00:00 

Hey there, this is Tanya Hale with Intentional Living and this is episode number 65, "Future Plans." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Alright my friends, here we go. So last podcast we talked about 10 things we need to do to have good mental health. We talked about mental health and then at the end the 10 things. So we are going to, for the next 10 podcasts, break each one of those down. So the first one today, the first thing on the list that we need to have good mental health is future plans. So we're just going to jump right into this today. 

00:50 

Have you ever had those moments when you're quiet, possibly you're recognizing the Spirit of God but maybe not, but you're in this loving, peaceful place where you're connecting with your own spirit, you're just thinking about life and where you are and where you want to go and you start imagining where you could really be and you start to see in your mind's eye your potential. You start dreaming of amazing things you could be doing. You start having a desire for more in your life, maybe more stuff but more importantly more of you. You see a you who is living a life beyond what you are currently living. You have a more connected relationship with those around you. You are more organized, you're using your time and your money in a way that brings you self-respect or you may see yourself more connected to God and following the Spirit more frequently. You may see yourself as a more confident person, someone who has clear boundaries and an understanding of the direction you're headed and why. Possibly you imagine a person who is connected to a career that is fulfilling and taps into your deepest longings to make a meaningful contribution to the world. 

02:01 

Sometimes, when we have these experiences, we may just brush off these small little visions of ourselves as daydreams. But I want to offer to you that these may very well be us connecting to our potential. We may be tapping into a spiritual realm where God is giving us insight into what we are meant to become and how we can engage with the world. What if these aren't just fanciful daydreams but are in fact God showing us our potential if we can learn to engage ourselves in the right kind of growth? What if in this place of love, God is teaching us what we can become and how we can develop more self respect and love for ourselves as we become more like He is? Isn't this an amazing thought? I really believe this can be true for us. When we are in this quiet place of love and peace, I believe God will show us a glimpse of the path that can be ours if we want it. I believe He helps us to see where we can go so we can begin to move toward this deeper and greater version of ourselves if we really want it. God truly is our Father. He loves us. He wants for us to find our greatest level of fulfillment and joy in this life and that will come as we tap into the potential that lies inside of us. So I believe these dreams and visions are God's way of igniting our desires for more. More contentment, more happiness, more understanding, more connection. And more doesn't just mean more. I believe more means deeper and more satisfying and fulfilling. 

03:51 

So what if we were to take this small vision that God has placed within us and we were to begin dwelling on it? What if we were to ponder and meditate on it and think about what we really can become? I remember hearing once that as a woman, when I helped to create and carry a child that I had become a co-creator with God. And that thought really sunk deep into my soul and I loved it and I nurtured it because it helped me to feel closer to God. But I also believe that when God gives us these visions of what we can become and we turn these into desires and we act on them that we also become co-creators with God. We are creating the version of ourselves that He truly created us to be. The person we are meant to be. We are beginning to live up to the potential that lies deep inside of us, just waiting to be discovered and unearthed. If these desires, if we nurture and develop them, they will lead us to a place where we can become this person. 

05:01 

But so often we don't nurture these dreams and desires. We set them aside for another day and we forget about them and we allow these sacred moments of godly glimpses to fade away and we continue on with our ordinary, somewhat unfulfilled lives. Now, this isn't to say we don't have good lives or that we are unhappy or depressed, only that there is a depth that we are not tapping into when we choose not to latch on to these dreams and desires. And why don't we? Let's go back to the discussion about our brain and our mind. Our cerebellum or our primitive brain just wants to keep things in status quo. It wants to protect us from anything that feels uncomfortable or uneasy. It wants us to conserve energy and not have to make new decisions. 

05:51 

However, our mind, our prefrontal cortex has other plans. This is the place of executive function, the place where we make decisions and future plans, the place where our goals and our dreams and our desires can come to life. But this part of our brain uses a lot of energy, and our primitive brain fights against this energy use. If we are not entirely determined to latch onto these dreams and desires, our primitive brain will overrun them pretty quickly, and the urges we have for comfort and ease and relaxation right now will take over and we set these dreams aside and they're easily forgotten. Our primitive brain challenges us because it anticipates a lot of fear and stress and anxiety if we are to start moving toward these dreams and desires. 

06:43 

And as we've discussed before, this primitive part of our brain does some really amazing things for us, but helping us move into a greater, deeper version of ourselves is not one of them. It will take these visions that God gives us and it will set them aside because it recognizes that there is a lot of discomfort in working to achieve those dreams and desires. However, these dreams and desires are the very thing that will help us grow into the person where we can more fully become who we are meant to be, a person who becomes more like Christ and more prepared to be of service to God. And these desires will lead us down a path of growth that will bring more contentment and satisfaction and true joy than we can even imagine at this stage in our lives. 

07:36 

So first, let's recognize that God gives us glimpses of our potential, of what we can really become, not just in the next life, but also in this life. Second, let's acknowledge that even the anticipation of achieving these goals can send our primitive brain into overdrive and it will seek to shut these dreams and desires down. But having good mental health requires that we move beyond the innate desires of our primitive brain and into a conscious effort to move into a better version of ourselves. When we move out of autopilot and into intentional living, our mental health begins to improve. 

08:19 

So the next thing we need to focus on is making a connection with those ideas that God put in our head. Write them down. They may seem crazy and fanciful and outrageous at this point, but what if ultimately they're not? What if they are what God really has in store for you if you will move forward toward it? When we write them down and connect with them in a more tangible way, it gives our primitive brain a little bit of pushback. Our prefrontal cortex is beginning to take charge and see something bigger than what we are currently living. And that's an exciting thing. Now we need to start really feeding these dreams and desires. So let's start to focus on them and nurture them. Let's allow our primitive brain to start getting used to the idea of these. When we get to the point that we can really believe in our potential, then it can be so much easier to start moving forward. 

09:20 

So here's a question for you: how much time do you spend mentally creating your future and thinking about it? How much time do you spend in discovering your potential and making plans and then taking massive action? Put it on a scale of 1 to 10. Where are you on that scale of how much time you spend in some way engaging with these dreams and these desires that you've been given? Okay, if you're less than 5, I'm going to suggest that you have become indifferent to your future because this is where we really need to start investing some time. We need to care about our future more than we care about our past and more than we care about our present discomfort. 

10:08 

And remember, we create what we think about. When we spend time thinking about and engaging with these dreams and the desires, we will begin to create the feelings that will then begin to create the actions that will move us in the direction where we want to go. So we have to start moving into the 5 to 10 range of how much time we spend in this future place.  Let's just touch briefly here on how to start moving on these dreams and desires. If we really want to achieve them, we have to start off by writing them down. Every darn one of them. Then just choose one that you want to move on. Often you're going to find that by moving on one you better set yourself up to move on the others or they'll even start moving a bit on their own. It doesn't really matter which one, just pick one, even if it's the easiest one. Pick it and move on it. That's a step forward. 

11:04 

Now set a date that you want to accomplish that goal. It may be something smaller that can be accomplished in a relatively short amount of time, but maybe it's something bigger that will take a few years. It really just doesn't matter. But now we need to spend some time listing everything that will need to happen to make that dream a reality. Everything. Don't leave anything off the list, even if you have no idea how that particular thing is going to happen. Write it down. So much of achieving goals is not knowing the "how," but believing that the "how" will manifest itself when the time is right. 

11:41 

Okay, next you're going to make another list of every obstacle you can imagine that will stand in your way of accomplishing this goal. Even if you're 95% sure that it won't happen, write it down as an obstacle. In the 5% chance that it does happen, you want to be prepared and not overwhelmed, right? The next step, you're going to take this list of obstacles and you're going to figure out how to overcome each of those obstacles and add those items, your strategies, to your previous list of everything you need to do to accomplish your dream. 

12:21 

And then we just get to work. Someday I'll get into another podcast where we get really more specific into all of this, but for now, one little line at a time. You may want to go through and put them on a timeline or something, but just start one line at a time. Consistency is the biggest key to accomplishing what you want in life. It is the only way to really get into self-growth. And this growth is what allows us to live a deeper, more fulfilling life. And this is a huge factor in our mental health, feeling as though our life has meaning and is fulfilling. 

13:00 

So, consistency, consistency, just keep moving, keep crossing small things off one at a time. Once you get all the smallest things off, then the next things aren't going to seem so big anymore, because now they're the small things, right? And here's the amazing thing about this process. No one else has any say in how this goes down. We can believe whatever we want to about ourselves and our future. We can think whatever we want to, and no one even needs to know. I can choose to believe whatever I want to believe about myself. Isn't that amazing? How liberating is it to understand that what you believe about yourself is entirely unconnected to what anyone else thinks about you or thinks that you should think about yourself? I love that we can create anything that we want to create simply by thinking the thoughts that we'll create it because, remember, our thoughts create our feelings and our feelings create our actions and from those actions spring the ultimate results in our lives. 

14:12 

Another thought about having future plans: plan for failure along the way. Just plan on it. It's going to happen. But this is the amazing thing about failure...when we are resilient and we get back up and we keep going, we build strength and confidence in ourselves and in our ability to recover and survive the next time we have a failure. We become more resilient and failure isn't such a big deal because we know from past experience that we can just keep going. What is it about failure anyway that is so daunting? Really it's just the feeling, the uncomfortable feelings associated with it. Maybe the feeling of embarrassment that other people will see us feel or fail, or maybe the feeling of frustration that it didn't work out the way we planned. 

15:05 

But here's the thing: those are just feelings. We are uncomfortable with the feelings associated with failing. Fascinating when we think about it that way, right? It's just a feeling. It's just a feeling that we're uncomfortable with. So what if we just planned on failing? When we take the feeling of fear out of failure and just see the failure as a step towards success, then it becomes far less daunting. It becomes a part of the process, one step closer to achieving our goal. 

15:45 

Okay, so let's finish up with this today. You have these dreams and these desires and this potential inside of you. God wants desperately for you to discover them and create them. And your spirit wants desperately for you to discover and create them. When you choose to believe in yourself and in your ability to achieve them, you will find this greater fulfillment and a deeper connection to yourself and to God. And you will never regret believing in yourself because that belief will bring about the fulfillment of these dreams and the tapping into your potential, the unleashing of that potential. You will never regret believing in yourself, but you will regret doubting yourself. Once you have connected with a dream and then you choose not to move forward with it, you will regret it every single time. You will always look back and ask yourself, "what if?" And that is a lonely and an empty place to live, in the land of "what if." If you will choose to believe in yourself, your desires will lead you to a future that used to only be a part of your dreams. What you believe now to be only a future plan will become your present reality someday. And this momentum and growth in our lives is invigorating and exciting and joyful. And this is a place of mental health. 

17:19 

When we realize and accept that we are the creators of everything we are and everything we want to be, and when we take that responsibility seriously and move forward intentionally, our mental health is strengthened and increased. And that, my friends, is a great place to be. I love growing up, don't you? I love this process of discovery and this process of growth. I know that as I've been working to build this business, that I have reached into places and dreams and goals that have been sitting in me for a long time. And to finally be moving on this has been so amazing to me and so beautiful. And I just feel healthier and stronger and better than I have in years. I love it.I want you to join me here. I want you to move in to the better place that you can be and really find those dreams and desires, find that potential that is deep inside of you, tap into it, unleash it, let it grow. 

18:35 

Okay, if you want some personal help with me on how to do this, you can get on my website tanyahale.com. You can send me an email and I will get back in touch with you and we will set something up. Okay, and also if you haven't subscribed yet, make sure you do that and share this with somebody who you feel can benefit from these ideas. And last of all, if you will please, if you are a consistent listener and you are enjoying this, please leave me a review. Go to iTunes and you can look up my podcast and then you can leave me a review and that would help me a ton to get this message out to other people who are needing growth and development in their lives. Okay, my friends, that is it for today. I hope that you are tapping into these dreams and these desires and seeing what God has for you to see and that you can have the courage to start moving forward and to becoming your best self ever. Okay. Have an awesome one. I will talk to you next time. 

19:38 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation. be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!