Hi there. I'm Jill Allen and this is find your fierce, the show designed for women to discover your fierce, unlock and unstoppable mindset. Build unbreakable courage and completely transform how you show up every single day. Each week I will bring ideas, methods and strategies that will inspire you to step into your greatness and live life on purpose. Let's be fit, fierce and unstoppable.
(00:33): Hey there, welcome to find your fierce. This is episode 14 and we are continuing our series called find your peace, Nikki. Cozy. Ours is back with us and we, or diving into the struggle of slowing down and why it may be the wake up call that we all need. Welcome back, Nikki, how are you? So I'm good. I'm glad to be back. This is such a great series. I love it. I love it. And before I forget, guys, I want you to make sure that you follow Nikki on Instagram and Facebook. You guys can head on over to Nikki, cozy ours. She's also doing pop-up Bible studies and I had posted that in the Jaspreet Facebook group. So make sure that you guys go over there. And like her page because I tell you what, she has so much insight, so much wisdom and she's real honest and you're just going to absolutely love ourselves.
(01:20): I'm glad that she is back. How are you? I'm glad to be back. This is anytime we get to hang out. I love it. Yeah, this is good. So we're going to talk a little bit, I mean slowing down, but here's the thing, my whole business, okay. And coaching women is always about helping the woman that has full days, the busy woman who's trying to juggle everything. One because that's who I was at the time, you know, with five kids running multiple businesses and you're going into every single direction. But now we're forced to slow down all of us and it's like, okay, the brakes have been put on and it's not just a slow, steady stock. I mean it wasn't a bar. An abrupt, you know, stay at home. I know for us we have over 45-50 sporting events, no joke. Every single week gone between all the kids, dental, how do you get them all where they're supposed to be?
(02:20): Is insane. We do have one driver and all of that and thank goodness for our village that we all can help each other out for sure. But yeah, and like I was training for an event and that is canceled, so there's more hours that consumed our time. So, and I know I'm not just the only one. Everybody's schedules have slowed down. And I think a lot of people are wrestling with this because we're in a world that doesn't like slow. We want the [inaudible] instant. So how are people coping? What, how are you coping? Are you, I mean, because here we are a week later and all of this and what's going on? Are you doing okay with the slowdown? Yes. We've been going at this a little bit longer than I think you guys. And here's the really stinky part of our journey. So the state shut down the schools on a Sunday.
(03:10): I think that was three weeks ago. So we've been out for three weeks now, but my girls had been out of school two days before that because there was Ecolab in the water. And so I feel like super Gibbs' when this whole situation, so here's the bad thing about when you work at home already. Like I know everybody's like, Oh, I work at home now. I've been working at home for years and I kind of had a routine and a schedule and a plan. Like my book deadline did not go under covet 19 cancellation. Like I'm still, you know, I have a book due June 1st and so that requires a lot of time and energy and focus. Now. Where I did slow down drastically was my travel schedule and because typically I'm gone every other weekend, which is why weekends have been really hard for me.
(04:01): Not that I don't love being home, but when you're gone and then you're home for one weekend, it just feels a lot better. I love to travel, I love to meet new people. I love to be in new places. I'm so, I've been a little bit sad like especially, you know, we've talked about weekends, like weekends are hard. Being stuck here. Where it got really hard was my girls when they slowed down because our college age daughter had to come back home. And then my, we had an exchange student living with us. She had to go back to Germany and then our other two daughters, all of their sports, everything like that was canceled. And I have to be honest with you, Jill, I don't know that with them. I've done everything right the last three weeks as far as stewarding their time. I think in a way it's, I don't want to say it's easier when you have little kids in this season because no, there's no easy in any of this, but younger kids do better with structure and schedules and their moms suddenly being like their teacher and in-charge.
(04:59): My girls don't want me to teach them anything. Like they're just like, leave us alone. We'll do our online work. Don't yell at us about how much time we're on our phones because you know, and so I've struggled. But there have been times where like, you know, I see them all outside playing volleyball and I think they would have never done this, had this not happened and our family dinners, you know, slowing down, sitting at the table has been good. Like it's the only thing that we all, no, it's going to happen every day is we're going to sit at the dinner table. That's huge. I was just thinking about that this morning. Yeah. We never had a family dinner. All of us were at home at one time and now it's like multiple days in a row, all of us. And that has been so good.
(05:41): Like we're looking forward to the stories that we get to. So again, it kind of, yeah, it's been, that part has been awesome. Yeah, I agree. And you know, that's one of those things where I know we're gonna talk later about like, what do you want your life to look like after this? That's definitely been one of those things that I'm like, I want more of this in our lives. I am afraid that you know, we're going to just survive through this season and not thrive in it for sure. I think that's a healthy fear to have right now. So I'm curious what type of corn teen mom are you? Cause I'm a DIY. Like I got all these projects going on.
(06:17): You're the cleaning corn mom. I am a lot of home economics is going on, you know, we clean and, and, and try to do that. I did do a craft yesterday and I'm not, it was funny, I'm not a craft person at all, but you know, your youngest brings out everything and it was a box from grandma and I'm like, Oh my gosh. And we're like trying to YouTube the directions and I'm yelling, where is grandma? Because I'm not I'm not that, I'm not that person. So I'm trying to be, and when you say you don't always do everything right, I mean it just given ourselves some grace on all of that because there is, they're getting used to a new structure and I, and I, I know it was a wake up call for me, is that we have trained our kids to be just as crazy busy as we are and that they don't know what to do when things shut down and are quiet and, and they've lost that creativity.
(07:10): I know you've talked about the last episode that you had to get more creative with your speaking events and how you can reach out and with your Bible studies and, and you're speaking and things like that. [inaudible] We not only have to get creative, I think it's a chance for us to be able to teach our kids yeah. To be more creative because they're so used to the structure and all of that. So yeah, slowing down has been, I think is tough. Yeah. Something else that's been really hard for me. We just joined a new church this last year and whenever you're in a season of transition from churches, it was like two years where we were visiting different churches and then we finally found one that we were landing at. And like I was just starting to get into a small group and things like that. And like just starting, it was starting to feel like home and now all of a sudden it's all gone.
(07:59): And I miss it. Like I miss and I feel like I'm already becoming so distant from my close friends. We're talking every day, we're texting each other, I'm wearing crazy me, things like that. But my new friends, I feel like you just just got started, you know? And so that's been, that's been tough for me with the slowing down too. Yeah. What new possibilities [inaudible] we always talk a little bit in find your fierce and all the podcasts and all of that is always trying to look at the good in all of this, no matter how challenging it is. I mean, I know we need to embrace our feelings and things like that, but what new possibilities do you see for yourself? I mean, I think the slowing down it, you know, but when we've removed all of this is that we actually, now it's like, who really am I?
(08:47): What is it that I like? What is it that I really don't like? What is it that I've been putting up with in all of this? What new routines are you creating in all of this? And what is it that this new norm, are we using this as a way to create that new norm or are we just going to go through the survival mode for the new norm? Or are we using this as a chance for us to be able to be like, Hey, you know what? This is a way for us to be able to recreate ourselves. You know, maybe find our purpose. We talked last time about our assignment in all of this, I think, how or is it that we wake up, I think our doctor, Amy Acton in Ohio, the state physician, she had said, you know, we're waking up and all in this time and so I'm looking, I'm like, that just struck a chord with me and I love that.
(09:35): So I'm trying to look at this. I said, okay, businesses, how can we rebrand families? How can we reconnect relationships? What can we work on? What is it that you're, you know, thinking about that may need some tweaking or a little bit of creation is a good question. Did you do, I was going to ask that. No, no, it's good. And I'm going to follow it up with a question that I, yeah, so the question I've been asking myself is who do I want to be on the other side of this? And we can be frustrated, but we can still be faithful and we can be full of doubt. It is still full of hope and things like that. Spiritually speaking. But as far as like the everyday, kind of who Nicky, cozy ours is. I can tell you that there's some people that I don't miss at all.
(10:27): Like I don't have to see them right now. I don't have to talk to them right now. And so I know on the other side of this, they're not people that I want to keep investing into. But then there are people that I really miss. My friend Christie D is one of those people like I could cry thinking about how much I just love to go sit on her porch right now. So who are the people that I really want to be invested in? I mean obviously our families, but Lord have mercy. I think our families will be invested in enough by the end of the, we're good for like, Oh, long time. But then like, you know, with speaking engagement it's like, do I really want to be gone as much as I've been gone and where are the places that I really feel called to?
(11:09): Do I just go because I've been invited to go, or am I going because I'm called there. But also looking at the business side, obviously the ministry costs money. It's not free to have websites and email accounts and all this stuff. I mean, it costs a couple of hundred dollars a month. And so, you know, I've really been having to think through what I like, and I'm not big on like let's do worst case scenario thinking, but what if I don't, I'm not able to go speak for a whole year. Like what is, and so one of my favorite things to do is to, there's I'm actually gonna do this in a pop up Bible study, so I won't teach the whole thing right now, but it's asking this question that we can see from this woman in the Bible, what do we have in our hands? And so the other day I was sitting down and I was thinking through like, okay, I've done all this content, I've done all this stuff.
(11:59): Like, what can I, what can I do with what I already have? And I decided to relaunch one of my online courses that I haven't had out in a couple of years and you know, doing the popup Bible studies, like I'm excited about that. And so professionally there's that things. And then personally, I mean I don't know, my husband and I like, I'm going to be honest, we're not getting along super well right now cause it's been really intense with the girls and you have a farm and finding everything that we need for the farm has been hard right now. Like people buy all the food and hay and so it's just been a lot of stress like on our marriage. And I know on the other side of this, I still want to have a strong, healthy marriage. And so it's looking at literally, I mean, I know for sure it's a minimum of 30 days right now and saying, how do we stay invested into each other and not just survive through this but thrive through this.
(12:52): What about you? That is a really good question. [inaudible] Of who I want to become through this, you know, do you want to be a victim? And look at everything that's going wrong and go back into the fear and that worry or you know, do I want to be someone that can actually overcome and actually come out better because of this? I know I did a podcast a couple of weeks ago about unexpected change and the true blessing that it really could, that not all change is bad. You know, we all always look at change as being good by default. Then there's always going to be that silver lining and all of this. So maybe this is a time for, you know, to stretch, to grow, to you know, really again, focus back on our priorities. [inaudible] Really look into when things get back to the normal. There's going to be a new normal after this new normal, but yet we might have the ability to again choose what we are going to add back into our life?
(13:51): What is it that we're going to just pick up [inaudible] and you know, are we going to dive? I guess that's a question. As we were coming off of this full and busy chaotic day to where we are hanging on by a thread and this is a lot of, this is a lot of people. Are we going to go back to that type of living? You know, there's parts of this slowing down that I really like. And so I know I thrive on serving. I think that's the biggest thing. I love productivity. There's things in my life that I just love and I miss that. So when like today has been a great day because I know with us talking I, today's going to be great and I think I know that's what something that I'm working on is how I can be productive and serve in a way.
(14:40): So I think a good followup question would be, you know, to like for people listening is to make a list and say, what do I love about this season? What do I miss most about what is normal? I don't know that we're ever going to go back to our, I don't know that life is going to just snap back. You know? I think it's going to take a long, long time. Our economy has been hit really hard by this. I don't know that it's even happened yet, but it's going to continue. You know, so I was listening to a guy that was talking about, I think he was talking about the recession. I never looked up the dates and he was talking about and he was like, you need to plan for five years and that sounds like a lot, right? But like five years of what is this going to look like for our economy and for our culture and for everything.
(15:24): Kind of to get back to where it was because it was really good. Like we were running pretty good as a country and you know, the economy was doing phenomenal. So it's having healthy expectations about the future. I think people who have kids in multiple sports, I mean we've been there, done that. Are we going to limit it to one sport, you know, per kid, per season or [inaudible] just say one at a time. I will tell you this for the moms who can you just learn from my mistake that I made? Cause I have one who's in college and we were that family that like every single night we were somewhere else, multiple places eating fast food in the car because there's just no time to even breathe. And I was working full time and Chris was working full time and it was just, it was chaos constantly.
(16:08): But I kept telling myself like they have to do all these things, they have to be in this sport, have to do this extra classes and things like that because that's how they're going to get into college. And that's how they're going to get scholarships. No, it's not how it happens. Okay. Because my daughter graduated number three in her class, Jill had almost a perfect sat score. And guess how much scholarship money that girl got? Oh gosh. None. Not one penny. So, and we applied for multiple ones. So like I kept thinking back like did hold of that in hopes for, you know, scholarships and a better opportunity. And it's a lie. Like it's a lie. Our culture has convinced us that busy-ness is effectiveness and it is a lie. So it's hard. Like this is a hard season. They'll look at your life and ask these questions, but there's never been a better time because it is a season of rebuilding.
(17:01): Oh, I it is. And just to read. Yeah. Just to really lean into who it is that you want to be. Who is it that you want to spend your time with? [inaudible] I really do believe that just recreating and discovering, I think your purpose and all of this and I, we're going to come out better because of it. Yes, and that is something that I just, we let the process process us, right? Yes. Yes. Go through this. Watching Netflix the whole time. Exactly. I know, I see everyone asking what, what episode they should watch next and all of that. I know, but is it time to pour into books and Bible studies and just really rewire our old way of thinking. It's a chance this is a possibility and a blessing for us to be able to just start and grow so much through all of them.
(17:54): So one of the things though I think is really important that we talk about too when it comes to this idea of slowing down is that it can become wasted time if it's not focused, intentional time. Now this is not like let me jam pack my day from start to end with all these two dues and things like that. It's not, but it's also not waking up everyday just going, where's the wind blowing today? Let's go that direction because, and you don't have some type of sense of direction in the season. You're going to be lost by the end of it. Like you're going to be one of these people that's just wandering around. And I think a huge portion of our culture right now is just kind of going wherever the wind is blowing them. So I, and I will confess, I always like to make people feel better about themselves with my examples. I am not a type of girl. Okay. I'm not, I am. You are. I know.
(18:48): So I'm a six wing seven and my seven wing on the Enneagram hates any type of structure. Like I want to just, I want to wake up and I want to do whatever's going to be fun first that day. And if I don't have something fun cleaned in my life, I almost live into a place of depression, which has been really hard the last couple of weeks. Nothing fun happening, but okay. So yesterday I was like, all right, I'm not getting anything. I'm working all day, but nothing is getting done. Like I'm not getting podcasts done and videos done and my book deadline is getting closer and closer and we're not, we're not getting there. And so I had to really sit down yesterday and create a schedule and I did it again this morning. And that's the schedule, obviously it has room for interruptions. Like this morning I was supposed to be riding in, one of my best friends called me.
(19:32): So of course I'm gonna stop by and talk to her for a minute because we need a connection right now. But then another person, maybe one of these people that's on my, I don't know that I really want to be friends with them after this call and I was like Nope, don't even take that call. Cause again I prioritize like I know who I want to invest into. I would love Delta here. Since you are the type a queen, the schedule queen, like how have you been structuring your days? I want to learn from you. Yeah, the days, you know and I, because we've always been a structured family. I mean everything has been from the minute that we wake up and everything, so when we are slowing down, if there's not something filled in that day, that's where I struggle with this. And I usually wake up at four in the morning and now it's that alarms not going off and I feel off and it is nice to just sleep in.
(20:27): And what I mean by sleeping like seven but that's late. I feel the day has, you're just, you're just off. The kids are sleeping a little bit more, but I'm trying to get them back into, okay, let's get our school work done in the morning. You know, I've worked in the morning at the same time, you know, I don't want lunch and breakfast, snacks, lunch. I mean the kitchen is destroyed. And so I found myself picking up after them and so now I'm teaching them those things like even more so. So the structure I think is, I still have my workout, you know, done in the morning. I have my devotions in the morning as well. The first thing as it's, when I get up, it's just a little bit delayed. Now at this point we have our breakfast time, we have like the work time where we do our schoolwork, we have the lunch, you know, in the afternoon we try to do something outside.
(21:15): Yeah, with them. And a lot of times now, even with the kids, it's unstructured. Go outside and play. I mean, and that's all I tell them. Just go outside, figure it out. Again, trying to have them be creative again because they've been on such a schedule from all of that. My husband, he goes to, he still works all day during this time, but then we have the dinner and so it looks different. The schedules are looking different and I think we're filling them up in a different way. So I think we still have schedules. It's just what we're filling that time up with. Yeah. Has been a little bit different and it hasn't been so on demand. Right. W before, you know, in the evenings now that is getting a little bit lighter again, they're outside, you know, just later. And you know, bedtime a little bit different too.
(22:02): And again, we have three that you know, that are teenagers, so things are a little bit different. But that structure, I have to have certain things that get done. They know when I don't get my workout in, you know, or if that's late or if I w you know, need to record or coaching calls and things like that. Those things do take precedence and they need to be scheduled. So I think part of being, having a schedule is having that intention not to be intentional. It just like we have to be with our thoughts. Yeah. We do have to use our time wisely. Yeah. I'm not a flex binger. Like every single day I'd go nuts. No, I can't, I mean every once in a while on a weekend or something like that I'll get through besides but yeah, not every day. No. I saw I don't know if you know who Nicole Walters is, but she's one of my favorite business people to follow on Instagram and she has been encouraging people just to make, to do lists.
(22:56): Like here's some things that I want to make sure are done today. And so I think that is helpful too because life does have to keep moving somehow. Oh. So like if this is a time for you to be focusing on something new, like maybe you want to learn more about writing, maybe you want to learn about coaching or more about fitness or things like that. Like, this is a great time to schedule some, I mean there's so much free content out there like just go on YouTube or search for free courses and things like that, but make sure that you're scheduling that into your day. Cause if you don't, again, we're just going to get through this season and be like, Oh I was gonna do that. Oh I was gonna I wish I would've done that in that season because we most likely will never get this time back.
(23:38): Like for some of us it feels like a gift. For some of us it feels like a kind of Smit maybe a little bit of both for me, but we either steward this time or we will just squander it away. And so we've got to make sure that we're being super intentional about it. Oh, I agree. 100% and I think that now's our chance. Yeah, I think it is a blessing. I'm like you, I had a schedule from nine to nine to three where I had things mapped out and that was my time to get things done. So things are a little bit shifted and all of this. But I just do think that if we're intentional about what it is that we want, we have time to maybe have, create new visions, some dreams, things that we haven't been able to do or always wanted to do.
(24:21): You know, people always tell me, I don't have time to work out. Well guess what? You have time to work out right now, right? To take care of, you need to put yourself off the back burner. Right? There's no back-burner anymore. And we have that time. So that's what I'm excited about. Or the new routines, the new habits that we can create and be intentional with. Yeah, because it takes 21 days to build a habit. And as of this week, we're going to have 2130 days. We're going to add some days and all of this. So I think this is good. So now speaking of that, since you do have time to work out and all of that good stuff, I want to invite you in here. If you have zero energy to focus on yourself and needs extra support. And accountability from women who know what it's like.
(25:05): Then go to befitandfierce.com and become unstoppable with us, or if you want to join a sisterhood dedicated to growing your faith, join our just breed Facebook group. Ends up on the next episode. We are continuing our find your peace series and we'll talk a little bit about bitterness and resentment and why and how to let that go so we can soften our heart. Thanks so much for joining us today. Please subscribe. Share this episode link on your social media as we all know, someone that could benefit and I would love it if you would give some feedback and a review as well. Talk with you next time. Beat it. Beat their SPI, unstoppable.
(25:48): This is ThePodcastFactory.com
