Desummering

How do you “desummer”? Is it time to pivot as the seasons change?  Take a listen and consider how you can better take charge of your transition from Summer to Fall. 

Main points: 

• Look back and reflect (without self judgment) on the goals you had at the beginning of summer.  
  • Notice what worked and what didn’t work.  
  • Note down if  there is anything you'd like to change for next year. 
• Do you feel like you're ready for the transition to Fall? 
• Use my Energy Check In chart 
  • Do you notice any kind of natural energy shift as the daylight hours shrink?
• How do the other changes, like food, sports, school schedules, etc. impact you and your energy?  
• Look at your next six weeks of your calendar, where will you be resting or enjoying your own life? Guard that time, put it into the calendar first.  

Links 

• Join Kelly's Group Coaching Program
• Atomic Habits by James Clear

Let's connect.

I am cheering for you!

Transcript

0:14

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. Today we're going to be talking about the pivot that we need to make every time a season changes. Today we're going to focus specifically on the fall pivot and the idea of de summering. De summering is the work that needs to happen when summer comes to an end. It's easiest to use this thought when you think of something like having an outdoor pool. As summer comes to an end, you might need to do some specific tasks in order to prepare the pool for the fall, season. What do you think about when I offer the idea that as summer comes to an end, you may need to pivot? As I look back and reflect on my goals I'll notice specifically how I had an idea that I would like to have"fun in the summer". It was a new idea for me Is it possible that I could create a life where I have fun? I know for many people that seems like an idea that you're not even sure why I needed to work on that thought. But for most of my life, I thought of myself specifically as someone who is very orderly and someone who likes processes and someone who is very responsible. I was missing out on a piece of who I am as a human. And that's the part that has fun. And so all of us are going to use the information from these coaching tools as we need them. As you look back on your summer, notice the goals you set. Maybe you wanted to have a peaceful summer. Maybe you wanted to have a few adventures. Maybe you listened to one of my podcasts and decided this was the year you're going to do morning pages and go for artist dates, whatever it is, take a moment. And reflect. Is there anything you'd like to remember that you want to change for next year? I know as my children were getting older, you know, when they were little, till they were school age, to high school, each time the season of life changed, I had to notice what was working and what wasn't working. And so just take a few moments today. Is there anything you'd like to change for next year? Either something you want to remember to do more of, or something you might want to remember to do less of. And do you feel like you're ready for the transition that is about to happen as we enter the season of fall? If you take a few moments every single day and use my energy check in chart, it can give you such good information on how you're doing. We are the only people that can fill the cup of our soul. Our essence is a hundred percent loved. That's who we are. And from that place of aligned energy, what are we noticing? Over the past few years, I had, COVID infections that made me very physically sick. And luckily I've partnered with Ellen, who creates many of these amazing workbooks. And she helped me to be really kind to myself and not push myself past my capacity. By using my energy check in chart when I was very sick, it was easy for me to notice physically I was in low to exhausted to depleted energy. And without intention, I could have pushed myself past the limit of the energy that I had. At other times during the year, I might be socially or emotionally exhausted, sad, frustrated, grieving. I might be mentally overwhelmed, confused. Or I might be in really good energy and want to use that energy for what's important to me. That's why the daily check in can really serve each of us. How are you doing mentally, emotionally, physically? Do you need any tools to recover or do you need a plan in place to use that good energy? One thing that can help us is when we're in good mental energy to take a few moments and notice the activities that we would like to say yes and no to and decide them in advance. For instance, if you have really good mental energy and really good physical energy, what would you like to do? Is there a project that you know is so important, it keeps going to the bottom of your list, but you know that if this was a day where you had a block of time, some really good mental energy, some really good physical energy, it could be doing one fourth of a basement or a garage or a bedroom that really needs some time and energy. It could be creating a website. How about when you have yellow energy? Do you have a bunch of activities that you know, I could just go over and do those? Whether it's putting away some dishes, putting away some laundry, cleaning out a closet. What about when you're in red mental energy? Or red physical energy? Or both? What do you not want to do? We know that's a really bad time to make important decisions. But what else would you like to remember? Maybe not to balance your checkbook when your mental energy is low. Maybe use that time to do something like exercise if you have good physical energy, but low mental energy. Whatever it is that you would like to decide, taking the time in advance to notice your decisions, to decide them and not allow your brain to keep spinning, but to say, this is what's important to me for the next three weeks. If I have good physical energy, but I'm a little bit tired mentally, what do I want to decide to do? I think this is why so many of us accidentally spend too much time on our phone. We don't make a decision in advance. We don't have great energy in the moment. So we take out our phone, start scrolling. And then if you're anything like me, you'll notice 20 minutes have gone by and I'm not refueled. In fact, I may even feel more depleted. If I had some yellow or green energy, but was mentally tired, what would be great? I know for me, it's going for a walk. It's giving myself some physical activity and allowing my brain to rest. So I highly encourage every single time your season of life changes, the kids are going back to school, they're home for a week for vacation. Your parents are coming into town, you're traveling, it's a snow day or it's just a regular Wednesday. And all of a sudden you're noticing the current schedule, the protocol of what you want to budget your energy towards. It's just not working. Let's take the time right now to notice our energy and then make some decisions. What do you want to say yes and no to? Once you've taken a few moments to do that, you can then use that information as you make decisions. Decisions are so important because it helps us to stop spinning in indecision, which still uses energy, even though we're not creating the results we want. So let's try this season to be intentional in our decisions. I'm going to offer you a few things to think through. Don't try to do all at once. One of the metaphors I use is imagine you're in a car. You have three really important things to do today. You can't drive to all three places at the same time. You're going to need to choose one. And then when that's complete, you go to two and then to three. If all of these ideas feel like, yes, these are things I want to spend my time on. Let's decide right now, we're going to pick one. And after we've completed one to whatever degree that looks like for you, we'll move on to the next one. So as we move from summer to fall, are you noticing around your house things that need to be put away? Or maybe things that you want to take out. I think about things like beach chairs and bathing suits. Living in New England, sometimes it's very cool at the end of August and then you'll get a warm day in September. And so you think, do I put away the beach things now? Maybe not. I know this is, often very true for me, as winter becomes spring, it's hard to decide, is this the weekend I'm going to finally put away my boots, because sometimes I do that, and then it snows. That's why making a decision might look like, I'm going to do this three weekends from now, when I feel confident that summer is over and I'm not going to the beach anymore. Or you might decide, I know that I don't have any more free weekends, there's no beach trips coming up, I'm going to put away the beach things. Maybe there are things you want to bring in. Some people like to put flowers on their porch. Maybe you want to go get some pumpkins, whatever you're noticing. I think the transition from summer to fall is a great time to look at your calendar and to look at your protocol, which is the budget for your energy. Do you like where you're spending your time? If you have a job where you leave the house for eight hours a day, it might be obvious Monday to Friday where your energy is going. What might change is what do you do before and after the job? What do you do on the weekends? If you're like me and you're spending time in part time roles or roles that don't have any kind of consistency to it, deciding in advance how your energy is going to be allocated can be transformative. When do you want to start or end things that are important to you? Are there any vacations coming up? One of the most important things I try to help people that I coach is to decide in advance that your rest comes first. Look at your next six weeks of your calendar, where will you be resting or enjoying your own life? Guard that time, put it into the calendar first. Do you notice any kind of natural energy shift as the daylight hours become less and less? For me, there's the 50 50 nature of it. I actually prefer things like taking a bath with candlelight or doing yoga in the darkness in the morning and just a little dim light but you might be different. You might wish that the daylight was longer so you could go for a walk after dinner. And by the time October rolled around, that's a lot harder. Well, this would be the right time to say, if the walk after dinner is important, what could I do differently? Could I get a vest? I know my husband and I did that. We've got some of those flashing lights so we could still go for walks in early fall. Could you make a decision that you're going to get up a few minutes early and go for the walk before work? Deciding in advance is key to living a vibrant life. Because what's important to you is actually important, even if there's no urgency to it. One thing that many of us notice is you might really love having salads every single day or every single week during the summer, but fall comes around and suddenly those salads are not as appealing. Maybe you want to start doing more stews or more homemade soup. Whatever it is you're noticing, what could you decide? Is it something you want to meal prep? Is it something that you want to decide that on Thursdays you're going to invite people over and have sort of a communal meal? Taking the time in advance to make the decisions is always going to help us create results we want. Now we have to be flexible that's why we call it the sticky note system. Life happens. You might have scheduled Thursday as a day when you prep your meals for the weekend and then somebody that you love calls you and needs your time. Well if you have a sticky note system you can move that important activity to a different day and time. Finally, does the fall bring sports back into your home? I'm from New England. We have a lot of sports fans, both in my family and around my family. I know things like football become something that end up on our calendar. What we want to do is just take a few moments right now and to decide, what's the result you want? When you look back on summer, you might notice something from, that was exactly what I wanted it to be, all the way to, that was tough and I don't want to do that again. What can we decide now going into fall? Maybe you want to decide the feeling. I want to be confident, enthusiastic, not overwhelmed or frustrated. Maybe you want to notice your thought that you want on repeat. I'm going to say yes to things that are important to me and I'm going to guard my time. Maybe you're going to notice your action steps. I want to do more of this or less of that. Gifting yourself the time to notice what's important to you is transformative. Decide the actions and the thoughts and the feelings that you would like on repeat. Finally, you are worth the 10, 20, 30 minutes it would take for you to decide the area you would like to focus on as we transition from summer to fall. Notice any intentional decisions that are important to you. Let's write them down so that we can create what we call small practice steps. If you'd like a book to go a little deeper with this, I recommend Atomic Habits by James Clear. You can also just follow him on Instagram. He shares the little tidbits of information there. Small practice steps are the path forward to creating results we want. In general, if there's a gap between where you are and where you want to be, much of that is due to energy. We can want to do so many different things, but if we don't have the energy to do it, it's not kind to keep expecting of ourselves what we're unable to do. But most of us have the time and the energy match to do small things that move us forward. So I think of something like cleaning out a garage. Very few people I know have two weeks that they could just spend all their time and energy. Cleaning a garage from top to bottom but most people have 10 to 20 minutes a day for eight to 10 weeks where they can make little small steps in moving that project forward. The decisions that you are making by listening to these ideas and then deciding to implement it are so important. Practice steps create results. So we want to be very specific and we want to keep it small. If it feels hard, if it feels overwhelming, cut it in half, maybe cut it in half again. I think about the idea of a pivot where one foot is staying still and the other one is moving. We're not trying to change everything. We're trying to make small action steps in the direction we want to go. That means adjusting our protocol. Maybe it's deciding to get up earlier or to do something different at lunchtime or to delegate someone else helping some of the chores that are currently taking up all of your energy. You're noticing a decision that you want to start with. Are there one to three small practice steps that could move you in the right direction? Write them down, share them with a friend, become part of our coaching program and have a community to cheer you on and support you as you're making these decisions. At the same time, it's okay to notice that sometimes life causes us to pivot. We might have the best laid plans and then something happens. Either a circumstance that's out of our control. How many days have you wanted to do something and the weather just didn't cooperate? Sometimes it's a relationship that's important to you and is requiring more energy. Nothing's gone wrong, but if we can keep these small practice steps in front of us, we know that when our energy matches, we know what we're going to do next. So we want to check in. Have you been writing down your decisions? And then creating the small practice steps to move forward? After you notice, decide, and practice, we want to ask ourself a question. Are we creating the results we want? If the answer is yes, I want you to notice this and celebrate it. I'm celebrating with you right now. I noticed I want to put more fun in my summer and I have. I'm celebrating that. Once you notice and celebrate, then we want to decide our next goal. And again, if we haven't talked about this before, there's a pause between notice and decide, and that is to take a breath and make sure you're in the right aligned energy. If you're not, what do you need? Sometimes I need a nap. Sometimes I need some friendship time. Sometimes I need something like yoga or walking to just move my body. What if you notice that the results you want, you're not any closer to it. What Nothing's gone wrong. You're just having a human experience. Let's cycle back to the notice step. Is it maybe something to accept that this is not the season to do the thing that you would like to do right now? I know when I was a pastor, there were many people who would come to me and they'd have these hopes and dreams that they wanted to implement and the reality of a life that maybe they were working full time, caring for a parent, just unable to do the pivot to the responsibilities that they wanted versus the responsibilities they had. And one thing I would try to speak over them is You don't know what could happen in a year or two years. Don't give up your dream, but is there something we can do to pivot, to give it some time, to invite someone else, to partner with us? Would it be okay if you just decided for today, there are things I'm going to accept for this season of my life. When I was a young mom, I had three children under the age of four. It probably wouldn't have been in my best interest to expect my life then to be the same as it is now, where I have three grown adult children who don't live at home. The energy needs of my life were very different. I was giving out a lot of emotional, mental energy. I couldn't do all the things then that I'm able to do now. Is there anything you'd like to decide? Sometimes our decisions involve delegating, letting someone else help us. Sometimes it involves deferring, deciding maybe next season or next year. Sometimes it involves deciding not now. I don't know what you need today, but I know this you are a hundred percent valuable, a hundred percent loved. That's who you are. That's the essence of who you are. From that place of great love, what would you like? Do you want to do something and say, yes, do you want to say no thank you to something that's no longer serving you? You don't need to do it alone. Part of what my group coaching program does is it helps you find other people who are on the same path. There is so much evidence that when we can partner with five people who are doing the kind of things we want to do, we are more likely to move in that direction. I invite you to join us. I've made it completely affordable. I have it set up so that it's 30 minutes, three to four times a month of noticing what's important to you, aligning your energy, making small decisions, and then creating small practice steps that create the result that you want. I invite you to consider a vibrant life as an amazing goal, a life where you are surrounded by mutually flourishing relationships. You're aligning the energy of your essence of your soul, and you're giving your energy to the dreams that are important to you. What's important to you is important. 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 Tibbitts Life Coach, or visit my website, kellyTibbitts. com. I look forward to connecting again soon.