Have you ever stopped — really stopped — to imagine what your life could look like in 10 years?

Not in a pressure-filled, hustle-culture way. But in a peaceful, faith-filled way that invites God into your long-term dreams. Because the choices you’re making right now are building something — and it’s worth asking what.

In this episode, I help you cast a vision for your future without the overwhelm.

We talk about:
* Why most moms are too busy surviving to think about the future
* How to dream with God instead of striving on your own
* A simple exercise for imagining your life 10 years from now
* Making small, intentional choices today that build the life you want

If you liked this episode, you’ll also enjoy:
 The Only Thing You Really Need as a Catholic Mom
 Summer Goals That Actually Work for Busy Moms
 Catholic Finishing School: Becoming Who God Made You

If you’re ready to stop just surviving and start building a life you’re excited about — that’s the transformation that happens inside Mary’s Heart Martha’s Order. Come dream with us at catholicmomcalm.com/marysheart

And she would take us to school or daycare or all these things and running around, doing everything on her own. But I just remember as a kid that she would be late a lot and it really bothered me and I kind of made this vow like I will never be a person who is late. And even today, I am really good at estimating time, what potential traffic could be there?

How long will it take us to park? It takes five minutes per kid to get them in the car. So I have six kids, and so it takes 30 minutes from the time I say, Hey, we’re getting ready to leave in the car, to pulling out of the driveway, and that’s because nobody puts their shoes on. I’ll be like, Hey, I said, it’s time to go, but they take forever to put their shoes on.

And then somebody gets in the car and goes, oh no, I forgot my water bottle. And then we have to wait for them to go back in the house and get the water bottle. It’s not always 30 minutes, but I really do project out that much time. And because of that, I have a very full life and a lot of kids and I am pretty often on time to places.

But when I got married to my husband, it was clear to me that he did not value this as much. And he would say, why are you so upset? Like, why are you so worked up over this? This doesn’t matter. 

And over time I had to agree that the amount of stress and anxiety or tightness in my chest, or quickness of breathing or anger, which is sinful, was not okay. It was disproportionate to being on time to the church picnic or whatever it is that we were doing. 

So I’ve gotten so much better about that. I still like to be on time and I still really like to anticipate what’s gonna come up so that we can be on time. But now when we’re not, I just take a deep breath and I go, this is fine. This doesn’t matter. It really is. Okay. Even if we are 15 minutes late to something, which inside my body, I still feel a little bit of like, I don’t like that. 

But I just do not let it grip me and let it steal my peace and make me angry because I just realize that it’s not that important. So that’s a simple example of something that. We get disproportionately upset about. 

And the question that I want to give you guys today to help you figure out if you are overreacting to some of the things in your life is, what will I think about this 10 years from now? So being 15 minutes late to a church picnic, I will not even remember that 10 years from now. Isn’t that interesting? That one doesn’t even make it on the list of things that I remember. Okay.

Now there are bigger things. Recently my husband took the kids camping and they forgot. Now this is so ridiculous. They forgot something pretty major and they all laughed about it. And it kind of made the camping trip fun. Isn’t that hilarious? That I can’t even remember. This just happened like less than a month ago.

So even this doesn’t pass the 10 years test. Maybe it would for them. Maybe they’ll remember what they forgot, but I don’t, and they could have been so upset and they could have been grumpy about it, and instead it was just fine. It was okay.

And so I was thinking about what are the things. That we will care about in 10 years. That does warrant more of our attention. Never our worry, be anxious for nothing. Never our anger. I don’t wanna say never. Obviously righteous anger is important, but y’all were very rarely playing in the righteous anger playground. Almost never. 

And I was thinking about schooling because for a lot of you, you’ve made choices about schooling. Kids are in school. And we worry a lot about that, and I was asking myself, does that one count? How will we think about the choices that we made for school in 2025, 10 years from now? It’s an interesting question.

I think we care more about it than being late to the church picnic. So it might require more discernment, more purpose, but does it warrant whatever level of strong feelings that you’re giving it? Now?

I’ll use another example. The bishop of the Idaho diocese, decided that this year we would not do confirmations. He’s not doing them in northern Idaho for the whole year. He’s gonna do it every two years in northern Idaho. And my oldest daughter would’ve made her confirmation this year. 

When I heard it at first, I was kind of grumpy about it. I was like, wow, that’s just why and I understand, most of the time a bishop has a small geographical place that he’s in charge of, but because the population of Idaho is so small, he’s in charge of all of Idaho. And it takes, I don’t know, maybe 10 or 12 hours to go from one end of Idaho to the other. 

So it’s very, very big to drive very far. Whereas in a diocese regularly, they don’t have to drive that far. So I kind of get it, but I’m kind of grumpy about it. And I can see that I have this choice to be very grumpy about it. I could chew on it. I could talk to all my friends about it. Did you hear what the bishop said about confirmation this year? I could be kind of cheery about it.

But I’ve been asking myself, how am I feel about this in 10 years? Because in 10 years a little Rosemary will have had confirmation. Maybe this year, maybe next year. It’s going to be okay. This is not a big deal. Her salvation is not at stake. I do think sacraments are very important. I’m team. We should give confirmation earlier than we do.

We’re in one of those parishes that does it quite late, and I think why aren’t we giving them these amazing gifts of the Holy Spirit earlier? But even within that, now she has to wait another year and I could just let that steal my piece. But when I ask this question, how am I gonna feel about this in 10 years, it’ll be a blip. I’ll barely remember.

If you came up to me in 10 years and said, oh my gosh, Sterling, you remember that podcast you did about how they started doing confirmation every two years in north Idaho, I think, oh yeah, that did happen, huh? 

So, if you already know, this is what’s interesting about this question. If you already know. That you’re gonna be, I’ll just say chill. Chill about it, regardless of the outcome 10 years from now, why are you so worked up right now?

So let’s pick a couple other things that I think are worth examining. One is my son has garbled his words quite a bit and still after a year of speech therapy, like we made a lot of progress. But he’s still difficult to understand, especially if you’re not with him all the time. 

And so I could have noticed that, and I could have went, oh, it’ll be fine. This isn’t important. It’s not a salvation issue, and it’s not. But I could project out that 10 years from now if he still really struggles with speaking and articulating things clearly. I might wish that I would’ve done something now.

Now that didn’t warrant me being panicked or upset. We did pray about it. It was a lot of money. We, because we don’t go to school, there’s a lot of really great speech programs in a public school, but we will have to pay for this. And we prayed about it and we decided that we were gonna pay for this kiddo so he could speak clearly. 

My other two boys have a little bit of things with L’s and R’s. I feel like a normal boy level, and it’s already getting better without help. I think that’ll shake out this kid something very different with his mouth.

So that’s something where my mom’s intuition says, Hey, this is important. Pay attention to this. We’re not losing our peace. We’re staying focused and determined and purposeful. But that is something that I want to handle because I think 10 years from now, if I didn’t handle it, regret is a strong word, but I think I would’ve wished that I had.

So let’s use another example of having a conflict maybe within your immediate family, your extended family, or with a good friend. And you have this conflict, and it’s very painful. If we use the 10 year test and say, okay, 10 years from now, how are you going to think about this? And the answer will be different depending on the relationship and the level of conflict. 

For some of you, it is a toxic relationship and you need to set some boundaries. Say, Hey, I’m gonna spend less time with this person. I’m not gonna answer their phone calls. I’m not gonna respond to their texts. For some of you, it’s a special and important relationship, and this is a temporary thing, and you need to pray for the gift of fortitude to go resolve it with them.

So taking this frame, that’s what we call it, A frame of how we look at something and looking out 10 years might show you. What you ought to do right now, and it might be let it go and it might be reconciled.

Another one, and this gets tricky because it’s obviously infinite. For us to say 10 years from now, I wish I would’ve spent more quality time with my family. I think that’s really dangerous though. And I think we ask this in a shallow way and not a very deep and thoughtful way because we do need to work, like you do need to do the dishes and the laundry and clean the house.

Okay? We can’t just romanticize life and say, oh, every day we’re gonna, you know. Skip through the Woods and Nature Journal and read books together. So I think sometimes we use this, the kids are gonna grow up fast and I wish I had spent more time with them against ourselves. 

And the way that I know that you’re using it against yourself is it doesn’t even change your behavior. It just makes you feel bad about yourself. Okay, that’s how we don’t wanna do it. But instead. Really looking at how are we spending our time as a family and 10 years from now, what will I think about that? 

And this year in particular, I don’t know what it was about my youngest being five. I think that was really what it was. He turned five and I really went into this. I don’t have any babies. I think this is a really special time for our family. All the ducklings are still home. And I think that this next 10 years is gonna be very, very important with the kids. 

And then very quickly they’re all gonna fly. So that kiddo actually just turned six so I have potentially 12 years. I mean, we always think about it till 18, but we don’t know. I mean, I’m fine if they stay longer than that is my point. 

But in these next 10 years. My oldest is doing the high school thing right now. She’s gonna drive, she’s gonna work more. She’s gonna make these big life plans and we’re gonna launch her and then two years later, the next one, and then two years later, the next one, and then these boys are gonna come up through the ranks. I have no idea what school in life is gonna look like with these boys.

May, you know when they’re 15, 16, 17, but whatever it is that I wanna do with my life, and there are a lot of things I wanna do, I’ve really been asking myself, can we do that in 10 years? Because I will never get this time with my kids as soon as they fly and get married and have their own kids. I will not have this time with them again.

And a way that that comes up is when the kids say, Hey, do you wanna go camping? And I do not want to go camping. I just think, oh, I only have a certain number of camping trips left. And so maybe I do wanna say yes.

So again, I think asking yourself about how you’re spending your time is only good if you stay calm. You don’t go into a shame spiral. You don’t get paralyzed and panicked, and you really think of an action plan. 

Okay, I think this is an interesting question. How do I wanna spend this next 10 years and I’m going to change my behavior doing X. I haven’t done this yet, but I’ve been thinking about doing more mobility exercises. Because I saw an ad, thank you meta for knowing how old I am and then showing me ads about mobility. 

But I do think I probably want to do that and have more mobility in my joints and I don’t have a problem right now, which is why I think I probably should do it now. But I’ve also been weighing the, okay, there’s a lot of stuff on the calendar. Are we gonna add another thing? I’ve been discerning that. So that’s an example of your health. 

How will you view how you’re taking care of your body 10 years from now? If you could come back and it’s never perfect, right? It’s never like, I wish you ate perfect food and worked out every day and lifted weights three times a week and did mobility exercises and stretched, and it’s never that. It’s not all or nothing. It’s not black and white thinking.

But it is, Hey, for me, I’m gonna be 50 in 10 years. And how will 50-year-old Sterling think about how 40-year-old Sterling took care of her body? I think another one is around our faith life. And we talked about this in a recent episode where I said, prayer is the first thing to go, and I think it often is, and then the days and the weeks and the years tick by and we realize, oh, I have somehow ended up with a shallow prayer life, a shallow relationship with Christ.

I think there’s lots of ways to have a relationship with Christ that aren’t necessarily sitting in a chair with your Bible open. Right. I don’t think that’s the bar. I think there’s a lot of ways to have a relationship with Christ, but we must, it’s the most important thing.

So I think it’s really good to take out a piece of paper and just say, what am I stressed about right now? I’ll tell you a silly one for me, is I cannot find a pair of shoes. I have a pair of shoes that fit my feet really well. The arches are high. They’re really great for walking several miles. I cannot find them and I want to find them, but I need to keep my stress about it in check.

I want that stress to turn into focus or determination or looking for them and not pouting. And why is this happening to me and it’s not fair, and I’ve never lost a pair of shoes, and that kind of worrying isn’t helpful.

So what are you worried about? I can tell you right now I’m not gonna care about the shoes that I may or may not find in 2025, 10 years from now, I won’t remember that. So I can be calm about it. Now. If you know you’re gonna be chill about it later, you can choose to do that. Now I’m like, oh, say Lovey, they’re just the shoes. I’ll find them or I won’t find them.

Make a list of the things that are stressful for you right now, and ask yourself, if I’m not gonna care about this very much in 10 years, why am I caring about it now? Why am I losing my piece over this now? And if it is important. What is an action item that I could write down on a to-do list or a calendar, instead of just thinking about it, instead of just feeling bad about it, what could I actually do?

So I’ll wrap up and use a business example. We were planning on starting the Mary’s Heart Martha’s Order Challenge today, September 10th. But for the first time we worked with a printer, a company in the United States, and they’ve been very nice.

But they gave us these dates. They said, if you get us your materials by this date, then you can have your planners and we’ll ship them by this date, and everybody will have what they need before the challenge starts.

And that was not true, and I still haven’t figured out why that was not true. But it wasn’t the timelines that they gave us and we gave it to them early, and it was very clear last week that. People were not gonna get their really beautiful workbooks by the time the challenge started. 

And I remember feeling a lot of strong feelings, a small sense of betrayal, by the way. I mean, just, Hey, you said this was the formula. We followed the formula, and it clearly wasn’t the formula. I don’t know if they knew that or not. This is the first time I’ve ever done anything with physical products, so maybe it’s always like that. 

And the timelines are always longer than they say. I know that’s true of building a house, by the way, for those of you that build houses, I have never seen anyone build a house where it wasn’t much longer, much more expensive than they thought it was gonna be.

And so we made the decision to bump out the challenge. So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna basically do a two week declutter sprint while we’re waiting for these notebooks.

And I started that yesterday. And then we’re gonna start the Mary’s Heart Marts Order Challenge. On the 21st. I think that’s the Sunday

So if you still wanna hop in on that, you absolutely can. You can go to CatholicMomCalm.com and hop in on that. You can hop in on it now if you wanna do the decluttering thing, or you can wait until. The end, I have the notebook. I got a proof copy, and they are gorgeous. I mean, they are beautiful. I love it. I love touching it. It’s just a very beautiful notebook. 

Our designer did such a great job, and then the printer did a really lovely job and they will go out and I believe we’re still in the time where you could order one, although we only have, I think, 40 of them left. So. If you know that you want a beautiful notebook to go with this challenge, go grab that right away, because at the moment, we have 40 left and they are printed, and they will definitely make it by the 21st if you order them this week.

But I had to really wrap my mind around it. I felt embarrassed. I felt mad. It felt like a big deal. And, then I just, I prayed and I coached myself and I went, Hey, Sterling, 10 years from now, this is not a big deal. It’s not, it doesn’t ruin your reputation. Maybe two people will be upset.

Maybe a hundred more people will join the challenge because we’ll extend the time that people can sign up another week and a half and it’s going to be wonderful and you won’t remember this. 

And maybe I will have some wisdom about ordering physical products and maybe we’ll do it months in advance, which you definitely have to do when you order things overseas. But this was, you know, local in the United States.

And it’s just fine. And that really helped me. It helped calm me down. And so I might’ve been upset for an hour. And this is the power of coaching. This is the power of talking to yourself and your mind. And thinking things through calmly, and this is just a great question to help you do that because you’re gonna feel spun up emotionally.

But if you can have the wisdom and calm down enough to ask yourself, how am I going to feel about this in 10 years? It will show you the truth of the situation. And in this particular example, it’s just not a big deal. And that helped me to make quick decisions. It helped me to move on with my day. I just didn’t expend a ton of energy then on this, and I could focus instead on things that were more important to me. 

So tuck this question in the back of your mind. How will I feel about this 10 years from now? And see what comes up. Let the Holy Spirit guide you. And if you wanna join us for the Mary Martha Challenge, go check it out. Catholicmomcalm.com. 

Finishing school is still open too. I only know because some of my friends have signed up their daughters, so they told me, they were like, I heard your podcast. And I signed my daughter up for finishing school and my daughter signed up too. So Rosemary is signed up. 

I believe that starts the 23rd. Anyway, you can go check out the [email protected] and I just love you. It’s fall. We’re clicking over to our fall routines. I have some thoughts about that and I’ll share them in episodes that are coming.

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