Pray + Plan = Peace

Whatever it is.  Allow it. She’s part of the human experience. We are not supposed to walk around and feel happy. All the time we are supposed to be humans.  And experienced the full range of our emotions.  

I mean, I don’t know if it was supposed to be like that before the fall, but certainly after the fall,  We just have all these feelings and we’re going to experience them.  

And so Christmas is  the same.  Beautiful things. Wonderful things, sparkly things.  And then moments of sadness or disappointment or frustration.  And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean you did anything wrong.  Let us remember.  Christ’s being born. Into the world, which was both. The most incredible thing.  And the world had been waiting so long for the Messiah.  

But also clearly. Something wasn’t ideal because he was born.  In a stable. Now you can say that that was part of God’s plan. Being born into poverty.  To show that juxtaposition of. Of the savior. Who was detached from material things. But still. Even that it was a mixed bag. On the very first Christmas.  

So today I want to talk about.  Y I’m not setting goals anymore. Especially, because I think a lot of you are going to listen to this episode. After Christmas. In that week between Christmas and new years where we always joke, right. Everyone’s eating too much cheese and the kids are just running around screaming and playing with toys. And it’s wonderful and chaotic and beautiful. And there’s kind of just a weird energy to the week where everyone is feeling like, oh, what am I supposed to be doing with myself? 

I actually love that week. And I think that it’s filled with hope.  Once I make it to Christmas.  That week between Christmas and new years. I just feel so hopeful to me as I look forward to the new year.  But. This last year, God has really. Shown me. That I can live my life.  Without setting goals.  And that’s pretty wild because I have been setting goals for forever. Some of you bought my Catholic women shine goals, planner. Gosh, how many years ago was that you guys. Seven or eight. It was a long time ago. I love that thing.  I love goals. I would set them and feel really excited about them.  And I love teaching people how to set goals in a way that’s.  Grounded in Christ. But recently. Oh, God really placed on my heart first and my business, but then in my personal life, This idea that. I can’t really predict what’s going to happen.  And one of the ways that I would set goals, that I would think about the things that I would want.  

To do or to create my life.  And then I would pray and say, all right, Lord, how can we create this? And it felt really prayerful to me.  And I often prayed before I set those goals too, but I could see that I was still kind of driving the process. I was still telling the Lord. What I want to do, do not one time in my whole life. You guys.  Has the Lord been like, Hey Sterling, I think we should lose 20 pounds.  Like no times, no times have I heard that in my prayer life. 

And yet that has often been a goal of mine in the past. So in this last. Few months. God has really shown me that what he wants of me. Is my time. He wants me to be with him. He wants me to come to him for the plan. And I’ve been living like that. And it’s pretty incredible. And what it looks like. Is.  Praying about the broad strokes. We have to have some sense of where the ship is going.  

And the ship in this case is kind of your whole family.  And you and your husband have some idea about that.  My husband is not a big fan of setting goals. So there have been times in the past where I’ve been frustrated by that and thought, well, he doesn’t really lead our family. He’s not deciding where we’re going. But when I actually press him on it.  Usually he’ll say, well, I mean, we’re trying to be saints and Ray saints. And we’re trying to be financially stable and to be healthier. And that has previously been unsatisfying to me because it wasn’t a smart goal.  It wasn’t like, well, we’re trying to.  Do X, Y, and Z by this date. 

And we broken it down. And there’s nothing wrong with doing that. I think some personalities are really enjoy that activity. But I can almost see now that my husband just, he had this wisdom before me.  This wisdom that we don’t really know what the year is going to bring. And we have to go to God for the plan. So now I go to the Lord for broad strokes. You know, Hey, what does this kid mean? Hey, where do you want us to put our money? We’re always my husband and I are always praying about whether our work situation should be the same, because right now I primarily work and bring in. Most of our money and he’s kind of on deck with food stuff and a lot of kids stuff.  I still do most of the homeschooling and he does a little bit of it.  

And that’s a very unusual. Family model. And so we’re just always bringing that back to the Lord, just to check in like, Hey, do you still want us to do this? It’s kind of non-traditional I guess is what I would say.  But so far we keep hearing. Yep. That’s what I want you to do. So we keep doing that. And then I pair it with the kids and then I pray. 

I prayed recently over, you know, how God wanted me to change.  My life.  And I was praying particularly about what I should eat and making time for walking because I really enjoy walking and I was walking a lot over the summer, but now.  The snow has come. And it’s just not as pleasant to walk outside. I know that you can just get different clothes. And I’ll always be outside, but it’s not my favorite thing.  So I was talking to him about that.  And it was interesting. 

I really felt like he placed on my heart. This idea.  That he didn’t really care. What I ate or what I weighed, but he said, I want you to come to me.  When you feel stressed or upset instead of food. It was so clear.  And I thought that was a really interesting.  And then for moving my body. Oh, I forget exactly what he said. It was something like. Move your body, you know what to do.  Which I just want to say is very unclear, but in that moment, It was clear to me what I wanted to do at least for that day. The other thing. 

This is a side note. You guys is that I went to Chad GPT and I said, I want to. Do strength training exercise three times a week with my kids.  So it has to be things that we can all kind of do.  And I said no equipment. Spit out a schedule and it did, it spit out the schedule of, you know, like pushups and sit-ups and mountain climbers and lunges. And.  And it varied it for the three days. 

And then I made a tracker.  Because I want to have each of the kids.  Like test themselves for their personal record. And then we can kind of keep track. Of how we’re growing as a family physically.  And it was just interesting to me that that idea came to me kind of out of nowhere. I mean, obviously it was from the inspiration of the holy spirit. But I will tell you. Because I’m going to try to sell you on this idea of not having goals and just letting the Lord kind of guide where you’re going. 

Is it even when he tells you things that are vague, then you. You do just kind of know what to do next. You do. So in addition to praying for the broad strokes. Of kind of this, this season. And for me a season often feels like a quarter. I feel like we can kind of see a little bit more about what the next three months are.  And that really. Maps with. You know, your kids kind of change every three months and the seasons kind of change every three months. 

So I’m just kind of looking out at for us. It’s it’s like winter and ski season. And asking the Lord, you know, where do you want my focus? And then. You pray 10 minutes a day saying, all right, Lord, what are we doing today?  You go to him for the daily plan.  

And then you, after you get the kind of daily plan prayerfully with him, Then you actually plan your day for another 2010 minutes. So it’s a total of 20 minutes. And you just look at the day and you go, all right, are we leaving the house? Do I need gas?  Do I need to, um, start the car 10 minutes before we leave because there’s ice on it.  

Hey, we have this. Ballet thing coming up on Thursday where her tights let’s find those early. This idea that we.  Prey and plan.  And it begins to create. So much more peace in our lives.  Because things are less chaotic and more, most we’re more grounded in conviction. Or more grounded in what we heard and we know it comes from him. And I’ll tell you right now, it’s much easier to honor things that come from the Lord. Then you deciding you want to lose 20 pounds. And then I get, there’s nothing wrong with that.  I just think it’s interesting that I’ve never heard God tell me that.  

And I want to focus on things. The God wants me to focus on. I was reading something recently. I can’t remember if it was in the Bible.  Or in imitation of Christ, it was the day that I was reading both of those things and it, it said something like.  Why do you chase the wind? And I thought it was so interesting. Why do we chase the wind? What does that mean? What am I chasing the wind?  

You know what went on to talk about how fleeting our lives are. And. How we should focus on our salvation more, which is all of us. And I think when it comes to.  Planning our lives.  

We sit down and decide what we want. And, and then some of you even then go and pray about, okay, how are we going to do that? And I want us to just.  Swap those around. I want us to pray. And ask him about what he wants you to do in this season.  And then I want you to turn around and plan your day.  

I’m telling you right now. So few of you are actually spending 10 minutes. Setting yourself up for success for the day. I just want you to think about yesterday. What happened yesterday?  That was.  Not ideal.  And how would a little bit of planning.  Have saved you from some of that. Now we will never plan our way out of unexpected things and having to be flexible.  And having children who by nature are unpredictable.  

But there’s some things that we really can predict and set ourselves up for success about. So you’re going to find that I will be talking a lot more about the power of praying for 10 minutes and planning for 10 minutes, which we’ve done.  In the membership for more than a year. And Catholic mom com in all of our programs. We really encourage those two things, but what has changed for me?  

Is that. I am just not going to set.  Goals for the new year. I am going to kind of take that practice of praying and planning. And use that for the season as well.  So we changed our year of calm planner to reflect that.  Our year of CLA. Calm planner now has a section that says, wouldn’t it be cool.  And you make a list of all the things it’d be cool to do in the next year.  And I’ll still do that.  I’m really excited. My youngest will learn how to ride a bike and.  Learn how to ride a bike this year and then ski at the end of the year. 

So that feels pretty far away from me right now, but I know he’ll do that.  And my oldest is going to turn for 14. And they can get a worker’s permit here in Idaho at 14.  And I think at 14 and a half, they can get their driver’s permit. So just some things like that, where I, you know, I know that those things are coming up and I’m excited about them.  And I think it’d be really cool to take a trip to go visit my husband’s parents. 

They just moved.  And they moved to be near Michael’s sister.  And so I think now if we were to drive straight through there 24 hours straight of driving, so we probably wouldn’t do it like that. We’d probably take two days to get out there, but now they’re together. So we could take one trip and see both of them. 

And that’s been on my heart.  I think I’d really like to do that, but what’s, what’s cool about putting it on the wouldn’t be coolest is, you know, I’m on attached to it.  If we don’t do it, I’m not going to feel like a failure.  

What I want to honor is praying for 10 minutes and planning for 10 minutes. And I’ve been doing that and it’s, it’s pretty incredible how much it changes your day to day. Experience of your life. I really think that most of us want to enjoy our day-to-day lives more. We want to walk around our homes and be in the car and do kid stuff, school stuff, appointment stuff, work stuff. Play stuff, exercise stuff, and just.  Feel the sense of, yeah, this is what I should be doing. I want to be doing this right now. I enjoy the day-to-day rhythm of my life.  

And you can see evidence all throughout the Bible, that God is calling us to that kind of life. He’s telling us not to be anxious. And he’s telling us to not worry about tomorrow. And to be a peace today and to not be afraid today. So I can just tell. I’m going to double down on that. And then whatever I’m going through is always reflected in whatever I create.  And so you’re going to see a lot more of that.  In year of calm.  So your, of calm.  Is two things. It’s a philosophy of living.  Reviewing your year, like a Saint. And these things that I’m talking about. Planning and creating systems to improve your, your day-to-day life. And then it’s also actually a physical planner.  You can use it digitally on an iPad or a remarkable. Or you can buy a physical copy.  

So it’s $29. Catholic mom, calm.com/year of com.  And. It’s a pretty short course where I teach this step-by-step how to do this process. And you can use it with our planner or your own planner. And then I’ll be doing two. Coaching calls. To help you.  With whatever came up for you. So it might be tactical that you want some help actually breaking something down or making plans, or it might be. Emotional like your resistance to planning or your, you might watch yourself go, oh, no, there’s no way that I, couldn’t not set goals. 

I think I won’t make any progress. And we could explore that. And we can explore.  Improving your life and leaning on God to do it. Not might feel really scary to your brain. And we can talk about that.  So there will be.  Two. Coaching calls. One is Friday.  December. 27th at nine Pacific noon Eastern.  So I’m gonna catch.  Whoever wants to do planning with me. Before the new year, and then I’m going to do another one on Saturday.  January 4th. 

Cause a lot of us, you know, do Christmas all the way to epiphany.  And so you’re not necessarily.  Goal setting planning.  Before the first. So I thought that Saturday, which is, you know, still a little bit before Tiffany would be nice though.  Same time.  Noon Pacific.  Sorry, nine Pacific noon Eastern.  

But I really want. Even if you don’t come join us for your calm, although I definitely think you should, because I think it will totally change your life. And it’s really fun to do it together.  I want you to start to believe this idea. That. We can go to the Lord.  For where our focus should be. We can trust what we hear.  

And that’s for the broad strokes of the season. And then.  Every day, we can spend 10 minutes with him. Saying.  What do you want me to do today?  Where do you want my focus? And it’s really beautiful how he answers us. And we can do what he says. And it makes so much sense. You know, when he tells me what to do, I’m like, yeah, that seems really right. I should do that today.  

And it creates.  So much more peace. It helps you feel so much more grounded. Like, yeah, this is just what I should be doing today.  And my hope for all of us is that we. We fight against the culture and we say, no, thank you to anxiety and stress and sadness. And.  I think some of these really swirling emotions that are happening because we’re all over the place and we don’t know what we should be doing. And we think we should be doing everything.  And I think it’s because we are setting the goals instead of getting them from him.  

I want you to believe that praying for 10 minutes a day and planning for 10 minutes a day, which is.  So unsexy that is just very uninteresting to think about.  But it will change your life.  And you could, you could do that in a notebook. You could do it in a beautiful planner.  You could do it with your husband. You could do it by yourself. You could.  I don’t know, do it in so many different ways.  But I really deeply and truly believe that the practice of those two things is going to give you what you want.  Whatever goals you would have said.  

What you really want.  Is how you think you will feel in your life if you had those things? And I think that praying for 10 minutes a day and planning for 10 minutes a day will help you to feel the way that you want in your life. 

All right. My friends. Merry Christmas.  I love you. I hope you enjoy this week. I hope it feels. Like sparkles. And I hope you take it to heart. What I said today. I’m really considering doing it.  Really consider giving it a shot. Whether you come do it with us, or whether you do it on your own. I really think.  Praying and planning creates peace.  

All right. My friends I’m praying for you. Please pray for me. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.