What Are You Filling Up On? Discovering Intentions for the New Year

Hey, friends, and welcome back to Faithfield Woman.

And the question that we want to ask ourselves is what are the intentions that we are setting for this year?

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Hi, I'm your host, Kristen.

I'm an encourager, a faith led entrepreneur, a mom and a wife.

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Okay, so let's dive right in.

I heard a good one of the daily episodes by Pastor Rick Warren.

I think it was actually on the 30th of December, but one of the questions he was asking is what are we filling ourselves up with?

And I think that is a great time of year or now is a great time of year to ask that question.

In other words, what are we spending our time doing?

What are we spending our off hours doing?

So when we're not working or caring for our family, what do we spend that time doing?

And so it could be that we, we're spending our times, our time doing wonderful, worthy things, or it could be that we're, we're actually spending our time on things that aren't moving our needle.

It's not moving us towards how we want to grow or learn or just invest our own time.

So the question is, what are you filling up on?

Are you filling up on things like scrolling social media?

Are you filling up on, on, you know, binging Netflix?

And let me be clear, I can do both of those things, as can any of us.

The question is, how much of our time are we spending on those things and is it getting in the way of other things that we want to be doing?

And so that's when that's when being intentional has so much to do with this conversation.

And so the first question is, what are you reading, what are you listening to?

And what's speaking into your life?

And if you find that every time you have a spare minute that you're opening your phone and scrolling social, which, if I'm honest, of course I can do that sometimes, too.

Although I try not to spend much time on social media.

But there are times where I still find myself, like, why have I been on this app?

I'm just scrolling through it for 10 minutes or 15 minutes.

And I definitely, over the last months, have spent more time than I would like to admit.

Watching shows right, on Netflix, not until the evening.

I never turn the TV on during the day.

But the point is, is that's really not how I want to be spending my time.

I'd like to be more intentional with my time.

But I am reading books that fill me up.

I am reading devotionals.

I am reading, you know, scripture.

I am reading books about human people or about things that, or that are.

That are making a difference in the world.

I'm, you know, reading about how our brain works and what.

That.

What will we.

How we need it to work in the future.

So, you know, I'm reading about creativity, right?

And of course, faith and about God.

I'm listening to podcasts, like, you know, like my podcast, but I'm listening to ones about faith.

I'm listening ones about health.

I'm listening to one's that share information of a topic I want to learn about.

So definitely I'm reading and listening to a lot of things that I think are what I want to be filling up with, But I am watching or scrolling things that I would prefer to lessen or limit in my life.

What am I filling up with?

What am I reading, what am I listening to and what am I speaking or what's speaking into my life?

And then if you take it a step further, it's what am I speaking about and what do we mean by that?

Well, are you speaking about the frustrations of your life?

Are you speaking about what you're irritated with and about how stressed and busy you are, or are you speaking about the good things in your life?

And, you know, one of the things that we're called to, you know, and that's what Pastor Rick Warren talks about in his, his episode I was listening to was that we don't want to get caught in secondary issues.

So we don't want to get caught up in always being frustrated and talking about things like politics, because God actually calls us to share what he's done for us in our lives.

And this doesn't have to be fancy or feel like you're preaching to somebody.

It just means that when you have the opportunity and when a conversation comes about or just when you're writing something or you're sharing something, you reference or you just share how great God is, how faithful he's been in your life, how much he's blessed you.

So it's really just.

We also want to be telling the story about what God's done for us, right?

How good he's been.

And so that's just another thing is instead of sharing what irritates us, what frustrates us, talk about the good in our life, talk about the blessings we already have, talk about the things we know that God is doing for us, that he is moving in our lives, and then share how he's already done these things in our life.

And I don't mean in every conversation, every second we're going to do that because that would be, you know, for most of us, that would seem strange, right?

But there are opportunities and there are invitations for us to do that.

And so I just remind us all of that, because we can do it without being preachy.

We can do it without sounding churchy, because we don't need to use certain words.

We don't need to spout out scripture.

We can just be real and say, well, God's moved in our life.

We don't even have to use the word God and moved.

Right?

Okay, now, how do we tie this to our intentions?

Well, I think it's really important that as we look at each month, each quarter, you know, definitely every year, just say, okay, well, what.

What did I.

Like, what was the good?

What was the not so good?

You know, what did I maybe.

Where did I grow?

Where were there some opportunities that were just pretty amazing?

What did I get to do?

And then just reflect on how do you want this year to be different from last year?

Could be that you want to grow in your faith.

So your intention is, I want to spend more time each day, you know, in prayer or reading scripture.

It might be that you, your intention is that you want to step up your, you know, your health journey might be by eating better food or eating out less.

That might be by just walking more each day.

And side note, walking at least 7,500 steps a Day has been shown to not only be super healthy for us, but it's also shown to improve our longevity and lessen our chances of mortality at early, you know, at a earlier age.

In other words, we get to live longer, so we need to keep moving.

So your intentions might be that you want to, you know, you feel called to kind of change jobs.

It might be that you have really been wanting to go to a friends this year that's been on your list and you haven't made it happen.

Maybe you've been wanting to take your family on a great trip, a vacation, to spend time together, to be closer.

But you know, there's big intentions like what are you doing with your life?

What's the legacy you're leaving?

And there's also the daily or the, you know, regular intentions.

And so I think it's important now for us to know what are our intentions.

So this can be everything from what are your goals, what are your dreams, how do you want to be living your life, and how have you maybe been living it that you'd like to change?

So for me, if I want to finish some projects that I've started, like finishing a book, finishing a devotional, I have got to get serious about setting that as my intention so that I prioritize time in my schedule to do those projects and I lessen time doing something else.

Okay, my intention might be that I want.

I.

Well, I do want to learn to play the ukulele.

I bought one years ago and I'm still not taking the time to learn to play it.

So for me, an intention is going to be learn to play an instrument.

You know, not just on occasion, grab it and strum it, but actually learn to play an instrument, which is in my case, the ukulele.

So I think it's important to set some intentions for yourself.

And in one way, I want to help you do this, to live more intentionally, to take the time to reflect and really look at what it is that you want in your life.

And how were you created?

I've created a 10 day email challenge for you that starts this week.

And all you have to do is go to my website and sign up for my email list and you'll get this challenge.

But each day it'll only take you a few minutes.

So you'll read a little thing, something.

There'll be a quote or scripture, and then there'll be a journal prompt or a short exercise that you can do.

But it's really about shifting your mindset, shifting what you're thinking about focusing on who you were created to be, what you're created to do, what is it you desire, what is it you dream of that God's put on your heart?

And so if this interests you, it's 10 days where each day it'll just take you a couple minutes to read it and then do the exercise.

It's really a time for reflection, self reflection, and just taking a little time for yourself to get clear on what it is that you want, what it is that you want to move towards and how we can shift our perspectives to move towards the thing things that God's actually made us uniquely to like uniquely to be.

The email challenge is called Reignite your passion, step into the life you were meant for.

And I'm really excited about it.

I know that it's going to be that little boost that so many of us need as we start this new year.

And let's be honest, January, even though it's my birth month, it is the worst month as far as feeling motivated.

It's cold, it's blistery and windy today, a lot of people are getting snow.

But it's also a month where I feel like everybody hibernates a bit, everybody slows down, the holidays are over.

We haven't gotten to where the daylight feels like, the days are getting longer, the flowers are not starting to come through the ground yet.

And so it's a great time to take just a couple minutes a day or 15 minutes a day to spend reflecting and being intentional about what the rest of our year or our future looks like.

And so if this is of interest to you, I hope you'll go over to KristinFitch.com and sign up for my email and I will add you to that 10 day challenge.

And I can't wait to see the shifts that happen in your life if you take these 10 days to do something for yourself.

Thanks again for listening to the show and if you enjoyed today's episode, we.

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