Create Your Summer Protocol

Do you have the energy to create a summer FULL of all of the fun things you want to do? Are you noticing  the yeses and the no's that you want to say? 

In this episode, Kelly encourages us to reflect on what changes to make this season. It is worth taking time to consider our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual energy as we adapt to a summer version of our protocols. 

Creating a summer protocol will help each of us maintain a healthy balance, as we manage our time & energy budgets.

Main points: 

• Create a visual representation of your energy budget using a simple chart; it can help you stay on track and see where changes need to be made.
• Find a pattern that works for you by focusing on the consistent elements in your week and adjusting accordingly.
• Remember, many times in the summer, the different weeks need different protocols. 

Links 

• Join Kelly's Group Coaching Program

Let's connect.

I am cheering for you!

Transcript

0:09

Welcome to the Live a Vibrant Life podcast. I'm life coach Kelly Tibbitts, and each week I'll be here to encourage and equip you with the tools you need to grow in self awareness and invest your best energy in your dreams and your purpose. I believe self awareness changes everything. Let's get started. Hey friends this week on the podcast, I'm gonna be sharing one of the sessions from my summer series called fill your soul with sunshine. Today were me talking about what it looks like to make a budget for your energy, the same way you make a budget for your money. We call it a protocol. And I think that every season is a good time to just look at your budget and decide. Is there anything you want to keep or anything you want to change? I hope you enjoy it. Well, this summer, as we're talking about how to fill our soul with sunshine, one of the most important things to discover is what we call a summer protocol. So let's begin with just putting our hands on our heart, taking those deep cleansing breaths and start to notice, is there anything you need to change as we step into the summer? Many of us tend to live lives where we are giving away more energy than we bring back in and because of that we end up feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, depleted. So how are you feeling today? Do you have the energy to create a summer full of all of the fun things you want to do, to say the yeses and the no's that you want to say? Or is there anything you'd like to change? Maybe you're noticing you'd like to get up earlier and go for a walk at the beginning of the day. Maybe you want to have friends over once a week, start a book club. Whatever you're noticing, let's take a moment and write it down. What would you like to change this summer in order to create healthier rest practices? And again, we're speaking about our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual energy. So if you're mentally tired, maybe you're choosing to put the phone away for several hours a day. If you're physically in need of rest, maybe a nap or some yoga outside in the sunshine. And what would you like to decide today in order to cultivate a summer version of soul care and rest? If you open up your calendar, whether it's on your phone or on a paper calendar on the wall, do you see blocks of time that are set aside for you to care for your soul and to rest? I think that every action begins with an aligned thought, and the thought at the bottom of this page says this, decide that you're worthy of rest. You deserve it. You're worth it. So this summer, what would it look like to find a resting tree where you could just sit under it and be? You remember doing that when you were younger, just putting a towel or a blanket underneath a tree and spending some time resting in the shade? If we can give ourselves those opportunities of sitting in front of a campfire, sitting beneath a tree, resting, going for a walk in the sunshine, do you think it would serve you mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually? One of the very most important things that I've learned and have chosen to teach in my group coaching program is the idea of a protocol that each of us need a budget for our energy. So what would you like your summer protocol to be? I offer you. This example, and if you have a plain piece of paper in front of you or you want to use the workbook, you simply make seven rows across and five rows going down. And each of the days, Sunday through Saturday, get five blocks of energy. And I think the first place to start is by filling in a color with what you want to do for soul care. Maybe you want to get up and do some journaling, go for a walk, read a scripture or a verse that's important to you. Whatever it is that you're noticing, where is that showing up in your schedule? Next, you have your responsibilities, the work you do for pay and the work you do where you are not paid. Whether it's around your home, taking care of family members, Deciding to do that project that is important, but keeps getting put at the bottom of your list. Choose a color for that and make sure there are blocks that are representing that responsibility and you know where and when you will invest your energy in those important things. And then finally, we choose a third color for relationships. For the people in your life that matter, whether it's somebody who lives far away and you wanna make sure you're taking the time to call them or to write them, or the people close to you, that they're not just getting the end of your energy, but they're getting your very best energy. Whether it's a date night with a partner, or taking that child that you love to an adventure once a week, if your soul care goes first, you're going to fill your own soul with sunshine. You're gonna make sure that you are healthy emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. And then you're able to take your energy, your best energy and give it to the other things that are important. But I know I spent much of my life giving away my energy first to everybody else's urgent needs. And then I ended up resentful and frustrated because I wasn't filling my own tea cup first. So this summer, let's change it. Let's decide to create a summer protocol, a budget for our energy, the same way we create a budget for our money. The final thing I want you to notice when you're making any protocol is, is there white space? Because life happens. You might have the best intention of going to the gym two days a week and on that second day when you get up, something else needs to happen right when it's the block that you set aside for the gym. It's no problem at all if you have a place to move what I call the sticky note. Um, the color, the decision of whether this is relationship time, It's responsibility time. It's soul care time. If something urgent comes and needs that block, can you move what is important to a different time? Every season gives us the opportunity to update and adapt our personal protocol to align our time and energy budget. My program is set up on the idea that there's more seasons than just winter, spring, summer, and fall. There are holiday seasons. You may be like friends of mine who have birthday season, three or four or five birthdays, all within the first few weeks of a month. I know the time of year between Christmas and New Year's often feels like its own season. All of the activities that are normally taking place are off, but you have family coming in, and it makes it really hard to do anything consistently during that week. Many times in the summer, the different weeks need different protocols. Maybe you're going on a vacation or people coming to visit you, or your child has a camp or something that is taking the place of what you normally do on a regular day. Every time a season change, occurs, it's important to adapt our protocol. So you just take this little chart and you fill it in again. Maybe in the fall, your soul care and sunshine takes place in the early afternoon. And in the summer, it takes place first thing in the morning. What you want to start with is the energy that you would like to allocate. Make sure there's a balance that makes sense to you. Maybe in the summer, it reflects more soul care time. And maybe during the holiday season, that is a little bit less because the responsibilities get a little bigger. What we want to be able to do is look back and acknowledge that every area of our life is important and that we get to decide how we want to allocate the energy. If it's possible, take a few moments, connect to your breath, and then write down a list of your summer expectations. Would you like to have the meals cooked out twice a week? Would you like to go to the ocean every other weekend? Whatever it is that you want, notice your expectations and see that sometimes it's not always simpler in the summer. You're trying to add to a very full life. Sometimes we have to take away a few things first to find the space to add back in what is important to you. Most importantly, I want us to remember that our energy needs to be intentionally allocated to all of the life areas that matter. So again, I think the simplest way to begin this is to just take a blank piece of paper, have seven rows across with the names of the days of the week, five blocks going down, morning, late morning, early afternoon, late afternoon, evening. If you do work for pay and there's an expectation for you to be at that job from nine to five, it's pretty easy to color in those blocks. But I know there were many years of my life where I was volunteering a lot of my energy or working in part time roles where my days were different every single day. Maybe that's true of you as well, and you're thinking, I can't possibly create a protocol because every single week is different. Well, you might start to notice that if you hold space for that work for pay in the six hours that it might take place, And you hold it lightly and know that on the days that you're not working, you're going to allocate that energy to either relationships or soul care. You can start to see a pattern that will serve you. And so we really suggest you take the three colors that you're choosing for the soul care relationships and responsibilities and only color in the color on this protocol map. Use a different document or Trello to write down all the things that you would do on those block days. So for instance, if your responsibilities are all around the home, because that is work, Don't let anyone say that taking care of children and keeping up a home is not work. And you decided to allocate two blocks a day, four days a week. On a different document or in your Trello app, you could list all the things you want to do then. Maybe it's cleaning floors and doing laundry. But maybe you're in a season where you're giving a lot of your energy away to emotional relationships. You may be caring for a family member who is sick or taking care of a toddler or a baby. It's important to allocate that energy. You can't keep a home in the pristine order of when your children are 14, when you're taking care of a little baby, your relational energy is taking up all of the space. So color in this map so that you can advocate for yourself. All work is work, whether it's paid or unpaid, but our best work happens when our soul is aligned to the truth of how incredibly loved and valuable you are. And from that place of love, you make the decisions to care for yourself first, to make sure that the relationships that are important to you are getting the best energy. And then the responsibilities are named. They're clear. You know, when you're doing them and when you're taking the time off. And so summer might be the ideal time for you to create your first protocol. or maybe it's time to take an example you've had before and to just update it to reflect the life that you want to live. Thanks for being here today. Thank you for joining the Live a Vibrant Life podcast. I hope our time together encouraged you and will equip you with the tools you need to move into the vibrant life you desire. I'm here to help you live a brave, creative, purpose filled life. And if you'd like to learn more, You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook, Kelly Tibbetts Life Coach, or visit my website, kellytibbetts. com. I look forward to connecting again soon.