Doing a Month End Review

To look back at the thing that didn’t kill you. But if we just do that for 10 minutes, it doesn’t even take that long.  If you just sit down and you very thoughtfully look back. And you say, how did the holidays go this year?  How would I have done it differently? What worked really well. Let’s remember that. What did not work so well. How would I change it? And then I like asking myself. How did I take care of myself at that time? And how would I do that differently?  

So we just did this in our Catholic Mom Calm community. And we had a whole call to do this. And it was the first time that we’ve done a call. My team and I were talking and we’re always talking about, you know, how can we improve things and how can we help them get better results? Right. That’s a question that we ask a lot.  And.  One thing that came up was, Hey, we’re always telling them to do this month end review. Why don’t we do that together as a community. 

So we had our first month end review call for December. And of course it was holiday heavy because that is the big thing that happens in December. But there were other things that came up. And one of the things that struck me ss I asked them near the end of the call. Hey, was this call helpful so many of them said.  You know, I wouldn’t do this on my own, but I really enjoyed coming here and doing it. 

And I actually feel really great about December now. Because of course a lot of our brains say we screwed it up. I yelled at the kids. There was a lot of fighting. The kids were very bored.  Maybe you feel like you. Didn’t nail my presence or traveling or something like that. We often give ourselves a bad review.  But when you do it this way with a group, the first thing that we do is celebrate what went well and all of you did an amazing job. I mean, all of you did it. Stockings of food, presents.  And imagine this was a different month. Right. Imagine you were reviewing September. You fed everyone. You did the laundry, the house is still standing. You might’ve celebrated a kid’s birthday.  

Maybe you got some walks in, even when you didn’t feel like it. You did so many things but we’re so quick to dismiss those and just feel terrible. About our own lives while we’re living them. And I don’t know if it’s because I turned 40. But I just feel like I’ve had enough of that.  I’ve had enough of telling myself that I’m doing it wrong. For a lifetime. I don’t want to do that anymore. Now I still want to be introspective. And grow and learn. And improve things. So we do have to ask ourselves, like, how could we have done it better?  

And I find that there’s two pieces of feedback that come. We didn’t do this at all. And it would’ve been helpful if we did do it, like kind of adding a behavior. For example, did I share this last week? I don’t know if I did. One child asked for a yo-yo. And then all six kids wanted that yo-yo and the yo-yo was $3. And if I could go back in time and just buy six yo-yos, so all of them could be yo-yoing and I, again, as a minimalist, I don’t usually do that. 

That’s not my answer to a lot of things, but I would have done that for the yo-yo thing. And because it had such sensational value and they all really wanted to do it. I will make a mental note of that. Like, hey, if you’re buying a $3 thing and it’s a toy and it’s fun. And everyone might enjoy it. Just six of them. I don’t know at what point that stops, like maybe my 16 year old won’t want whatever that thing is. But that was one thing for me that would’ve been easy to change and would have changed. The feeling of Christmas day.  

And then there’s. You know, we, we did something and I want to change how I did it or not do it. Maybe you said yes to something that you really regretted somebody in, in our group was just saying that, that. I can’t remember if it was her parents or her in-laws that kind of invited themselves over for new years, the day before new years and for new years. And then they were just. Like really difficult and really picky. 

And she was saying she had this feeling, head of time where she kind of knew she should say no. But then she felt bad. Like it wasn’t charitable. So she said yes. And then it ended up just being a really horrible experience for two days. And so I said, listen. Let’s get better at listening to that feeling inside of us. And it is really different for all of us. I mean, sometimes we are called to sacrifice what we want and to serve others. But that doesn’t mean that we are called to let people be very rude and walk all over us. Because it is important how boundaries too.  

The other thing that was really fun about this meeting was that everyone was sharing their wins and the things that they would do differently. A lot of us got different ideas and there were so many ideas that came out of it that somebody said, hey, can we have a copy of the chat? So normally we post the replay of a video or you can listen to it.  As an audio file on our private podcast, but we don’t post the chat anywhere that just doesn’t go anywhere. And I thought, oh, that’s such a great idea because so many things were shared that, you know, zoom allows you to export a chat and I just put it in a document, like a PDF document and then attached it so they could see it.  

And that was one of the reasons why I thought, oh, this would be so great. I have a podcast episode on this because it’s very powerful to get together and do this. And I really want to encourage you to do this with at least one other person. If not a couple of women. Get together and you just review the month. And we just ask ourselves what went well. And what would I do differently? And sharing that experience. I think both bring us together and show us, hey, we’re all just moms here. We’re just moms doing regular life and trying to do it well. And it’s amazing to feel celebrated.  

One of the cute things was a couple of people said they didn’t do the Jesse tree this year. And it was great. And they were mentioning how in previous years they just did all the things, all the things and for them, they kind of left off that particular tradition this year and it was fine. And somebody else said we did it for the first time and we loved it. So again, there’s no right or wrong answer for all of us, but there’s just being contemplative and sitting and being with the Lord and thinking, how does he want us to live? He certainly doesn’t want us to live stressed out, sad. A lot of moms feel really exhausted and depleted, and then sad after the holidays, because they’ve just not having good boundaries and said yes to everything. They feel really alone in an all. And then sometimes your kids are mad that you didn’t get them. Yo-yos even though you just ran the Boston marathon of the holidays, you know,  

We also laughed about letting kids decorate the tree. It’s just like it’s okay. I would love to do that. I let it be whatever it’s going to be. Several women said they really allowed themselves to mail Christmas cards after Christmas. And then that was a gift that they gave themselves. And I thought that was really great. So, get together with your friends or one friend. I’ve been really curious if moms would be willing like individual moms groups at parishes would be willing to get on zoom calls together. Because I find that most moms groups it’s pretty difficult to get together in person, even though that’s better.  

But in the absence of that, whether you have little kids or it’s dark or snowy, or all the reasons that we have for not leaving the house and getting together. Why don’t we meet via zoom more? Because I think most of us could do an hour on zoom, even if there was like some chaos happening around us. And then I think we could see our friends more often. So I want to ask my friends that question. I’ve never asked them. I’ve never said, hey, do you want to zoom Bible study? Or just a zoom, social meaning. I’m just curious why I don’t hear that more and maybe some of you are doing it.  

But if you’re not, and you think people will be open to doing it? I think this would be a really great place to start. Which is Hey, near the end of the month. We’re going to get together and we’re just going to talk about, you can call them highs or lows. I really like roses and thorns. What, what went well? What would I do differently? And it just feels like we’re doing life together.  And you’ll feel kind of held in the hard things and celebrated for the good things.  

And I think it’s important that we do this. And I think I was probably built in. To the culture before when women spent more time with each other. And not that they did a monthly review, but every time they got together, there was kind of a mini version of that. Like, oh, this is going well, and this is difficult. And this is a more organized version of that.  

But I’m telling you the energy of this group was so great. Like everyone was so happy even when we were sharing the hard things. And people felt so loved and listened to and seen like, oh yeah, that is hard. And then they shared ideas with each other. Which is really fun. I forgot why, but we were talking about what we called spicy kids, Like those, extra fun, hard kids. I get thrown into the mix. I just remember thinking that was a funny phrase. And then we talked about board games, which is fun. The board games who really liked the board games that were kind of duds.  

And so you can see, it wasn’t necessarily profound. But I think there’s something very profound in celebrating the ordinary together. I want you to review your month. Particularly after major holidays and you should capture that somewhere online. I have a Google spreadsheet that just says, hey, remember this is what we like to do for the holidays. What we don’t like to do. One of the things we learned this year is we have an advent tote with advent decorations. But we put the lights in the Christmas tote. But we set up an adventure where we put white lights up and then purple ornaments. But because those lights stay on the tree and then we turn them into colorful ornaments later. It makes sense to me that they ended up in the Christmas tote. 

So I just made a note. I’m going to put them in the advent till already, but I just made a note of that, like, oh, right. Always put those lights in the advent home cause we need them at the beginning. It is very important to review our lives. And here’s what’s incredible you are so much smarter than you think you are, and so much better at planning than you think you are. You have the best ideas, did you know that? If I could just take you and help you feel loved and calm, and then ask you questions about how you’d improve things. You will have wonderful answers. And doing this will help you set yourself up for success. And enjoy your life so much more.  

So please review the last month. I really encourage you to do it every month. I think it would be even better if you did it with one or more people. And it’s a very simple activity. But it will save you so much time and heartache learning the same lessons over and over again. Because we often go from fire to fire and we’re just dealing with what’s in front of us. How many times have we done the same silly thing? Three times in a row until we’re like, oh my God, I need to write that down somewhere. And this is going to catch so many of those things.  

All right. My friends, if you want to come join our community and we do this together. We work through the Catholic Mom Calm Year of Calm Planner. You don’t have to use the planner, but we just use the philosophy together. And one of them is reviewing things. And now we were going to do that every month. We’re going to do it. I think it’s the last Saturday of the month.  And we just cheer each other on and hold each other’s hearts and share ideas. 

If that sounds great to you, visit catholicmomcalm.com/annual. Come join us for the year. $300, you can break it up into payments and it will be the year that you wink the most progress that you’ve ever made in your life. It’s incredible. Learning these skills really changes how we experience our life. And people really think about their lives before learning these tools and after learning these tools, I know I do, they really are that powerful. And then I think when we do them together, it helps us to practice them more and that’s really powerful.

And the mission of Catholic Mom Calm is to help moms enjoy their everyday life. And we do that by praying every day and asking God what he wants us to do.  And changing the way we talk to ourselves in our mind. And there are some other things, but those are really the two things and you can then apply that to almost everything. But it’s really those two things which are game changers. And as we head into this new year, no matter what you’re tackling this year, I want you to know that you will do it so much better if you ask God what he wants you to do every day. And change the way that you talk to yourself in your mind. Whatever goals that you have, if you just do those two things and work on those two things, the goal will feel so much easier. 

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