram is to follow the instructions every day. And one of those instructions will be to share the keyword from each segment. So we give keywords during the video. And if you have the video, if you've watched the video and made a note and made a note of the keywords, then that's one of the most important things you can do to be entered to win. So pay attention to my Instagram all week. And some really great things we'll be giving away. Also, as you know, y'all, Black Friday has turned into Black November. Can we just be real? It just all turned into Black November. And they've been telling us that Black Friday sales were all month, but then they still came with it on Friday and Saturday. And then because everybody's online, what's the difference now between Black Friday and Cyber Monday? We don't know. What we know is that sales have been going on for some time now. But today is the day where some of those sales will end, and mine is no different. So you can do a couple of things today. If you've been hearing me talk about courses and you're like, yeah, I've been meaning to do that. I want you to use it though. I want you to use it. Today is the day where you can go ahead and jump online to grab your courses. The sale ends tonight. Um, it's gonna be chrystalhurst.com/courses. And those courses are 35% off today. Um, I have a speaking and writing course. We held that course in person in Dallas multiple times and people kept saying, can you put it online? Can you put it online? Can you put it online? So that is there. I also have a course called Live a Life You Love because a lot of people say there's a lot of stuff I don't like about my life, but I don't know where to start in figuring out how to make my life a life that I'm going to enjoy and be happy that I lived. So that course is available to you. Mom School, if you're still at home with your kids or trying to figure out how to manage your home, um, we put the bundle of courses out there for you to purchase. And then also the 21 Day Journey. So we've done 2 of those this year. The The first one, which is how to gain a new perspective on you, how to recognize your gifts, your abilities, your interests, and your personality. That course, 21 Days, is also online. So all of those are there and they're 35% off. So if you've been waiting to get them, and I've been telling y'all to wait, if you haven't already done it, go there. In addition to those, there are 30 other courses from girls that were a part of online events that we had this year. Um, and so you want to check out those too, everything from speaking and writing to branding and marketing to mom to studying the Bible, to you name it, it's there. So check it out. Last but not least, there are t-shirts, because, you know, every year we come out with the t-shirts. That's one of the projects that our interns work on. We've also got journals and planners and fragrances, and that's at chrystalevanshurst.com/shop. We'll be sending out an email today with links to everything. If you're not on my email list, get on it right now. Chrystalevanshurst.com. And just know that when you support by purchasing products or courses, you support the continuation of us being able to do more of the same and to support the work that goes into even putting out the free content that we provide. So we appreciate your help. Okay. I want to talk about what it looks like to finish strong. And like I said, we've been, that That is our most recent 21-day experience, but it's still only available, the finishing strong version, in the Inner Circle so that the girls who are a part of that, who have developed community, so that they can finish going through it, taking their time. We want them to do that. We're also giving them some additional— if you're in the Inner Circle, give me a fist bump because I'd love to know that you're here. Giving you all some extra time to finish that content and then to go back and glean from all of the content. There's so much content in there. We'll be working to even do some fun things to help get it organized for you all in 2021. But the goal is— hey, y'all— the goal is for us to help you live well. So if you are watching today and you accidentally stumbled on it, I want to make sure that if you're on YouTube, you subscribe. And if you're on Facebook or Instagram, make sure you are— that you've clicked the button to like and that you've also made sure you're going to get notifications because— hey, inner circle, y'all, I see y'all showing up. Um, because then when I go live again, then you'll know. I have to tell you right this second, I'm on the fence about going live for the rest of this year on Mondays because y'all, normally I take the month of December off. So I was just talking to my husband this morning about this year's a different year. Should I keep going on Mondays? You know, what should I do? We're going to talk about it and I'm going to pray about it a little bit more. This might be my last one, my last official planned Monday. We'll see. But, but if you want to make sure you catch me, if I just happen to go online, then that's the way you can do that. Make sure you're subscribed. We've been talking about finishing strong in our inner circle because one of the ways to best start the next year— yes, I'm in my closet, I'm in Cummings. This is where I always am on Mondays— is to pay is to pay attention to where you've been and where you're at, and to slow down enough to look at actually where you want to go. Not next year's going to be a better year and 2021 is going to be awesome. That's not what we want. We want you to finish strong this year by taking stock of where you've been, where you're at, and where you're going. So when you are thinking, and you can do this, you can think out loud, you can talk to a friend, you can record yourself on your phone. You can write in a planner. We gave lots of tools to the Inner Circle to make that process, to put it in bite-sized steps. So y'all are getting the firehouse version, okay? The firehouse version is review where you've been, review where you've at, or where you're at, and, and plan for where you want to go. How was this year and why? Is there anything you could have done to change Is there anything that you, um, could have done differently? What did you learn about yourself based on how the year went? What did that teach you? Write it down, make a note, share with a friend, record your answer. Where am I now? How is my heart? What is my body telling me? What's going on in my mind? What's going on in my emotions? What is happening with my ability to accomplish things or not? Am I Am I feeling sluggish? Am I feeling energized? Paying attention to where you are. And if you take the time, if you have not been with us for the whole journey, I want to encourage you to, um, go back and look at some of the lives that we did because there were some that where I went really in depth with how to pay attention to you. Um, so I will give you a couple of those, but really, if you just sit still right now, what's important, I promise you, it will come to the top. Our brain and our heart often just needs us to make room. If you will just make the space to sit down, and it doesn't matter, y'all, you don't have to go to Barnes Noble and get a beautiful planner or journal. A spiral notebook, a, some stapled pieces of paper from the copy machine, it will work. Just make sure you know where you're putting it and that it's all together. Okay. But if you say, what happened this year and how did I feel about it? It. How do I feel right now? What's in my head right now? What's wrong? What's right? Um, I talked before on the YouTube channel and the Facebook about some of taking emotional R&R. We talked a lot about balance and purpose. We talked about finding quiet. We talked about rest. And there's a lot of nuggets in there about about how to make the space to listen to you, how to pay attention to you. Um, so go back and listen if you need to slow that down. But literally, how was this year? Not— I don't want to know what happened. I don't want the facts. I want to know what happened and how did you feel about it? How did it affect you? What did it teach you? That's— those are the questions. Right now. How are you? What are you pressing into? What are you avoiding and why? What is giving you energy? What is stealing your energy? Who is giving you energy? Who is stealing your energy? Okay, these are the questions. Assess where you are. Okay, okay. Then you take the information that you are teaching you, because here's the thing You always take you with you into the next season that you are going to go in. Did you hear what word I kept repeating? You. Which means that while yes, your mother can teach you, and your teachers can teach you, and your children can teach you, and your coworkers can teach you, and your boss can teach you, and school can teach you, and YouTube can teach you, and courses can teach you, and yes, the Bible can teach you, guess who else can teach you? You. But you are not a good teacher to you if you never slow down to listen to you. Most of the time we don't learn from ourselves and we end up repeating the same things that we repeated every year. We make the same resolutions and every year we make the same mistakes and fall into the same pitfalls. And then we get fed up with ourselves and then we think that there's something wrong with us or or we get disgusted and we want to quit trying, not realizing that one of the biggest reasons why we don't learn is because we don't slow down to see what us in our own skin have taught ourselves in our own bodies about living. Listen, you have patterns. You have patterns. And if you will just look at your life, you will see when this happens, I go down. When this happens, I go up. When this happens, I stay committed. When this happens, I fall off the train. When this person is in my life, I'm doing doing well when this person is in my life, I'm doing horribly. If you don't learn how to listen to you, what is your life teaching you about you? Because yes, I'm not detracting from the Bible, I'm not detracting from other people, I'm not detracting from people who are older and wiser and mentoring. What I'm trying to tell you is that you have something to teach you, and most of us don't listen. And by the time we realize that we're supposed to listen, we're 40 or 50 years old. You know, you realize you get to this age in your life where you just stop caring. You're just like, I've been trying to change it for 30 years and it is what it is, right? And that can be a good thing because you decide to quit letting it stress you out, right? Or it can be a bad thing because you give up. It can be a good thing. You have to take— it's like Catfish or anything else. You take what is edible and you throw out the There are some things that you can teach you, and you learn to tell the difference because of wisdom and because of scripture and because of wise counsel. Let me tell you, I had someone email me, and it's really, really sweet. It was really sweet. She was really sweet. But the t-shirts that we have— this is our old t-shirt from last year, if y'all can even see it. I am okay. But the t-shirts that we have, she said, said, um, hey, I love your t-shirt, but I really, um, but I really don't— I don't wear t-shirts, and I would really love it if your t-shirt was, um, in a more feminine cut because I, I wear, you know, shirts with a scoop neck and that are fitted and that kind of thing. And my first reaction was We should have made the t-shirt in a different cut. And then I remembered me. So here's what I taught me. Chrystal Hurst, you have learned that the best gift of you to everybody is your authenticity. Sometimes you've been in seasons of your life where you apologize for being so real. You just can't help yourself because sometimes you're like, should I have said that? Here's what you've learned, Chrystal Hurst, that your authenticity is actually important. And that if you want to market a t-shirt that is relaxed and fits super comfy and is very gracious and forgiving, that's what you wanna market. And that's okay. And someone else can market the feminine shirts. Now that doesn't mean I won't do it. It just means that it took me off the train of trying to please. That's it. And I'm glad she sent me her feedback. I'm always open to feedback. I always want to hear what people think, but what it was remindful— what it reminded me of is that I get to choose. It reminded me that I get to choose. For a minute, I had a knee-jerk. My knee-jerk was I have to fix the problem that somebody had. Yes. Then I remembered, I don't have to. I can if I want to, and I might, but I don't have to. I'm just saying, when you learn to listen to you, you, you learn your patterns. My pattern is somebody gives me a problem, I want to fix it. I don't have to fix everybody's problems. And because I've paid attention to me, I know my reaction. I know that that quick knee-jerk reaction is me doing something that's a pattern. But because I've listened to me, I, I know that pattern and I recognize that pattern, and I'm not taking that with me into next year. Didn't take it with me into this year, didn't take it with me into the year before because I learned it. It. Some patterns, y'all, we take a long time to learn, but I can shortcut that journey for you if you will choose to finish this year strong by making the time to listen. One of the things that I realized— I may, I may or may not do it, I may do it, I may not do it— but I found on Instagram, I was like, I'm on here putting out all this content, and I found these YouTube channels where all they do is play music and roll a pretty view, and it's like, study with me or journal with me, and it just runs for 60 minutes. You don't even see the person's face. And I was like, I should totally, I should totally do that. I was like, ah, here's what I've learned though. People don't often— the reason why some of those challenges have like thousands and thousands of views is because because people are not disciplined in taking the time to do it for themselves. Who needs a YouTube channel to play music for quiet time or study time or journaling time? I'll tell you who— people who don't do it. And a lot of us— that proves that a lot of us don't do it. I mean, and y'all, it's simple. I've been up since about 4 o'clock this morning. My husband came in the room where I was at and he was like, how long have you been up? And I was like, it's 4. And he was like, why? Just needed some quiet. And my kids will be up in just a little bit and then I won't have it. And then we'll get the workday going and then I won't have it. Then I'll have meetings. Things, and then I won't have it. Hey, Debbie Mason, yes, I like those music channels too, but you could do this for yourself. So I was up and I turned on my Spotify playlist that I enjoy, and I sat there enjoying the space, the quiet, the warm warm fuzzy blanket. Thinking, thinking. Now I realize that everybody doesn't have, doesn't automatically know how to do this for themselves. And that, and that's why we have the Inner Circle. That's why we do the journeys and the challenges. That's why we sell the courses, because often the questions that you need to ask to live a life you love are the questions that you want to present yourself yourself, you know, 21 days to keep yourself on, you know, you may not do it on your own. So that's why those, those helps are there. That's why we go to church every Sunday. We listen to the sermons that we've heard. If you've been a believer for a length of time, you've heard this stuff before. You've done the Bible study before. You— all of that. You want to know why you have to hear it again? Because the Bible says that all we like sheep have gone astray and each one of us has turned to our own way. What are sheep? Sheep are dumb. They make the same mistakes. They fall off the cliff. They don't stay with the pack. They need a shepherd. They need to be reminded to stay close, reminded of who feeds them, reminded of who takes care of them, right? And so when we're like sheep, we need reminders. David said, "The Lord is my shepherd," because he recognized that he was a sheep. It's okay to need a reminder. It's okay. So this is my reminder to you to finish strong by making space making space. And it doesn't matter if it's early in the morning, if it's on your lunch break, if it's when your kids nap this afternoon, or it's in the evening. It can be totally quiet. Often it's hard for me in my home to make space because I'm greeted with all the things I need to do, the kitchen that needs to be cleaned up, the laundry that needs to go in the, you know, in the washing machine, all these different things. And so my my happy space for writing for a really long time has been Starbucks. And so now, you know, we've moved and I found another little quiet space that I'm going to try out, see if it can work. And if it can't work, I'll go back to Starbucks because that white noise in the background is helpful for me. And every time I would sit down to get ready to work on a project or get some work done or write, I would clear the deck first. I would take out a journal and I would just write. One of the lessons that Dr. Anita Phillips taught us in the online event. Her talk was so monumentally delicious. Cannot wait to make that available to more of you soon. But one of the things she said is she talked about free writing. Free writing means I don't know what I'm going to say and I just write whatever comes out. It can be totally nonsensical. It could be gibberish. I could write the same sentence over and over again. But she said, if you will just sit down and get it out, You'll be surprised at what about you will come out. So what I'm telling you is make the space, and here are the questions: What did I learn this year? What was good? What was bad? How did I feel about it? How did I react? What gave me energy? What didn't? Look back. Then look at where you are right now. Same questions: What's working? What's not? What's hurting? What's feeling good? What's giving me energy? What's taking energy away? Then after you look back and after you've looked at your life right now and you've paid attention to where you are right now, after you've done that and you've learned something, and the you that you used to be and the you that you are right now has taught you something, then you look forward. Now you can look forward in, in a few steps, and we, we walk through this really specifically in the 90-Day Journey, which we're starting in January. The first thing is, where do you want to end? You, you just don't know where you're going if you don't know where you want to end. Okay, so fast forward, my mom's birthday is tomorrow, and we're going to do some things tomorrow to celebrate her life. And then of course we're going to be thinking about her the whole way through December because because Christmas— Lois is Christmas. Priscilla and I went over to my mother's house yesterday and decorated a little bit. Put out some pillows, a little tree, some garlands, patio decor, the little Santa that all the kids love to play with. And obviously, you know, that this season will be different. But here's what my mother told me. This is what she taught me when I would be stressed out about all the things she does for Christmas. I was like, I can't keep up. She's totally Mrs. Claus. She said, but dear, the holiday should be an overflow of you. Everything that you do should be an overflow of you, because if it's not in you and if it's not overflowing, then it's really not anything you can give. So I've been thinking a lot about that. What is the overflow of me? Well, one of the things for sure is that my mother said at some point during the month of December, she said, as she watched us around her bed, she said, hmm, this is a beautiful life. And that is the question that you ask yourself about you at 70, or you at 80, or you at 100, or you at 50? What will a beautiful life look like then? And then you backtrack and you put what you need in that beautiful life that you want then with the lessons that you've learned with yourself, from yourself, this past year and right now. And you ask yourself two questions. What can you do now in the next year to move towards that life? So let me give you an example. Hey, Kwani, let's just say that you have 5 little children right now and you want a home that is designed for your children to come back to one day. Um, let's just say whatever that means, just however you'd want to rearrange your home. Doesn't necessarily mean bigger, just maybe it means the layout, or maybe it means a location. And you need to save for that. So the thing that you want about your life then means this year you're gonna work on developing your savings plan because that is where you're headed. Okay. Let's say that you have always wanted to finish your degree, not just your degree, like your doctoral degree. And you know that that's not gonna happen next year. It's not gonna happen next year. You know that in the season of life that you're in financially, or maybe you're raising kids, or maybe you're just starting out in your 20s with your first job, but that's a goal, right? So you say, what can I do in the near future? And near future, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year. To move that thing forward and just keep it on my radar. I don't want to lose it. So what am I going to do? It could be super simple. Talk to somebody who has a doctorate degree in the thing that I want to go to. Like, that's, that's movement. That's movement. And often we feel like we're stagnant in life unless we're intentional about seeing in our lives what involves movement. So when you look back, you can go, what I taught myself is that I've still not let go of my dream of finishing my doctorate degree. What is draining me in this season may be that I'm on a job I don't like. What that is teaching me is that I cannot forget about this dream that I had of finishing my doctorate degree. So in the next 3, 6 months, year, I'm gonna keep that doctorate degree in mind by doing something that moves me forward. Do you see how that works? What did you learn from your yesterday? What are you learning from your today? And what about your tomorrow are you going to backtrack into right now? And then you get to live as an overflow of you because you've taught yourself something and you're looking forward to your future self and saying, this is what I want. Want right now. You're going to name it, you're going to write it down, and then you're going to keep it in front of you as you march into 2021. You don't start 2021 strong without finishing 2021 well. Now you can start it strong, but you're gonna have a late start. You're gonna have a false start. Do you know when you go to a race and all the things that they do to get ready? They jump up and down before they run the— then they kick out their legs before they put their legs in the starting block. They do all this drama before they start. Because the start of the race is not about the start of the race. It's about all the things that you did before so that when the race starts, you explode out of those blocks. The blocks represent the overflow. Those muscles were waiting to spring into action. I want you to be ready to spring into action tomorrow or January 2nd, doesn't matter. But when you are moving forward, it's got to be an overflow of who you are. Now granted, who you are naturally is not the person that you want to be totally. You know, we want to grow and develop, and we want God, we want the Holy Spirit to do work in us because there's some stuff that can only happen when God gets a hold of us and makes us who he wants us to be, because we're just not— we're not naturally good. However, there is stuff he put in you that if you don't stoke that flame and stoke that fire, it will die. And then you will wonder why you just feel— you feel that you're fading through life, and it's because you're not doing the work to stoke things, keep them alit. And then let that fire propel you. My kids and I, this weekend, we watched Back to the Future, all three of them, one, two, and three, because I wanted to watch a Christmas situation, and they were like, no, we're not starting Christmas till December the 1st, which is so funny because they're saying that, and really, that's kind of what my mother did. She used to put up the tree on her birthday. Birthday on December 1st. And so I think that's one of the new traditions that we'll start December 1st, putting up our Christmas tree to remember my mom. Since my kids don't want to put it up early anyway, and neither do I. I want to let Thanksgiving be Thanksgiving, and then I want to put up my tree. But I think December 1st is the day. But, um, I lost my train of thought. Y'all can remind me of what I was I don't remember what I was saying. Oh, Back to the Future. So, you know, every Back to the Future movie, number 1, number 2, number 3. And if you're like under 35 and you've never seen it, see it. It's cultural literacy. You should know. But the whole thing is how to get this car, you know, to transport them through time from year to year. And the car needed 2 things. It needed fuel. And it needed a jolt of energy. Needed fuel and it needed a jolt of energy. You need ongoing fuel to move you through time. Oh, this is a great, great illustration. I need to write this down. You need fuel to move you through time. You need energy to move you through time. You literally need that physically, but you also need that spiritually and emotionally. You need to know what feeds you and what gives you energy. But then when you need to make jumps in your life, you need a shot of energy. You need a shot of power. Okay, that shot of power for most of us comes when we dig deep. That can come from these quiet times, it can come from these journalings. A lot of us get that shot at the beginning of the year, and if it weren't COVID-19, then a lot of us would be going to the gym again, starting that workout program again, starting the diet program again, because the beginning of the year is that reminder to transport us from one season of time, 2020, into 2021, another season of time, and we get that jolt. But here's the problem, here's the problem: if you have the jolt and no fuel, you won't keep it going. In Back to the Future 3, he's running away from Indians, and, um, then he takes, uh, Marty takes the arrow out of the car. An arrow landed into the car when he transported time. Indians were chasing him, they shot him with an arrow. He takes the arrow out of the car. When he takes the arrow out of the car the fuel tank leaks, and he's talking to the Doc, Doc Brown, Emmett Brown, and he says, Doc, you know, there's something leaking out of the car. And Doc says, fuel? And Marty says, yeah, I guess so. Marty says, well, that's okay, you know, we'll just fill it up. But Marty had just transported himself from 1955 to 1885. There were no gas stations back then. So then they had to come up with this alternate way to get the car going to move into another season again. Listen, if you don't know how to not— you cannot operate off of a jolt. That's what I'm trying to tell you. If you only operate off of a jolt and you don't have a plan for your fuel, you will not be able to keep moving. Marty's car died. It died. So here's what I need you to do. Enjoy the jolt. As we move into the seasons and go into the new year and all of the news about the vaccines with COVID and, and, and, and, you know, stay safe. Cause right now the numbers are a little crazy, but all the news about the changes that are going to become available for us so that we can slowly get back to living our regular lives that we so miss. This is going to be a great jolt, but if You don't have a plan for fuel. Megan, great, that was for you. Then you will run out of steam. So where does your fuel come from? Paying attention to you, paying attention to the Holy Spirit, paying attention to what God is doing in the world around you. It comes from paying attention, receiving, inhaling. That's where the other lives get into resting and R&R and emotional resets and all that. You need to understand that you receiving input. Don't get lazy about going to church. You need to get back in your situation of being online and watching your church service. You need to read the Bible for yourself. You need to read books and spend time with people that fill you up, that teach you, that nurture you. You need to connect communally with friends and be consistent and committed. You need to understand that if you don't have friends in this digital age, there is no excuse. If you don't join my inner circle, join somebody's group and be vocal and, and make some friends. Learn something. Sleep more. Write. Clean out your closet. Like, whatever it is that fuels you up, do that. Do that. And if you don't know, and if you're totally exasperated, totally alone and clueless, get a counselor. If you can't afford a counselor, go to a church. Hi, Miss Marilyn Williams Fair. Because here's what we'll do. We live in a world that is going to drain us because of distraction, our responsibilities, the things we have on our plate. The good will get in the way of the great, and you will be running on empty, empty. Do you hear me? Empty. And then you will wonder why you're not living a life that you love. Go back. What happened this year? What did it teach me? Did it take something out of me? Did it fill me up? Did I have energy? Did I not? What did I learn? What was good? What was— what could I have changed? What should I have done differently? What will I never do that way again? What will I do more of? Then, now. How am I feeling now? What is my body telling me? What is my brain telling me? Am I energized? Am I not? Am I, am I motivated? Am I not? Am I enjoying this season? Am I not? Who is draining me? Who is filling me up? What did I say that I would do that I still haven't done yet? All those questions, okay? Then think about the person you want to be when you say to yourself, I've had a a beautiful life. Backtrack that into what you can do this year and do more of that. Debbie Mason, I think you're on the call. Will you make a note of those questions and we will put those in the Inner Circle? Because I've said them over and over again, but I will forget them. So I see y'all asking me like to type them up right now. I can't, I can't do that, but y'all can type them up in the comments and then we'll try to get them into the Inner Circle today. Listen, you can finish strong. I don't care how bad the year has been. I don't care how far away you've gone from your plan. I don't care how much How much you wish you could have done differently. I don't care. I don't care. In fact, if you're at the bottom, there's nowhere else to go but up. That's it. I see y'all asking me about Inner Circle stuff. I'll put it up again. That's the good news. Here's the good news. You You're still here. That's the good news, which means you still get to choose. It's never too late to be who you meant to be, to go where you meant to go, to do what you meant to do. It's never too late. Now, if you're 70, can you still be a ballerina at the Met? Or is that the opera? But you know, y'all know what I'm trying to say. Maybe not. Can you enjoy it though? Can you watch the performances? Can you find other people who love them as much as you do? Yes, you can. Can you figure out how to engage? Absolutely. You can always do something. That's what I'm trying to tell you. You can always do something. If you are believing anything else, that it's too late, that your time has passed, that the decision that you made has disqualified you, that you are incapable, that you're not smart enough, that you don't live in the right place or know the right people, if you don't think that God can use you because you don't have a vision of God that would allow you to believe that he could do that, if you are believing anything less than you are enough as you are and you can go forward from here, You are believing a lie, and there's only one person who would want to lie to you to steal away a future. Jeremiah 29:11 says that God knows the plans that he has for you, and those are plans that are not designed to harm you, but to give you a future and a a hope. The only person who showed up and said, God is lying to you, is the same person that convinced Eve to bite of that apple and sent all of humanity into a tailspin. He's been convincing women of a lie since the very beginning, and he has not stopped trying to convince you. And what is your weapon against the lies of the enemy? The truth, simply the truth. And what is the truth? That God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes. That's the truth. So no matter how bad it's been this year or for your whole life You can finish strong because God is working on your behalf to make sure all of the things that have gone wrong or right work together for your good. So how do I know that you can finish strong? Because if he's in charge, if God is in charge of the end of your story, then that's the only option. Who is God? He is the Lord God, strong and mighty. And how else can he finish but strong and mightily in your life? So how do you finish strong? Take some time, look at where you've been, look at where you are, look at where you want to go. Write all those things down. Get it out of your head. Believe God for big things and dumb things and silly things and things that you don't even— you forgot that you even liked. And put it on the table. And then decide what small things you'll do to move your life forward. If you need help, y'all, it's December. There are a million free resources on Google that will show you how to set goals and move forward. If you want to be a part of community in January, January 1st to January 4th, we open the doors. They will not be open again until second quarter of 2021. And if that's what you want, then I encourage you to join us, but you don't have to. Get a spiral notebook, pad and paper, notebook paper from your kid's desk, and just start freeing your yourself. Free yourself. There's a song that said, free yourself and the rest will follow. Listen, it is my privilege and my joy to share with you. I enjoy talking to you on the podcast and coming on live and all of that, but I cannot do the work for you. Can't. I would love to, but I can't. The work of your life is the work of your life. Get it? It's your life. The work that has to be done can only be done by you. Let me say that again. The work of your life is the work of your your life. And what I believe and what I know is that you can do the work. You just have to choose. You just have to choose. All right, y'all, I hope that this has been a blessing to you. Now go and do the work.