New Year. New Rhythms. #alittleQC

Good morning, good morning, good morning! Happy New Year! Happiest of New Year's to you! Good morning, good morning, good morning! Glad you are here with me this morning. And let me see if I can show you my face. All things Morning studio. Good morning, happy New Year! I'm glad that you're here. See if I can get my act together. All these things that are happening. Let's see if I can move this. Uh-huh, all the things. There's just all the things. So hi Instagram, Instagram is over here, and then Facebook and YouTube, you're right here. So I'm glad to see you this morning, and I'm glad— as papers fall to the floor, hope I didn't need that— I'm glad that you are joining me this morning. It is January 4th, 2021. How did we get to 2021? I remember when the new year would turn over and I would write 1988. And have to try really hard not to write 1987. I really got flipped a script when we had to go from 1999 to 2000. And here we are, 2021. This is like the season of life when I was younger where I would think, you know, we'd be flying around in like jets and copter situations because 2020, 2021, is a whole thing. And we're here. And I know many of you like me are glad that we're here. I'm not in my closet. Yay. I don't know if y'all are happy about that or sad about that. I'm not, I'm not really sure. The jury is still out on that. Not in the closet. I am in an office space that obviously Instagram can see a little outside of here. That I'm still trying to get my act together for. But what I wanted to do this morning— did I need that paper? I might've needed that paper. Shoot. I'm gonna have to get up in just a second because it's Monday. And just because I'm not in my closet doesn't mean that I totally have it together. Okay. So here's what I wanted to talk to you a little bit about today. I wanted to, um, give you some practical stuff that I believe will help you think through your new year. This is some stuff that we've actually covered in one of our journeys in our inner circle. Many of you have heard about me talk about that. I'll get to all that in a minute. First of all, let me say, if you're here for the first time, hello, welcome. And if YouTube or Facebook just showed this to you in your feed and you're like, I don't even know who this girl is, my name is Chrystal Hurst Hurst. And what I love to do, what I love, love, love, love, love, to do is to practically encourage others to live their lives well. I do not believe that we need to look at our life like a dress rehearsal. We need to look at each day as an opportunity that we get to choose, to make intentional choices, to create the life we love. So if you're here and you're new, or you've been watching for a while, um, or maybe this is your first time to catch me live, let me encourage you. First of all, if you're on Facebook, make sure you have liked the page and that you have indicated to Facebook that you want to get notifications. So whenever I do go live, you'll know. YouTube, you know, you've heard a million people say it, hit that like and subscribe button, leave a comment, all that kind of stuff, but definitely subscribe so that way you'll know when I go live. Here's what's about to change in the future. Um, I've been going live over 60 times, 65 times, 69 times, something like that. Um, more than the rhythm of once a week in 2020, started out every day, then went to every week. And, um, the reason is, is because I just wanted to be helpful. And I feel like I was doing that throughout the year. Sometimes it was foolery. We've talked about stuff that's in my closet. We've talked about a tree that's on my porch. We've talked about what I'm cooking for dinner. We've talked about my refrigerator situation. We've talked about a whole lot of stuff, but in the midst of all that, you know, everyday content, it's just me talking about my quarantine situation. My hope is that in the last year I've been able to provide encouragement for you so that you are able to live your life well, even in the midst of what many of us, uh, most of us would never have predicted our lives would look like last year. Um, but here's what's about to change. What's about to change is me going live every day will not be here, or every week will not be here. I will be doing that in the Inner Circle. The little QC's was a 2020 phenomenon. So my, my lives will now be in the Inner Circle every Monday. So this is my last one live, my consistent one. Doesn't mean I won't ever pop up ever. Just means that my consistent Mondays will now be in the Inner Circle. And so the good news is that those, those live videos, we will share them on YouTube and Facebook and maybe some clips on Instagram. We'll share a version of that, an edited version so that you're still hearing from me, but the live version will just go to that audience. So I want to encourage you, if you've heard me talk about it before, maybe you have, maybe you haven't. I would love to encourage you to check out the Inner Circle, mainly because here's the good news. There's a couple of things happening. Number one, we just kicked off yesterday our next 90-day journey. So if you're the kind of person that it's the beginning of the year and you're like, I want to set new goals, I want to, um, do a better job of doing the things that I know I'm supposed to do. But every year you set goals and every year it doesn't quite work out the way you want it to. Then let me encourage you to join us, to check us out, mainly because I really firmly believe it's the Weight Watchers concept that you don't need more information. Most of us don't need more information. We just need to execute on the stuff that we already know. And a lot of times the reason why we do not do that, the reason why we're not executing, maybe we need a little bit of community. Maybe we need some accountability. Maybe we need, um, some encouragement along the way. And with those things, it just keeps you going. The trick of accomplishing stuff in your life is that, uh, you keep going. You, you keep going. Um, I cannot tell you how many people in my life with hard things, whether it's raising teenagers, being married, building a business, being in ministry, um, my relationship with God, and I'm having a problem, and some wise person in my life will say, keep going, just keep going. And I'm looking for some magic answer, and I'm looking for somebody to like, you know, tell me all the things, and I'm looking for the secret code, and I'm looking for what they have that I don't have. And the only thing is to keep going. The magic happens as you keep doing the work, and there's no other substitute for putting your head down and just doing what you're supposed to do. But often along the road of continuing, we just need somebody to say, good job, girl. Yes, me too, girl. Yes, let me tell you how I did it. Let me give you some expertise, a skill. Uh, let me share my passion with you. And you need somebody else that's a little further along to say, I've been where you are, let me talk to So the goal of the Inner Circle is to do that for this next 90 days. We have it all year round. So I want to encourage you to check it out, chrystalhurtz.com/innercircle. And when you do that, just know that you can join us for the 90-day journey. We're calling it My Next 90: Do a New Thing. Um, and, uh, you can join that and that is at the coaching level. That's $25 a month. $5 a month. If you're like, I don't need to do all that. I got my journal, I got my planner, I got my life together. But Chrystal, I would love to continue hearing you live as well as other bonus content. You can sign up at the co-producer level. It's $5 a month. And the difference between the two is one says, Chrystal, I want to support your work. And the other says, and I also want to work on me. Um, so that's basically it. So chrystalevanshurst.com/innercircle. And then you can find out all about the things that we have going on and all about the things that Um, we'll be coming up. Okay. So the Inner Circle closes tonight, the coaching level, because we have kicked off our journey. So if you missed the kickoff yesterday, you're not late. You can watch the replay. Um, but the doors do close tonight and that's because we don't want to, as a team, spend all of this time doing administrative work. So it takes a lot of administrative work to get everybody in the door, to make sure everybody gets signed up, to make sure, oh, when you are at the coaching level, if you're new, you get a planner for free. Here's the planner. So you get the planner for free and, um, we got to mail all those out. So if we keep the doors open all the time, we spend time on administrative work, not time on engaging. And we want to spend time engaging and teaching and directing and helping. And so we want to get to know those who have signed up in the 90-day. And that's why we close the door so we can focus on that. But you can join, um, the co-producer level, which is the I want to support your work, Chrystal Hurst level anytime. And catch the lives anytime. All right, so just want to make sure you know that the doors do close. Somebody asked me, well, what else is there? There's a private Facebook group. I have other women come on teaching. It's not just me. I mean, there's, there's a lot of stuff that goes into it. All right, so this is my last live, A Little QC. This is— I don't even know if it's gonna still be called A Little QC. A Little QC may have been the 2020 phenomenon because it's quarantine content. It's quality content for your quarantine situation. Quality— what did I say? It's a little quarantine content so you can exercise some quality control in your life. All right. Now let me also tell you that you may have missed Coffee with Chrystal. That is where I talk about, you know, just getting focused for the year. That was free. So you can go and listen to that. ChrystalEvansHurst.com/CoffeeWithChrystal.. And when you go listen to that, just know that that also goes away tonight at midnight. It's free. You do have to register. Coffee with Chrystal, chrystalevanshurst.com/coffeewithchrystal. Y'all are making me sad. Somebody said, please don't make this your last live. So I'm still gonna be here because I do want to still encourage and I do want to still share. I'll just do it live in the Inner Circle and then share it later Um, everywhere else, or at least YouTube. At least YouTube. You may have to come to YouTube. On Instagram, I'm sorry. Okay. If you have questions, just email us hello@chrystalevanshurst.com. Okay. One more thing before I launch in, because here's what I'm talking about today. How you can set new rhythms for your new year. I'm going to give you a quiz. So if you're at home, Get a piece of paper and a pen. If you're driving, don't worry about it. You can watch it later. If you're sitting at work, just make sure they don't know. No, I'm just kidding. Like, actually do your work. You know, if you can work with me in your ear, that's awesome. But I'm going to give you a quiz. So hang in there because there's one more free thing I want to tell you about. Okay. The next free thing I want to tell you about is the 28-day prayer journey. So if you are wanting to have a better situation with God in terms of your communication, you're like, I want to, I want to do better talking to God. Let me move this down on my screen for those who are on Facebook and YouTube. I want to do better in talking to God. I want to be more consistent. I want to know that he can hear what I'm saying. I don't know what to pray. Maybe I need ideas for what to pray. There's a 28-day prayer journey sponsored by Faith Gateway, um, and it is free. So it starts January 18th. You can go to faithgateway.com/obs to sign up and to learn more about that. And that is just for your spiritual life. So So here's the thing, people are always like, Chrystal Hurst, there's all these things going on. It is, and it's the beginning of the year. So let me recap. Number 1, make sure if you're on YouTube, you're subscribed. Make sure if you're on Facebook, you've liked and told Facebook, yes, I want to get notifications. On Instagram, you're here. I think it notified you because you followed me, all the things. If you're like, Chrystal Hurst, this is great, and I'm so sad you're not going to be live anymore on Mondays on a regular basis. I'm so glad though, you're going to continue sharing content. I'm good. But if you're like, no, I actually want more, I want to see you live, or I want to join this 90-day journey because I actually— there are some goals that I have. I had them last year, I didn't do them. I had resolutions I didn't finish. And I really do think I need community and I need encouragement and I need a plan. I need a track to run on and I want to work on me. Then you should join the Inner Circle. That's chrystalevanshurst.com/innercircle. And then if you're like, Chrystal, I just need more encouragement like today, like my life sucks today. It's okay to say that your life sucks today. Then what you can do is just go watch Coffee with Chrystal, okay? Coffee with Chrystal. Um, so any of those things are here to be helpful, okay? If you are just like, I don't even know Chrystal, whatever, just make sure you're on my email list. Email list, chrystalevanshurst.com, because that's where I tell everybody about all the things. So if you are driving right now and can't do anything, just get on my email list later today. Remember my name, chrystalhurst.com. Okay. All that housekeeping stuff. Lord Jesus. Somebody, here we go. Make myself excited. Somebody say, yay, Chrystal. Yay. You did a good job. All right. So, um, here's what I want to talk to you about today because, um, it's really important to me that you have the tools that you need in order to get a good start for this year, okay? It's really important to me that you have the tools you need to get a good start for this year. Many of us spent some of the time last year just getting our chain, just catching our chain. You know, when you would ride a bike and you would, you know, the chain might get loose and then you would have to ride until the chain caught again. We spent a lot of last year just trying to catch the chain. Just, just trying to figure out where we were, figure out how to operate. Some of us are still in that scenario. Some of us are still trying to figure out how to get a rhythm. Um, and, and the reality is that's a part of life. So I want to just alleviate this 'I don't have my act together' situation, because even when you do have your act together, you will realize that when life changes, you have to do something new in order to catch the chain. You get married, you thought you had your life together, then you realize you liked him, you loved him, but now you got to live with him. You got to catch the chain. You had your life together and then you had babies, and then you were like, oh my gosh, I don't know how I'm gonna function anymore in my life. You have to catch the chain. You were really good and the person who knew it all on your last job, but now you're on a new job and Lord have mercy, you thought you had it together and you thought you could lead and you thought you understood the technology, but now you're having to dive in and start over.. You got to catch the chain. You had been doing great with your weight, and then you turned 40 and everything just started going wild and breaking down. Then you have to catch the chain. You know, you could be young. I like my millennials. If you're here, I love for my millennials to give me a fist bump. Come on, give me a fist bump, because I like to know that I'm relevant and that you're with me. And I also want to know that you're getting content that is going to be helpful to you early in your life. 'Cause if you apply it early in your life, it makes all the difference in the world. But in your 20s, you get outta college and they call it adulting. You realize, I got an adult, I have to adult. So then here I go, I gotta catch the chain. 'Cause I thought I knew how to live. And then I had to go to my 8 to 5. And then instead of getting long summer breaks and long Christmas breaks, now I only have a week of vacation if I have that. And I gotta figure out how to adult and pay my bills and be grown. That is called catching the chain. Anytime you fall out of a relationship and you had a rhythm, you talked to him every day and y'all were texting and all the things all the day, and you're Snapchatting and you're TikToking and all the things, and then you don't like him no more, or he doesn't like you anymore, and you have to figure out when you were used to talking to somebody every day how to catch the chain. I see my millennials. There you are, there you are. I love all the people, but my millennials make me feel like I'm young and I'm with it. And my Xennials, Xennials, you know, Gen Z, somewhere Millennials, you're actually in like in your 20s. You all make me feel happy because I really want you to understand that if you can make decisions early on in your life to make, to, to do the hard stuff, right. And to be encouraged to keep going and to know that you can figure it out. And if I can encourage you early on to make decisions and make a plan, then you just don't waste time. And many people— I've said this before— that are in here— hi Alexia, hi Praise, hi Linda, hi Monique— uh, when you are able to say, man, I shouldn't have spent so much time on that— it's not so much about regret. Some of us do regret things, but a lot of us don't regret things. We just wish we wouldn't have spent so much time on it. Okay, so what I'm trying to do is, if you have wasted time, get you going get you going. And then if you are not in a situation where you are wasting your time, I want to make sure you don't. I don't want you to waste the time because you were like, I didn't know, I wish somebody would have told me. So here's what you need to understand in life: you are going to hit different scenarios every time. Every time you start a week or start a year or start a relationship, start a new job or move to a new location, you're going to have to catch the. And when you realize that you don't know what you're doing, when you realize that you are a little overwhelmed, when you realize that life is not what you planned it to be, don't despair. Everybody feels like that. So you keep writing and you catch the chain. This is a new year. It's an opportunity for us to look at our time and to catch the chain. You don't have to feel bad about it. You don't have to feel bad that, oh Lord, is it January the 4th, the first Monday of the year, and my house is still a mess? Did I not do that last year? Did I have a whole pandemic to get my life in order? Did I have the Great Reset and I still didn't lose the weight? Did I have the Great Reset happen in my life? Did I have less happening in my life or more happening in my life? And I said, I'm gonna focus on what's really important in my life. And did I still not do that? Connect with my friends, write the book, read more books, relax, get more sleep. Guess what? Let yourself off the hook. It's a brand new year. It's a new day. It's a new dawn. Doesn't Michael Bublé sing something like that? And you get to catch the chain. Why? Because you're still here. So it is a new year. I hope you are encouraged already, but I want to be practical. Now here's what I'm going to tell my YouTube people, my YouTube fam. Um, at some point I may get up and go get something, but I have something that I want to show, and I'm going to show it briefly on YouTube and Facebook. Okay, so if you're on YouTube— I'm sorry, if you're on Instagram, you're not going to miss anything, but when I show it, you won't see it. So just, I just want to just give you that heads up. All right, I want to talk to you about how to assess your wellness and how to decide what areas to work on in your life. Now, somebody said, yes, I can still catch the chain. Yes, um, yes, you can still work on yourself. Absolutely. Okay, 100%. But many of us get overwhelmed with what to do first because I saw somebody say on YouTube or Facebook over here, she said I got so many areas in my life to catch the chain on, I don't know what to do. Yes, many of us do feel that way. And if you try— and here's the key thing, here it is, I'm gonna give you this for free— if you try to catch the chain in your life on all the areas in your life at the same doggone time, you want to know what's going to happen? You're not going to catch any of them because it's simply going to be unrealistic for you to make changes in every single area of your life at the same time. Now, you can. It's possible. It's just not realistic. And I'm saying you can, and you're possible. If you found out today— and many of you have had this happen to you— if you found out today that there was some health crisis in your life, and in order for you to cooperate with your body's need for you to heal you had to stop eating all the foolery immediately, stop drinking the soda immediately. Some of y'all have had this happen where you had a health crisis and suddenly— and he did it suddenly, you know, or, uh, at last. Okay, all of a sudden you get your stuff together. So it's possible We normally just aren't motivated to make that many changes in our lives unless we are scared. Mm-hmm. And so the reality is most of us don't live our life at that level of stress and with that level of motivation to make a million changes at one time. So let's live and be realistic. Okay. And I want to give you a tool that will help you come up with a pecking order for what you do first. Okay, for what you do first. All right, now all my papers fell on the floor over there. I'm gonna get up and get them in just a minute. I sure is. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get up and get it because I— because that way I can actually show my Instagram fam because I'll have it in my hand and I can actually show it. All right, all right, so So there are 7 areas of your life that you can look at and then make a determination as to where, how you're doing, how you're doing, and where you need to get to work on you first. Okay? So what I want to do is share these out loud. I'm just going to read them to you. Um, and then we're going to walk through them and I'm going to give you a quiz. Okay? This is going to be really easy. You're going to score yourself 1 to 3. And then based on your final score and based on your individual scores, you're going to decide what to do next. You are a whole lot person. You are not a fragmented person who only goes to work or who is only a mom. You are not a fragmented person who loves Jesus but doesn't also have a bank account. You are not a fragmented person that has a husband that you want to be a good wife to, but at the same time you don't have friends that you're trying to be a good friend to. You are this whole person. You have a body to take care of. You have a brain to take care of. You have a soul to take care of. And if you neglect any part of your whole person, you are not well. You're not well. And so the challenge is to pay attention to your life. One of the things, you know, I got Mama set up here, but you know, you see, well, somewhere in here Somewhere in here. I got She's Still There somewhere in here. Anyway, the point is, in She's Still There, I talked a lot about you being whole, you being you, pay attention to you. All right, but in order to do that, in order to take care of your life, to take care of the girl in you, you need to be able to assess how she's doing. And that's where many of us get stuck. One of the reasons why I put this planner together— one, one is people kept saying, Chrystal, 'How do you make progress in your life? Because how do you get things done? You do so many things.' And I actually have a process. Uh, it's, it's very messy. So this planner was my desire to put it into a format to walk people through it. And the good news is, I think I said it already, but when you join the Inner Circle for the first time, you get a free copy of the planner. So right out of the gate, it's worth your money. And then every time after that, if you're in the Inner Circle, you get it half off. So, um, But here's, here's the thing. When you are trying to assess how the girl in you is doing, many of us don't know what the questions are. We don't know how, we don't know how to ask her. We've been so out of touch with how she's doing because we've just been trying to get that ride going. We've been trying to take care of everybody else. We've been trying to make sure we can pay our bills. We've been trying to make sure our kids are taken care of. We don't even know how we're doing. We don't even know how to do it. We don't even know what the questions are. So one of the things that happens every week in this planner, every week, it's called a little R&R. I'll show it to you. This is what it looks like. So every week at the end of the week, there's a section called a little R&R, and what it does is it says, what happened last week? How am I growing? What am I learning? What's concerning me? What do I want to remember? How did I do? And then the next week there's a fresh question. So here's— I just opened it up to this random space and it says, Sometimes the relationships we have with certain people, while appropriate for one season of our lives, are not the best ones for the next season of our lives. What relationship do you need to let go of, distance yourself from, or shift the dynamics in? And every week there's a different question. Why? Because you— because we struggle to stop and assess. I mean, I surely— I'm not the only one. Surely I'm not the only one. Surely, surely I'm not the only one who struggles with pausing long enough to say, Chrystal Hurst, how you doing? How you doing? So this journal planner is a planner, weekly, monthly, goal setting, all that. And then every week there are questions. But today's, today's, um, live, I'm going to walk you through 7 generic questions. They're not that specific, 7 generic questions that you can use to assess how you are actually doing. Okay, so here are the 7 areas. Emotional, physical, spiritual, relational, environmental, intellectual, and financial or occupational. Okay, so I'm going to go through these one at a time, but let me say them all one more time just so I can make sure you're hearing me. Emotional, physical, spiritual, intellectual, uh, environmental— like what's going on around you— financially or occupationally, and relational. 7 areas of your life, and we call this the Wellness Wheel. So what I'm gonna do really quickly is I'm going to share this on Facebook and YouTube. I think I can get my act together. Yeah, here we go. I'm gonna share this so you can look at it on the screen. I think, I think— here we come. All right, yep, here we go. All right, so I'm going to keep talking to y'all. Give me one second, Instagram. I'm going to go get it off the printer so I can hold it up for you, and then you're going to take a quiz. Okay, here's what you're going to do. We're going to go through each one of these areas, and I'm going to ask you some questions about your emotional life. We're going to do this one step at a time, and after I ask you the questions, you're going to say, I'm a 3, I am great. I'm a 2, I mean I'm okay, or I'm a 1, life sucks. Okay, hold on one second, let me go get it off the printer because it is what it is. Pray that I don't trip over these cords, y'all. Okay, I'm coming back. Try not to trip. Lord Jesus, whoo! Thank you, Lord, because y'all don't understand, I am prone to tripping. It's the story of my life. I am prone to have problems with my feet. All right, Instagram, I love you. So I went and got this off the printer for you. So that's what it looks like. Now here's the cool thing. If you are in the Inner Circle already, if you're thinking about getting in it, this is something that we shared in our last 21-day journey. So when you join, there are core courses, core learning plans that you can do on your own. What we're doing together right now is the 90-day, but this 21-day where we said, how am I doing? And we took 21 days to look at the girl inside and to finish the year strong. That still exists. Okay. So right now on Instagram, if you're like, all right, let me just go ahead, take a screenshot. Go ahead. All right. There you go. So that's what this looks like. Okay. So if you're on Facebook or YouTube, you can, you can see it. So let me, let me coach you through this and I want you to score yourself. And then based on what your score is, then that will help you determine where you get to work first. 'Cause listen, y'all, all God's children need help. We all need help. We all need to focus. We all need to pay attention to our lives. And every now and then we just need somebody like Chrystal Hurst to show up and remind you to do just that. All right, so here we go. Here we go. All right, all my papers. Can y'all hear my papers rattling? Because I'm in teaching mode right now.. One of the things my mother used to tell me is, Chrystal, when I started homeschooling my kids, she was like, Chrystal, I just knew you were going to be a teacher. I just thought you're going to be a teacher in a classroom. She was very clear your whole life that you were supposed to be a teacher. I was like, yay. And so here I am teaching you. I don't know what my kids are doing today, but you know, whatever. Okay. Emotional. Here are your questions. 3 means I'm happy with my emotional health. 2 is I'm okay, but I'd like to be better. Okay. 1 is, uh, this is one area of my life that is untended to and totally out of control. Okay. You can actually give yourself a 0 if you absolutely don't know, because actually the biggest danger in your life is I don't know, because what that means is, um, you're not— you don't— you, you are not in touch with you. Okay, so 3, 2, 1. 3 is I'm great. 2 is I'm okay. 1 is it's not that great, it's untended to, or it's a little out of control, or I know I'm low in this area. 0 is I don't know. If you don't even know, it's a 0, because that just means you need to— you need to pay attention to your life. You need to look. You need to— you need to— you need to bring yourself back to life in that area. And when we are having mental breakdowns, emotional breakdowns, spiritual breakdowns, relational breakdowns, all these kind of breakdowns, it's because we got to a zero and ran out. Uh, little story: I've been anemic all of my life. Many of you have been. You, we just— your blood is low, you lose blood every month. It is what it is. Then you go and you have the nerve to have babies, and then they take your iron with them. And so then you spend the rest of your life taking iron pills or trying to eat liver and chop suey so that you can keep your liver up. Well, 2 years 2 years ago when I was in the hospital, so that you can keep your iron up. 2 years ago when I was in the hospital, 3 years now, my iron was dangerously low and I didn't, I didn't know it. And they said, you've got to get it up. You have to get it up to at least this, or else you're going to have to do iron infusions. And the reason is, is because one day if you don't, if your iron isn't up, you're walking around and you're tired and you're actually not optimal, but you're used to not being optional. You're used to it, right? And so, but one day what will happen is you'll just fall out. You'll just, you'll just fall out because you won't have what you need to keep going. That's why we have mental breakdowns and spiritual breakdowns. This is why we have emotional breakdowns. This is why we blow up. And when we're talking to our spouse or to our kids, or one day at work, we're just catatonic because we're like, if we say anything to anybody, we might cuss them out. That's what happens. You get down to a zero or a 1-0, and you have not been attentive to building yourself back up in an area And then you lose it. You fall out. The you that everybody knows you to be ceases to exist because you have nothing left to keep you standing up. You know, it's like the celery experiment that we all did in school, or most of us did. And as long as there's water and the celery has water pumping through it, it can stand up straight and tall. The minute the water runs out, it just because it doesn't have what it needs to stand up straight. Every one of these areas, okay, emotional, physical, spiritual, environmental, intellectual, relational, financial, occupational, you gotta have something in you to stand up. All right, so here we go. Here are my questions for your emotional life. All right, I'm gonna guide you. How are you emotionally right now? How are you handling stress or difficult emotions? Are you processing your emotions or are you ignoring them and stuffing them down? Do you find yourself reacting emotionally disproportionately to situations? You shouldn't be that mad, that upset, that most, you know, that over, overdone. Are you expressing what you need to express in a healthy way? So those are some leading questions. So in your emotional life, I can't wait to see your answers. Are you a 3? I'm good. I haven't seen a therapist the whole of 2020 and I'm fine. 2, I mean, I'm okay. Every now and then I write in my journal or every now and then I talk to a friend, but there's some stuff I need to untangle. 1, I am constantly blowing up at people. I am constantly letting them have it. I am constantly in tears. 0, I'm numb. I don't know how I'm doing. So you can share your answers if you like. Okay, I see some 2s. Oh, Justine said negative 2. Did you mean negative 2? Really? Okay, looking at your numbers here. Okay, we have a lot of 2s. We've got a 3, got a couple of 3s, got a 1. 1, okay, 1. All right, all right, so keep a record of your score. Okay, I see a couple of zeros. All right. Okay. This is your score. The reason why I ask you to share it is because I want you to know wherever your, whatever your score is, you're not the only one. That's what's important here. This is not a grade. This is not a race. This is not a who can have all the threes. This is your assessment of you and you being honest to write it down or to hold it in your brain or to put it on a piece of paper or to type it in your phone is you saying, I'm going to be honest with you. You, with myself. Do you realize that half of the battle, y'all, is won when we stop faking the funk and just get honest with ourselves? All right, let's move on because we're in class, we got to do the work. All right, physical. How are you physically doing? Here are your guiding questions: Are you taking the basic steps to care for your physical body through good nutrition, hydration, sleep, and exercise? Are you avoiding using things like food or alcohol to deal with stress stress? Ouch. Uh, in your life, how is your general health? How's your blood sugar? How's your— how are your migraines? How is your, uh, how are your sugar levels? Uh, how's your hydration? Are you dehydrated every day? How is your, your mobility and your stretchability? Are you tight all the time? Uh, do you need somebody to rub on your shoulders? Like, how are you doing physically? And if you don't know, it's okay for just a second to sit with yourself. Like, just sit, look at your body health. We're not talking about, you know, being fine and 18. We're talking about your physical health. Do you know that you're constantly struggling to stay awake on your ride to work? Okay. That would be an indicator that you're not getting enough sleep. Uh, we all know if you're overweight, that that's not the best way to live, uh, long-term for your health. We know you shouldn't have high blood pressure. Okay, so how are you doing with your health? I see you guys giving yourself a score. That's awesome. That's awesome. Okay, great. Make a note. Let's move on because we're in class. We got to keep going, right? Then we can have study hall on the back end. Your spiritual life. Here you go. Where are you spiritually? Okay, are you regularly, consistently having time with God? Isn't that the question? Regularly and consistently having time with God. What about prayer? Do you talk to him consistently or do you talk to him at all? How about reading your Bible? Obviously I love Jesus. I love being practical. So I like getting into the weeds of how to do things, but y'all, I love Jesus and I love God's word. And the reality is, is that God's word is truth. The Bible says John 17:17, sanctify me with the truth. And if you don't have the truth coming in your eyes, your ears, in your pores, in your head, guess what you'll be susceptible to? To? Lies. Guess what Satan is? The father of lies. Guess why a lot of people have struggles with their mental health or their emotional health? Because they've been walking and believing lies for decades. How do you combat the lies? Your spiritual life. Building up your spiritual life and reading God's word is truth. That's my sermon for this morning. Do you practice spiritual disciplines like meditating on God's word, fasting, silence, and solitude? Are you maturing in your faith journey? Do you have a church home? Are you in a small group? Uh, have you been going to church consistently during the pandemic in somebody's church on a Sunday? Have you connected with a spiritual community and are you playing an active part? Okay, I see you sharing your— I see you sharing your scores. I love how you're participating. I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it. Oh, Claudia said I'm a 4. The highest number is a 3. Antoinette, I think your name is, I'm not sure, Hall. The highest number is a 3. Okay, 3 means I'm good. 2 means I'm okay, I could do better. 1 is this is an area that in my life that's untended to or out of control. 0 is I don't even know, I don't even know. Okay, all right, next area, environmental. How is your physical environment? Let me tell you a little story. I think that clutter does not bother me until I go to a hotel room and there's no clutter. I think that, that, uh, mess around me doesn't bother me until I go to a coffee shop to write and a clear table makes my brain flow. All right, so clutter is in this category. All right, how's your physical environment? Do you have a tidy, safe place to relax and refresh in? Do you have a space that is calming and life-giving? And is your environment— or is your environment cluttered and stress-inducing? Okay, what does your house look like? That's what I'm trying to say. Is your bedroom ready for you, or do you have to always climb underneath, hopefully the clean pile of clothes on your bed, in order to go to sleep? This is how we're assessing our lives right now. Um, maybe around you, you know good and well that where you are living, you got to get out of there. You know that it is not safe where you are, and you're doing the best you can, but we're just being honest, right? So 3 is I'm great, I love my home. 2 is I'm okay, but I'd like to be better. 1 is this area of my life is untended to. 0 is I don't even know. One of the things I was telling my husband last night, we have a project that we're working on and it has gotten a little bit more expensive than what we thought it would.' And he just said let's pause— I know that we may have to move some things around; you make decisions but 'I'm in mode'... "And need check this off my list." It needs get done! Don't want look at undone for another 2 or months because not be good from mental health already process can end up finishing finish these projects first so they This won't keep me distracted thing about something else when there was nothing on our plate before? Can do?! You see how God works!? So now here comes Christopher saying nope wait hold your horses baby girl cuz mine ain't going nowhere either because okay maybe later after all of us got paid then yeah well boy did He ever show out right away didn't They wow Wow oh man Jesus Christ yes Lord amen hallelujah praise Him Amen Halleluja Praise Yeahh Yahweh Ahadonai El Elyahu HaKadosha Right!!! Yes I Sir!! Okay guys please stay tuned have until next week cause if y'all miss one episode to don't worry folks will catch ya back look soon alrighty bye-bye!!!! Please subscribe below thank u very much! <LYRICS>Just Pause</LYRIC>Said No, at Now We Are Already it In Process Canna Just every Need To Finish This Up Soon That Means Yea Boy Is Done For day. Real Baby Girl!</LYRICS> Thank Ya'll Bye Guys! See U Next Week. He was like, ugh, okay. I was like, fine, I'll take it. That's not a strong husband yes, but it is a yes. You said yes, I'm gonna run with it. So how are you doing in your environment? Okay, all right, y'all, here it comes. Let's talk about money. Let's talk about money. Okay, money, finances, here you go. How are you doing with your money? How about, uh, your job, your occupation, your career? Are you loving it or is it totally stressing you out? All right, are you living within your means? Hello! See, that's what you want to say, hello and hallelujah together. Hello! I just made that up. Do you have a budget? Are you sticking to it? Are you not using the credit cards? How's your credit score? Like all those things. Okay, um, do you see value in the work that you're doing, or are you just trying to get through the day? Okay, are you working at your highest potential? Are you doing what you love? Have you set aside the time to focus on that? How's your savings? How's your retirement? How's the planning for college? Now I realize we're still in the middle of a pandemic. I am totally aware of that. I, I understand that totally, 100%. That said, I also believe that you can still do as well as you can with what you have. What do I mean by that? You may not be able to make more money, but you sure as heck, if you have internet connection, can get online and shop, uh, and search for frugal recipes and save the money that you have. Okay, stop eating out, stop buying quick convenience foods, don't buy the packaged individual oatmeal, get the vat of oatmeal from Sam's or Costco or the biggest thing they have at Walmart and make that every day for kids. They will not die. They will not die. And you will save money. Okay, so this is not an am I rich question. This is not do I have my ideal job. It just says, with what I have, am I doing what I'm committed to? Do I know what to do? And am I doing what I'm— what I should be committed to doing? Do I know what I love? Am I doing that as a career, or am I working towards doing it, or am I clueless? So 3 is I'm happy with my financial health, my career health, 2 is I'm okay, but I could be better. 1 is this is an area of my life. I hate my job and I've known for 20 years I needed to go back to school or do something different or take the leap, take the risk to do something new. We actually interviewed last night. I interviewed Miss Rhonda in Coffee with Chrystal. If you only watch Coffee with Chrystal for that reason, because Miss Rhonda, y'all, 2 years ago didn't know what she was doing with her life. She is in her 60s and she totally flipped the script on her life. It's never too late. To change things and to do what you meant to do, or to have the life you meant to live, or to have things be the way you always wanted them to have been. All right, so with your finances, it's never too late to save. My grandmother— I've said this before— my grandfather lost work in her 40s. She had never worked. She went to work, and they did very well in their retirement because she went to work. And in her 40s and 50s, she did all the stuff— in her late 40s and 50s, uh, she did all of the things financially that they should have been doing all along but could not afford to to, and then they were fine. So if you, if you are a 1, because this is an area of my life that's unintended to, I just want to encourage you, it doesn't mean it has to stay that way, okay? You just start doing— and y'all, we live in the age of Google, so whatever you need to know for free, you can find out. 0 is I don't even know. I don't know what number is in my bank account today. I don't know what I'm supposed to save for retirement. I have never taken the time to do a personality assessment because they're free online. I've never taken the time to read what color is your parachute. I can figure out what I should do from an occupational standpoint. I've never taken the time to do anything other than the job at Target that was around the corner because they were hiring. But actually, what is in me? What am I supposed to do with my life? That is— those are the kinds of things we actually talk about in the Inner Circle because they take time to figure out, and that's okay. So I'm seeing your comments here. I love that. I love that. All right, all right, here we go. We're going to keep going relationally. Woo! Come on now. If you know good and well that you hate your husband, we're not going to bash him right now. Okay? We're not going to, we're not going to give all the extra comments. We're still going to be honoring and respectful, but we're going to talk about our spouses and our children and our friends and our coworkers. How are your relationships? Do you find yourself in constant conflict? Oh Lord, is Priscilla in here? She always jumps in and starts making noise and having foolery. How are you doing in your relationships? Are you in constant conflict? Are you constantly stressed out because your husband doesn't understand you? Your kid is wilding out and you don't know what to do, but you're always the bad guy, or you're always— I mean, like, what is happening in your relationship with your coworkers? Now, here's the thing about relationships. We like to say that the relational issues that we have are them. You have to understand, if you're having the same problem everywhere, sweetie, it might be you. But anyway, we're gonna— that's, that's another lesson for another day. Hi, Priscilla. What's going on in here is that we are working our way through a wellness wheel and looking at the 7 areas of life that contribute to us being a whole person so that we can live in full. I have an answer you today. Okay, all right, so how are you doing? Do you find yourself in constant conflict? Do you have stability in your relationships? Are you taking the time to invest in the relationships that God has given you? If you have 35 friends, you're not going to be a good friend at the same level to all of them. You got to put some priorities in there. Do you have people that you can be real with and foster good honesty with? Do you have people that actually know what's going on in your life? If you don't have that, that's another reason why we have the Inner Circle. Um, sometimes people connect online, sometimes people don't. What I can tell you for sure is these women in the Inner Circle, they connecting. Some of them have met up for lunch. Some of them have formed their own little Zoom groups. I mean, it is what it is. And what happens is when you join something, whether it's your church and it's a small group or it's a get-together in your neighborhood, I have a friend who her— she didn't know who her neighbors are. And all of a sudden, in the middle of the pandemic, they started having these socially distanced gatherings, somebody's backyard. They would sit far apart and they would just talk. And now she's become friends with all her neighbors. Like, the Sister Circle and the how to build your Sister Circle is a whole thing we'll be working on this year. Uh, one of the girls, actually, uh, Sharina, who's new on the team, she told me, okay, I just listened to She's Still There. I'm trying to get caught up in all the things, and I listened to it on audiobook, and I really love this idea of the 90-day journey. So Me and my girlfriends are doing our 90-day experience. We're doing it. We're— I created a group. I was like, oh great, document everything that we do and then we'll create a guide, a guide to your 90-day group, and we'll share it with everybody. So the— here's what you need to understand, that relationships take work, right? And if you don't have it, the good thing is, just like all of these other areas, you can build it, okay? You can build it. All right, so relationally, how are you doing? Okay. And I love your honesty, Keisha. You said a 2, but I would love for this. I would love to be better with my boys. This whole pandemic and them being with me at work has caused me not to enjoy them as much as I should. They're with me all the time. That's honesty. Half of the battle, y'all, is honesty. Priscilla said I'm talking so fast. Okay. Let me slow down. I'm just trying to get it all in. Okay. So half of the battle is being honest and that's what we're doing by giving yourself a score. All right, here's the last area. Intellectually, how are you doing? Are you challenging and growing yourself intellectually? Do you have specific hobbies or interests that you're pursuing and learning? Um, you always wanted to knit. Did you work on it last year? Are you reading books that are making you think? Leaders are readers. Do you make decisions to find out about things that interest you or help you grow? Do you take the class online? Do you watch the courses? Y'all, there's so much free webinar stuff out here. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And let me, let me give you a secret. I heard somebody say this to me once and I was like, she freed me. Her name is Nicole Nichols. She's a motivational speaker and she has a lot of stuff. And one of her things I actually paid for, but she's, this is what she said. She said, listen, Listen, everything I want to teach you, you can figure out on your own. We live in the age of Google. The only thing that you spending money on this course or this community or whatever she had, the only reason why this is helpful to you is I will save you time. So if you don't have the money, don't feel bad about it. We've all heard the saying, time is money. If you have the time, then dig it out for yourself. Make the mistakes. And, and time is money, so sometimes taking your time to get the answers means you make mistakes. You buy the wrong equipment, or you do it the wrong way, or you didn't know what the right book was to read or the right class. But you can do a lot of things for free. Often when you take somebody's class, right, you're going to college, you have a professor— can you read all the books that they read and, you know, and learn a lot of the knowledge that they have? Yeah, maybe not experience, but you can have the basic knowledge from folks, what are you actually paying them for? You're paying them to shortcut your time and to say, in 4 years for my bachelor's degree, or in 2 years for my master's degree, I'm going to come out with a body of knowledge. And instead of spending 20 years of my life figuring it out on my own, I'm going to spend 4 years or 6 years and let somebody teach me and let them take their knowledge that they've navigated and that they've cultivated, and I'm going to let them deliver that to me. Okay, that's it. So I don't ever want— and what she said is, I want to serve you by saving your time, saving you time. She said, if it serves you to pay me money for what I have cultivated for you to save you time, then here, here it is. This is how I want to serve you, right? I've created this product, I've put in the work, we have a team that's done the work for you. If you don't have the money and you have the time, you can figure this out. Okay, that's what I want to tell you as far as whatever you want to learn. Okay, don't feel bad if you don't have the money. Like, I would even say that about the Inner Circle. The Inner Circle, y'all, is me trying to make things pretty. I don't do graphics, so I have to hire a graphic designer. Okay, I, uh, don't— don't— did not have lights, so I had to buy lights. I didn't have the right camera lens, so I had to do that. And then eventually, y'all, I wanted to get out of my closet. So I bought this doggone yellow chair. Okay. So me trying to present things to you in a very cultivated, concise, let me have interns that I bring to Dallas and that I feed. So I got to pay them. Like, all of this is me saying, let me put it in a package for you. And if I've done the work to take what I know or what I've learned and I put it in a package and I save you time, and that benefits you, then that's what the Inner Circle is for, right? That's what the Inner Circle is for. You want to do the work and you want me to package it for you. So we've got— and I mean, Jasmine just walked in, uh, she's gonna sit here and mail out everybody's planners, everybody who's new. Okay, listen, everybody's like, Chrystal, how do you get things done? How do you balance your life? How do you stay on track with your goals? You want to know what this is? This is me packaging it for you because my original goal, y'all, I have bought a million planners in my life. And you want to know why I kept changing planners? Because I thought it was the planner. It's not the planner, it's me. So finally I said, every year based on my life, I just need to free myself to get a planner that works for that year. Because some years I need a daily schedule, most years I need a weekly, some years I need goal setting help, other years I don't, I just need lots of blank pages so that I can write all the things in there. And every year my needs change. And then I just said one I have a process. And then somebody said to me, "What's your process?" And I said, "Here you go." So you can do it yourself. You can go online and develop all these things and use your brain to figure out your process. But if you wanna borrow somebody else's process or have them shortcut the journey for you, that's what you pay money for because somebody else had to use their time, their experience, their knowledge to put it together for you. You, all right? And let's be honest, we like watching put together. That's why we subscribe to the most beautiful pages on Instagram, because we like to see beautiful lives. Even though outside of the frame— see, the Instagram people can see this— there is a basket right here full of clothes. Outside of the frame, everybody's stuff on Instagram is a mess. There's stuff on the floor over there. I got bags of things I need to return. I've got equipment over there on the floor that's in a box. I need to organize that stuff. I've got a million candles over here. I got an empty Sonic cup. I mean, y'all listen, this is what's happening outside of the frame, but we like to see things put together, and that's what gets cultivated. Okay, so that was the intellectual question. Okay, the intellectual question is, are you putting time and energy into you? That's why I said, uh, the first level of the inner circle is, Chrystal Hurst, I want to support your work. The next level is, I actually want to invest in me. And that's a decision you have to make. Whether you invest your time by searching on Google, whether you invest your money by taking somebody's class, going to college, taking a community class, whether you invest your money by buying a book or getting an Audible membership, you have to invest in you and make the time or financial investment to move forward. This is the way that life works. Uh, you know, my, my son, one of my sons, he was wanting to learn something and I said, okay, well then You're going to spend some of your time this year— he's a senior— we're making up a class called occupational exploration because you can make up a class, right? It's about the time you spend. So the occupational exploration, some of us, y'all took a class like this in high school. You're going to interview, we're going to come up with a set of questions for you to interview people who are in careers that you kind of sort of think might be a thing you want to do. You don't know, but you're going to interview them. And then when it's safe, you're going to go to work with them. You're You're gonna walk with them. You're gonna shadow them, see what they do all day. And we have enough people in my family who work for themselves for us to start with our families, and then we can go on from there. Okay? You're gonna invest your time in discovery. 'Cause you're gonna invest it one way or another. You're gonna invest it having the wrong job, or you can invest it exploring people who do what you do. I did this with my, uh, second daughter, Jessica. She wanted to be a counselor, and I had her meet with all of my counselor friends. Friends. I had her meet with him because why would you launch into anything in your life without investigation? And growing your intellect is, is basically investigating how other people think, how other— what other people have learned, and learning from them. All right, y'all, so we've got your 7 areas. So here's what I want you to do. For those of you all who were actually able to write it down and keep up with it, I want you to tell me your total score. Okay, so does anybody have their total score? So here's what happens if you have a 0 to 7. You need to make room in your life immediately to focus on you. You pick one area of your life, one of those areas that you score the lowest on. So let's say you have a 7, but there are a couple of areas that were a 0. That's where you start. Okay, so you're low overall, but you got a couple of arrows— areas that were a 0. Zero. That's where you start. Okay, 13, 15, 13, 15, 12, 12, 6. All right, that's all right. 14, 17, 12, 15, 11. All right, hey Stephanie, I see your question, I'll answer it in just a second. 18, 13, 10. All right, so we've got a few people. I see you on Instagram. 17, 11, 12, 14. Love your honesty, thank you for sharing. 17. All right, if you're a 0 to 7 you, you need actual intervention, okay? You need to like get in a small group. You need to talk to a pastor at your church. You need to, to get in somebody something. And y'all, there is so much free stuff online. There is no— the Bible study, even the Faith Gateway Bible study that I mentioned at the beginning of my live, y'all, that's free. And there's a Facebook group, okay? So there's no reason for you not to connect somewhere. There's the Sister Circle group on Facebook. Ebook. That's free for you to get in there and start thinking about your life, okay? So you don't have to spend money, but you need to say, you know what, I'm in a crisis situation. I am not connected to me at all, and I need to prioritize that in 2021, okay? If you are between 7 and 14, okay, you are holding it down, but you are not living an optimized life, okay? You're holding it down, and I think that most women live here. Because we can't get to us because we got to get to everybody else. Okay, so what you can do, same here, you can actually decide to look at areas that are a 0 or a 1 and say, one or two of these areas, this is what I'm going to focus on for the next 21 days or 60 days or 90 days, whatever. I'm going to pick a couple of things that I can do to focus in that area. I'm going to give you some examples in a minute. Or because of where you are, you can choose areas that you just want I just want to, like, I want to do better with this, okay? Because the domino factor is a factor in your life. If you can be successful in one area of your life, it starts the dominoes falling in other areas of your life. And you might find that when you focus on something that you love and you move the needle from a 2 to a 3, automatically the 0 comes to a 1. It kind of pulls it along, okay? You're a 0 to a 7, hold the press, stop the presses. Get somewhere now. Now, okay, get somewhere now. Call a friend and say, I just realized I took this quiz from Chrystal Hurst this morning, and I just realized my life is in the trash. I actually called a friend of mine one time. We read a book together. I said, every Thursday night, can we read a book together? Like, I gotta do better. Okay, so if you're 0, 7 to 14, rather 7 to 14, You're kind of in an area where you're okay. Pick something that's low or something that's high because you're passionate about it. You will realize it gets the chain going. You'll catch the chain. Okay, if you are 14 to 21, you are in a sustainable part of life, um, and I want to encourage you to get that thing higher. Okay, I want to, I want to encourage you to get that thing higher because here's what I want to do. You've heard people talk about it. We get all scared because it sounds all new agey, but people will say, I want to live as the best version of myself. Okay, that's when you start hitting 18, 19, 20, 21, because you know who you are, you know what you need, and you know what you need to do. I am not— hi, Christy Cole Harper— I am not an anxious person by nature. By nature, anxiety is not my thing. Um, food is my thing, as evidenced by the Sonic Cup that's on my desk. Desk. But, but look at me, aren't you proud of me? I have water this morning. Yoo-hoo! Yay for the water. Okay, when I start feeling anxious, when I start feeling like there's a stone on my chest or in my throat, that is an immediate indicator that I have to shift something in my life. Okay, generally speaking, anxiety is not the thing. So in my emotions, if I start experiencing emotional anxiety to a degree that is not normal for me, then I'm gonna look and say, all right, I gotta, you know, all of Chrystal Hurst's Inside Out, all the people, hold the phone. What's going on? How can we pivot? How can we shift things to deal with this? Because this should not be here. When I start slipping below a 2 to a 1 or a 0 in an area, um, then that means means something else in my life has to shift in order for me to give that area the help that it needs, right? So think about your life as a wheel, right? And if your wheel is moving forward, it means it's, it's, it's whole, it's healthy, and it's not damaged. You can have a tiny nail, a tiny nail in your wheel, the car, and it'll make your whole car fall Somebody knows about that. Let me show you a picture. Uh, Catherine, who has done a great job sharing a lot of the content for our 90-day experience, my next 90 days, that's what we're calling it. She actually texted me a picture of her wheel last night. So if you're on YouTube, you're going to be able to see this. Okay. And if you look really closely, if you look really closely, you'll see that there's this white spot on the wheel, and basically she had worn her tread down there. And they told her, you know, you're going to have to fix this because you're worn down too thin right there. Somebody see where I'm going? You're worn down too thin right there, and if you don't deal with it and get a new tire, your tire will go flat, you'll have a blowout, you'll lose steam, your car will cease to move forward. I was in college, y'all, and I had, um, you know, I didn't have any money. I didn't want to, uh, I didn't want to spend money on my car, you know. And so my brakes were making noise, and I thought, I'll get it fixed eventually. And then, y'all, it went from making brake noise to making metal-on-metal noise, and I thought, I probably should get that looked at. The first thing that the mechanic said to me when I took my car in to see him was Why didn't you come in here earlier? Did you not hear your brakes making noise before we got to your rotator cuffs needing to be resurfaced? Because you know that that's a lot of money. And my answer was, oh yes, my car was talking to me the whole time, the whole time. And I wasn't listening. And then when you finally decide to listen, The price is high to pay. Some of y'all know that because you've had the emotional breakdown. Some of you know that because your credit score is in the trash. Some of you know that because you breathed in mold way too long in your physical environment. Some of you know that because your blood pressure is out of control. Some of you know that already because you, you are currently on your third marriage and that one is ending in divorce. Some of you already know that you keep dating the same guy. Some of you already know that you keep not having good friend groups because you're not putting the energy forth to be a friend. Some of you already know that it's— you've spent 30 years on a job you don't like and you finally figured out the right one, but you waited too long to take the, take the leap. Some of you have known for some time you need to go back to school. Some of you, your life has been talking to you the whole time if you've been listening. The Holy Spirit does not yell. He whispers. He moves in your soul and in your mind and in your spirit, and he says to you, here is the way of life. Proverbs says that wisdom, she calls out in the streets. Will somebody listen? I tell my kids all the time, listen, you're gonna hear my voice in your head if that's the last thing I do. You are not going to go through life saying, I wish my mother had told me. If you realize that you didn't listen to me, you're going to say, ugh, My mother tried to tell me, and I tell them as teenagers, you're going to be dumb from 15 to 25, and those are when the biggest decisions are that many people make. Um, but here's the deal. I am teaching you. I am telling you truth. You have to decide whether or not you're going to listen, and you will discover that I am teaching you truth the hard way or the easy way. You're going to change those brakes when they first start talking, or you're going to wait until you have to spend a million dollars to fix the metal? Oil in your engine? You're going to listen to the truth that your mother gave you when she had you on your knee and taught you scriptures and tried to guide you? Are you going to be hard-headed and realize when you're 30 that you made a lot of dumb decisions that you didn't have to make because your mother was trying to teach you? I took you to church, I made you do the Bible studies, you memorized the scripture. You're going to read these doggone books. Yes to Think and Grow Like a Millionaire. Yes to Rich Dad Poor Dad. Yes to Do Hard Things. Yes to books by your grandfather and Max Lucado. Yes to What Color Is My Parachute? Because you're not going to enter life without the knowledge. But then you have to decide whether or not you're going to listen. Listen, girl or guys, because I understand some of your husbands listen along with you. You get to decide today. Choose ye this day, wherever you ended up on that wheel. Decide what are you going to do to work on your emotional life? What are you going to do to work on your physical life? What are you going to do to be more spiritually minded and grow up some more in God? What are you going to do to change your environment? What are you going to do to work on your money? What are you going to do to start making moves to get to that career that you want, that you've dreamed of? What are you going to do to engage in relationship, to have meaningful relationship, to take the to love. And I'm not just talking about a guy, I'm talking about girls, that you can love your friends, that you can be in actual honest community. What are you going to do? Are you going to start it? Nobody else is doing it. Are you going to start it? What are you going to do to get smarter? We live in a world where there is information at your fingertips every stinking where. What are you gonna do? Because you can do something. One of the questions that I got asked, I saw it in the— and I don't remember who asked it, but I do remember she asked two questions and I want to answer them both. She said, how long should this process take? The first question was like, how long do we have to be in the Inner Circle? So the Inner Circle is a membership. That's what it is. You stay as long as you need it. You go and come as you need. Um, and we do challenges and things like that to keep you thinking about your life. Because here's the problem: we neglect to keep doing that. That's what happens. We do it for a minute. That's what's going to happen for a lot of us at the beginning of the year. We're going to do it for a minute and then we fall off, right? We fall off. So the goal is to have something that's ongoingly there to serve you, but you don't have to stay in it. You can, you can join for a month or two or three, do the 90-day, and then be You don't have to stay. The question of what she's really saying is, how long do I have to— how long is this thing on? Is this thing on? How long do I have to speak into the mic in order to be heard? How long? Okay. This is what I shared a little bit about this in Coffee with Chrystal. I'll tell you this real quick. I called a doctor who is a, um, um, not alternative. She is a— what is it called when they bring it together? They are traditional, but they're also alternative integrative. She's an integrative medicine doctor. Y'all, I'm kind of weird. I'm kind of crunchy. There's a lot of things that I know that I do not execute. Like, for example, I take my coffee grinder and I grind flaxseed and put it in my smoothies because that's an amazing source of omegas. You know, I know stuff like that. I know how to grind my own wheat. Maybe you watched a few weeks ago, a couple weeks ago, when I cooked in front of you and made pumpkin bread and all the weird things. Like, you know, I homeschooled and I had homeschool friends who taught me things I did not know. No. Do I execute on all those things? Uh-uh. So I call this holistic doctor, thank you very much for that word. And I was asking her about sustainability. She said, here's what you need to do to lose the weight. Here's what you need to do. You will lose 2 pounds a week. And then, and then here was my question to her. It's what you just asked me. She said, I said, so then how long do I have to eat like that? I said, how long do I have to eat like that? And you want to know what she said to me? There will be some adjustments that we will be able to make for you to maintain. You should never gain more than 5 pounds because once you gain more than 5 pounds, you're telling yourself, your weight is telling you, you've done something that's out of control. There'll be some adjustments that we make, but no, this is This is it. The answer to the question, how long do I have to work on me, is for the rest of your life. That's like saying, how long on a bike do you have to keep balance? You're always keeping balance as you ride a bike. Now, the level of intensity changes depending on the terrain. If you're riding smooth on a paved surface, you may pedal a little bit and then be able to cruise some. But if you are riding on a rough terrain, you are constantly engaging your core so that you are staying upright and moving forward. Does it get easier? Absolutely. Do you get better at it? Absolutely. Do you have to exert the same amount of energy that you did in order to build a habit at the beginning? No, you get better at it. But do you have to constantly pay attention to the girl in you? Yes, it's a new year. It's a great time to start a new rhythm. It's a great time to start a new rhythm, but this is the rhythm of your life. What you're doing this year is just picking where you want to start. So if you're 14 to 21, I'm so proud of you. If you are living life in that 21-day space, 21, uh, number 18 to 21, you are on fire. Keep going. Here's the encouragement though. Did I say rotator cuff? I did. Here's the encouragement for you, okay? No matter where you are, no matter what you scored, You are still here. You are still breathing. You still have the ability to choose. So now you pick. You cannot work to the same velocity and intensity in all 7 areas of your life right now. You cannot. That's why most of us, um, start habits we can't keep. We make commitments that we break because we trying to do too much all at the same time. Nobody can keep up with all of that. Nobody can do that. So if you are 0 to 7, okay, get, get something up off the ground, right? Get it going. If you are 7 to 14, you can choose, pick something that you're passionate about or get a 0 into a 1. If you are 14 to 21, awesome, you can sustain life there over the long haul. But I want to encourage you to decide what 1 or 2 areas are you going to— what would make it— what would make a 14 an 18? What would make you feel great? And a lot of us, we know, we know that we need to stop talking about going back to school and do it. We know that we need to read a book a month because for the last 2, 3 years we've been saying we're going to do it and we just haven't prioritized it. And it's not that hard to read a book a month. We know that we need to start saving. We know that we need to get some therapy, go to a counselor, talk to a pastor. We already know that we need to lose the weight and drink more water and take our supplements or go to the doctor. We already know that we need to read our Bible every day. We already know that we need to pray. We already know it. So just pick the one or two max that you feel like will be a game changer for you. That's right, Lilian Star, you have to learn to pace yourself. You pick the area that you feel like will be a game changer for you, and you start with that. If it will be a game changer for you to go to counseling, go to counseling. If it will be a game changer game changer for you to be honest with your sister or your daughter or your friend about how you've not been— how they've been really hurtful to you and you just need to be honest because you've been holding it in, be honest. If it's a game changer for you to start investigating a new career or to take the leap, Miss Rhonda took the leap. Leap in the middle of a pandemic. She was like, Lord, I heard you say before the pandemic started to leave a job I love for a new thing. And then the pandemic started, and she said, Lord, is that what you said? Is that what— are you sure? Is that what you said? And he said, yes, that's what I said. She took the leap in the middle of a pandemic. She said it was the best decision I've ever made. You have to take some time to be still Be silent. We practice that Coffee with Chrystal Hurst Hurst to listen to your knower. What does your soul say? To make room to hear the Holy Spirit so that you know which of the things you scored a 0 or a 1 on where you need to start. But here's what I want you to revel in. Here's what I want you to revel in. You, my friend, are still here. You have a heartbeat. You are not DOA. You are not past saving. You still have a heartbeat. You still have breath in your lungs, which means you get to live. There are many people that I know, many friends that I have who live with a limb They're in wheelchairs, or they're missing limbs, or they have chronic illnesses. There are medical conditions, mental conditions. They have been through extremely abusive circumstances with a spouse, or from their childhood they've been sexually abused. There's trauma. Here's what I want you to know. What's important is that they have a heartbeat. And we all probably know somebody in our real lives or from social media that's living more life than we ever have with less. I don't want you to give me any excuses about how you're missing a limb or what your childhood was like. I don't want you to give me any excuses about how he mistreated you or how he stole 5, 7, 10 years, 20 years from your life. I don't wanna hear you tell me about how you were born on the wrong side of the tracks and you didn't have a great education. I don't wanna hear you tell me that. Is it real? Yes. Do you have to recover from it? Yes. Do you make excuses in your life for not moving forward as a result? No. You get in that wheelchair and you push the wheels. You use your cane and you move forward. You rest when you need to. The migraines, the fibromyalgia, the real physical things that are in your way, the transplant. I have a friend who's been has been constantly sick her whole adult life and has had a couple of transplants. But you know what? In the middle of all that, she's living. We don't always get to choose the cards that we're dealt, but we do get to choose how we play them. And you can make an impact in your life right where you are, and you get to live. No more excuses. And here's my last bit of encouragement for you before I sign off for my little kisses. Today is day one. So is tomorrow. So is next Monday. So is February the 13th. So is December the 31st. Now, I don't want you to wait till December the 31st to get things going. I want you to look at every day. If the day before you screwed up, then the next day is a new opportunity to choose. That's what we're going to say. Today is day one, and every day you can wake up and say, thank you, God. Lamentations 3, your mercies are new every morning. Isaiah 43, God wants to do a new thing in your life, and he is a God of new beginnings. He loves taking stuff that's old and making all things new. Old things are passed away, the Bible says, all things are become new. Think about your body and the way it heals. You shed cells, the old cells. Every day you're shedding old cells and you're creating new ones because this is the gift of life. It's a gift. So when you fall off the wagon And many of us will in some area of our life. Don't say, oh well, I knew this wasn't gonna work. I can't believe— uh-uh, uh-uh. No, no, no, no, no. You are gonna learn how to speak life to yourself and you're gonna assess your life and you're gonna say, how did I do today? How was my emotional life today? Because that's what I'm working on. It was a zero. Is it still a zero? Is it a one? I didn't do anything that I said I would do. To work on my emotional self. I didn't do anything today to work. I didn't spend time with God. Okay, but that's not where we're going to start. You're going to assess your life, and then you're going to say with gratitude when you wake up the next morning, thank you, God, for giving me another day to choose, another day to live, another day to breathe, another day to move forward. And then you're going to raise your hands to heaven before your feet hit the and you're gonna say, what is in your heart, God, for me to do today? And then you're gonna take a deep breath, get out of bed, and go. Okay, this is your year to figure out the rhythms of your life, and they're gonna change, and they're gonna move, and they're gonna grow, and they're gonna to morph because you're changing and you're growing and your life is morphing. But if you will just on a 90-day basis or a monthly basis, even a weekly basis, check on yourself in these 7 areas and then adjust accordingly, you are still miles ahead of most people who don't pay attention to themselves at all. The name of game is paying attention. Let me tell you how I know. Jesus was God, and he said, "I gotta make sure I'm about my Father's business." Jesus, who was God, checked in, spent time in prayer, got away from the crowds, went away to be quiet to make sure he was on course. Do you wanna know how I know that if you fall off course, that it's really, really simple to gather your wits about you and keep going is because if Jesus, who was God, needed to talk every now and then to the Father, if he had to get by himself to hear clearly, then that means we ain't God. You're not God. I'm not God. We're gonna have to do the same thing many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many times over every day. How am I doing? I said I was going to work on my intellect. I said I was going to read. Am I reading? Why am I not reading? Is that because I don't have a book? Is it because I don't have a time to read? Do I need to put a book in a car? Do I need to keep a book in my purse? Do I need a Kindle so I can read it on the go on my phone? Like, then you're going to assess what you need in order to get going. Okay. So you all happy new year, happy 2021. And happy. Let's get this party started! But happy new rhythm. This is your opportunity to work on you. I want the wheel of your life to move forward. I want you to get whatever you need in order to move it forward. And if it serves you, the Inner Circle and all of the girls who make that wheel go are here to help. I'm so grateful to have spent the majority of 2020 with you being here live most Mondays from my closet and sharing encouragement with you. And so now I got to get the wheel going with what God has told me to do, narrow my focus a little bit and, uh, do the next thing, do the new thing. And the new thing for this year is a heavy focus on the Inner Circle and building the content there. The new thing is me encouraging other speakers, writers, leaders, teachers who, who who you don't know about because maybe their platform isn't as large as some other people's, and— but they've got great stuff to share— is to bring them into the inner circle to encourage you, to keep you going. My goal is to keep working on this planner, to keep making it a great product, because I don't know how to make a planner. We're making this up as we go along, and you want to know what? It's a new thing. But I believe I can keep going to work and making something that will be useful to you and to others as the years go on. Um, so many things. New year, new rhythm. And y'all listen, I'm a 1 in the physical department because I was doing good last year, and then stress, and then food is my friend. But you want to know what? I'm still here. So as long as I can choose, I get to choose me each and every day. So I'm going to be looking at these areas just like you are and rating myself. I have already. I'll be looking at each one of these areas and saying How can I raise this from a 0 or a 1 and bring it up? Because I want to be the best version of myself. I want to live fully, as authentically Chrystal as I can. I want to get out of my own way. I want to stop self-sabotaging. I want the Spirit of God to live in me and to take me on the ride of my life, creating opportunities for me that I never dreamed of, putting things in my mind and heart that I never would have come up with myself. Creating paths that are a blessing to me, to my family, and to the people that work with me. And this is the overflow of what happens when we are maximizing who God intended us to be. Not only are we blessed, but others are too. And my prayer is that for this year of 2020, that the overflow of me being me has been a blessing to you. Tabitha Brown says, I cannot believe I get paid to be me. This is what happens when you are authentically you. You get the benefit, sometimes financially, sometimes it's joy, sometimes it's a walk with God, sometimes it's new friendships, it's relationships. But when you double down and you say, I'm gonna figure out what God wants me to do with my life and I'm gonna pour oil on it, guess what happens? The fire burns. And the light glows. You want to bring light into your world and into the light of other people. It only takes a spark to get a fire going. And my hope that this spark today for you is a good place for you to begin day one. I love you with my life. That's what my daddy always says. Have a great 2021. I will see you in the circle or You can watch the videos that we share from the circle here in the future. I'm excited for new things to come. Talk to you soon. Bye!