Do you fall apart when things don’t go as planned? What do you do next? How can you move forward when it seems things are falling apart? Christy Pennison shares with us her recent bout with the unexpected and how she turned it around for the positive in her life in today’s episode.
Meet Christy Pennison
Christy Pennison is a board-certified professional counselor, mental health consultant, and owner of Be Inspired Counseling & Consulting in Alexandria, LA.
She is passionate about inspiring hope for change through counseling, consulting, and speaking to help individuals of all ages move forward and live fully.
Visit her website, connect on Facebook.
Summary:
Goal-Achieving and the Importance of Community
The Mindset Shift/The Plan during Uncertainty
There is Power in Intentionality/Happening to Your Life
You can go from Overwhelmed to Excited
Free Goal Setting Workbook by Christy is available here:
http://christypennison.com/dream-it-write-it-do-it-workbook/
Show Notes Transcript:
Michelle Croyle: Hi, Christy. So I know you have had quite an adventurous, is it week since everything went down and your counseling office?
00:01:07
Christy Pennison:: Oh, my goodness, it is been the most adventurous week I pretty much experienced. If I live in Louisiana and we recently had this what I call snow apocalypse, because we are not used to winter weather down here. And so we had a winter storm that came through and in the process there was a busted pipe that was in an adjacent office that came into our suite. And so I’m a licensed counselor. And so our counseling practice pretty much took on water and we had to evacuate very quickly. And but it’s been a it’s been a very adventurous week, to say the least. It was a little stressful, but luckily, we have now found a place to transition to. So I’m really excited about that.
00:01:50
Michelle Croyle: You went through a lot, but it didn’t go as planned. But it sounds like you have a nice new place now, is that right?
00:01:56
Christy Pennison:: Yes. And you know what? One of the things that really once I was able to shift my mindset was whenever I did know what the plan was. So when your plan lists are, there’s a lot of uncertainty, right. Just like what happened last year at the onset of the pandemic, there was so much uncertainty, we didn’t know what life was going to look like. But if you can find a little bit of certainty in the midst of uncertainty, and that can be hard to find out. But if you can and that often helps you ground you and helps you have something to look forward to. So once I knew, OK, here’s a place that we’re going to be able to move in to grow into that it provided a lot of relief. And then also help me start working towards another goal, which is for us to eventually get into that office because it’s being renovated. But what are the steps I need to take between now and then and how can I make it exciting, whereas it started out with something that was pretty overwhelming.
00:02:49
Michelle Croyle: So when it was overwhelming at the beginning, how did you ground yourself to be able to even take the first steps and call for help and figure out what had to be done with furniture and all of those practical things?
00:03:01
Christy Pennison:: Well, I’m not going to lie. At first it was a little bit of shock. I think whenever something changes drastically in your life, no matter what this was. Now, this was some water damage. It wasn’t something so life altering. Right. But when you first are faced with something that you’re not expecting, you do have a little bit of shock that comes into play. Right. You’re wondering, like, what do I do next is and I was actually in denial for a little bit because I thought, well, maybe this could be fixed. But you keep on asking questions and the better questions you ask, the better solutions you’re going to find. Right. And so I asked my next door neighbor, had she realized there was water damage and she said no. So she came by, she realized her office was even worse than mine. So then the further you get into asking questions, the further you can find out, OK, what needs to be done, next step. And so in the middle of that, it was just a realization. Once I realized what needed to be done, it was just making asking whoever I could for help in trying to make it possible.
00:04:04
Michelle Croyle: And that’s one of the things that I know as counselors. We we look for and encourage our clients to do is find a support system.
00:04:11
Christy Pennison:: So you didn’t have a chance to even think about it. You just had to contact people and get into action right away, get into action right away.
00:04:18
Christy Pennison:: And it wasn’t until probably a day or two later when the adrenaline started to like lessen a little bit. And that’s what it that’s what overwhelming stress and almost a little bit of discouragement did set in. But I think one of the things you just said that’s really important is being able to have community or support. They can often help you see a different perspective that you can’t see. So I was able to talk through that and get different opinions and people that encouraged me. And even in my moment of distress, they were like, well, think about this. And that really helped me shift and be able just to manage through that through the next several days that followed until we were able to really find a different location that will be our future home.
00:05:02
Michelle Croyle: That’s really exciting. So where’s all your furniture now? Well, some of it is in my house.
00:05:08
Christy Pennison:: Some of it is still sitting in a covered cargo trailer and probably needs to be gone through this weekend and taken and put in my house. But luckily, I have a little bit of extra space in my house. So that’s where everything’s going right now.
00:05:21
Michelle Croyle: Good. Well, I think that this will just be a path that God has opened up for even better things at this new location.
00:05:29
Christy Pennison:: It will be. And look, I couldn’t have picked a better place like no, I couldn’t have found a better place. It’s under renovation right now. So you are going to have to wait a few weeks. But once we’re able to get in, it’s going to be such a beautiful space. Like we probably we just upgraded.
00:05:44
Christy Pennison:: OK, so not only is going to be more beautiful space, it’s going to be a bigger space.
00:05:49
Christy Pennison:: And so that just gives us the capacity to help more people.
00:05:52
Michelle Croyle: That is really cool and the reason I asked you to come and talk to the podcast audience today is knowing that you have a passion for helping women to work through goal setting and to kind of overcome those things that get in their way. And that’s what this contest is all about.
00:06:10
Michelle Croyle: Tell me about what you find people have as mental blocks as they as they try to even set goals that are identifiable.
00:06:20
Christy Pennison:: Yeah. Well, number one, I don’t always know that people understand the importance of setting goals in their life. And I was one of those people, so I can definitely relate. I probably didn’t get more intentional about creating really intentional goals and I guess writing down goals, so to speak, because I always had these things I wanted to do and accomplish, but I never gave myself the space to really sit down and say, hey, maybe I can actually create some of the things that I want to happen for my life and not just always be in a reactive, reactive mode like this is happening now. I’m going to react to it. That didn’t go as planned. OK, now what do I do? And instead try to switch my thinking from just always reacting to actually being able to live more intentionally. And I think maybe a reason that goal setting isn’t always on a person’s forefront of their mind is because they do have busy lives, especially as women. I think anybody but well as well, we often wear tons of hats in our lives, whether it be a partner or a wife or a sister or a mother or a business owner or a teacher.
00:07:32
Christy Pennison:: I mean, just whatever role you have, you can often wear a lot of roles. And so a lot of times it makes us so busy putting everybody else’s needs first that we don’t always take the time to even think, well, hey, I actually deserve to sit down and look at our worth it, right.
00:07:50
Christy Pennison:: To sit down and figure out what do I want to create for my life, whether it be my relationships, my my my work, my passion, my interest, my hobbies, whatever it is. I think a lot of times we just don’t think about it.
00:08:03
Michelle Croyle: I know I remember the first time that I actually realized I could happen to my life instead of my life happening to me. It was in college and there was something I really believed in and they didn’t have a group for it on campus. And I was like, Oh, I wish they had a group like that.
00:08:19
Michelle Croyle: And my friend said, “Well, why don’t you start it?” And it just was like, I can’t do that. Like other people start things. I just join them. I don’t start them. And I remember it just physically felt like my mind was just expanding or going to explode with the concept that I could be a starter of something intentional.
00:08:40
Michelle Croyle: And through that, I mean, I did over the course of a couple of years, the Lord led me to begin this group at the college and turned out to be very successful and last for a long, long time there at the college. It may even still be going on just in another form, but that was so out of my mindset that I could actually make a goal and make something happen. I just I never had been told that before.
00:09:07
Christy Pennison:: Me neither. You know, I mean, I had never been told that either. Even I’ll be honest with you, in graduate school, where we learn about even a premise of helping people through counseling, that we create these goals. Right.
00:09:17
Christy Pennison:: I guess I just never even at that point in my life really thought about truly, truly applying that to myself and actually realizing that I really loved how you said, like, you don’t necessarily have to be stuff happens to you, be in your life is happenstance, but that you can actually create the life that you can imagine. And I’m a believer that I feel like if we have stuff in our heart that we feel like we’re supposed to be doing, I feel like it’s there for a reason. But to actually create versus just waiting for somebody else to do something, it is a big mindset shift that you have to kind of look at and and kind of challenge in your life.
00:09:58
Michelle Croyle: Yeah. How did you first learn how to challenge that for yourself?
00:10:03
Christy Pennison:: Well, I think that there’s always been different parts of my life where I’ve challenged the what’s possible, kind of like what you said there was that aha. Moment of like, wait, this is possible for maybe me to do it right. So I don’t think we always have this view of anything is possible. And the only people I can think about this is children. You know, when they are growing up, we ask them, what do you want to be when you grow up? And they’re like, oh, I want to be an astronaut or a doctor or an artist or all of these different things, they don’t really question if it’s possible or not. They just believe that it can happen. And I think somewhere along the way, as we grow up and we have maybe experience experience some.
00:10:54
Christy Pennison:: Failure or rejection or things don’t go according to plan that I think it plants these seeds of doubt that maybe things are not possible for me or maybe I can’t do that. And I think it’s those limiting beliefs that really hold us back from really being able to move forward sometimes. And so that’s for me. About two years ago, I had maybe it’s always been three years ago now I’ve left a job where I really thought I was going to be there forever. But they had some leadership changes and there was a misalignment of my values and their values. And I realized it was causing me to be miserable. I was stressed out, overwhelmed, like, but I just got to a point where something that was really fun and enjoyable to me and meaningful to me in my life as a as a career started to really turn south instead. And I had to sit there and think and I said, you know, do I want this to be the rest of my life? And I realized that there had to be something more. And so I think at that point, I took a leap of faith to leave out of that job to a job where there wasn’t a lot of certainty in the job. Like I didn’t know for sure how much I was going to be bringing home as far as income and the sole income earner. So that was really scary. But I think that’s one goal setting really sunk in for me, because then I was able to really sit down and have the time and the space in my life to say, OK, you know, that this is just a temporary transition point for you.
00:12:24
Christy Pennison:: What do you want to see happen next, whether it be in an era for your life? And so that’s when I think the turning point was for me to sit down and really try to find ways to live more intentionally instead of just living. I guess as things came up, you know, and just reacting to those things.
00:12:43
Michelle Croyle: So when did you decide to get a group together to start to do this with you?
00:12:48
Christy Pennison:: Yeah. So it was a beginning of two thousand and nineteen. I had just got finished reading Michael Hyatt’s book, Your Best Year Ever. Like if you want to learn more about goal setting, it really has a good foundation that you can learn how to do this, but I started reading your best year ever and I said, OK, I really want to be intentional. There’s stuff that I had in my heart to do, but I know it’s just not going to happen unless I really find a way to make it happen. And so I put the Asked on Facebook. This is where you’re talking about creating something that’s not there, like any goal setting group that I knew of, or at least locally. And I said, what did the awesome if I could get together? A group of women who are ready to make some changes in their life. And we meet once a month at my house or at their house or at a restaurant or whatever, and we just support each other through a whole year of goal setting and action taking. And that’s how I guess the first year that I did this came to life, because I just put it out there.
00:14:12
Christy Pennison:: I didn’t know who was going to come. And I had about 10 women show up initially and we had about a group of seven that was probably the core group that followed throughout the whole year.
00:14:22
Michelle Croyle: Oh, so fun.
00:14:24
Christy Pennison:: It was so much fun because we meet and we go over different topics. We’d all we all set goals at the beginning of the year. And what was amazing is when you see people set an intention and then you have group accountability and support and then you see where each everybody lands at the end of the year. It’s just you you realize why aren’t more people doing this?
00:14:47
Michelle Croyle: You know, it starts to become addictive. So there is a warning that is so true.
00:14:52
Christy Pennison:: I say that is such it can be very, very addicting just because you start to get excited about the reality that and I’m not saying that when you’re trying to make these goals a reality, that there isn’t it isn’t hard. Sometimes it requires action. It requires discomfort, it requires intention.
00:15:10
Michelle Croyle: There isn’t water damage that comes along.
00:15:12
Christy Pennison:: Right.
00:15:14
Christy Pennison:: You know, but but that’s the also the importance that I found of community support and accountability. Because if you have a group that is in the trenches with you, walking forward with you, even though your mind have completely different goals that you’re working towards, just knowing that there are other people that know that you’ve made a commitment to yourself, not only are they going to hold you to that commitment, but they’re also going to support you in the process.
00:15:42
Michelle Croyle: That’s wonderful. Can you share some of the things that resulted from that group that you do?
00:15:47
Christy Pennison:: Yeah, well, one girl, she had really wanted to leave her full time job that she had. She worked in marketing in some capacity and she had a passion of doing photography. And she had already had her photography business on the side. But it really wasn’t at the point where she could financially leave her full time job. And she thought maybe that would take her a year or two to do. But really, in a matter of eight months, she was able to leave her job and do her photography full time. Oh, my goodness, that’s gateless. Yeah, we had women from all different, I guess, kind of just different places in their life. So there was one one of the women who she was able to do a few more certifications for her job, which allowed her to advocate for herself and get a better position. There was one lady who her goal was really just to do less and enjoy life more. It wasn’t like an aspirational like want to do this and my career or whatever. She just wanted to slow down. And so for her that year, she was really able to spend time doing things that really interested her and really energized her and learned how to say no to things that were draining her. And that was success. So we saw all different types of things where people really pushed themselves out of their comfort zone and out of what they would typically do to be able just to push themselves a little bit further. And the things that came from that year were just phenomenal. Plus, we all didn’t know each other at the beginning. And so at the end of the year, we had six or seven new friends.
00:17:34
Michelle Croyle: You want to be available, you put it out on Facebook. And then how did people see you were you just publicly on Facebook or did friends recommend people?
00:17:43
Christy Pennison:: Well, most people all had the common thread of me, like I knew them in some capacity. But it might have been people that I didn’t know very well that I just maybe had met in passing. And and they maybe and they maybe had somebody else. So really, it was just a group that I think there might have been one or two that knew each other. But really, I guess they all knew me in some regards. And so that’s how we all got to kind of know each other. But they didn’t know each other individually.
00:18:08
Michelle Croyle: I say, oh, that’s so fun. So when I think of that, I’m like, oh, if I lived where you live, I would have jumped at that. Like, I just I think that would have been great. But if listeners don’t have that kind of thing around them, can you give them some tips of of things to do that can help them to get started with their own intentional living and goal setting?
00:18:29
Christy Pennison:: Absolutely. And, Michelle, what I can also do is give you a link to a workbook I recently created when I did a training earlier this year on goal setting. And that may actually be a really good just jumping off point for them to kind of go through that workbook in the prompts that it kind of gives.
00:18:49
Christy Pennison:: But I think the first step is if you have never really sat down and created some goals for your life, is to give yourself a space, you know, maybe a few hours in a weekend or maybe it’s some time alone to yourself over a period of time and really just start to ask yourself some questions about kind of what is it that I really would like to see from my life. And I often ask people to look at this in the different areas of their life. So it could be assessing in. The first thing you need to do is assess where you feel you are in that area. So it could be your physical and mental health. Like how do you feel that is from, like, terrible to maintain your relationships, your work, our passion, your finances, your faith or your spirituality. And just also just look at it overall and really be honest with yourself, because I think you really need to know where you are right now before you can move forward to where you want to be.
00:19:52
Michelle Croyle: Yeah. Yeah, I actually did a podcast just within the last month or so. It went out and I did a similar thing on a one to ten scale. How satisfied are you with these different areas of life? And I think you’re I think you’re absolutely right. We have to figure out where we are before we can kind of figure out what’s next.
00:20:14
Christy Pennison:: Then the next step is we really got to start to help exercise what I call our imagination muscle. And, you know, when we were kids, we did this so well. Right. You can imagine imagine all kinds of things. But the older that we get, it just becomes a little bit more challenging. At least that’s what I found in my life. Yeah. So I really encourage people to take a moment to just get in a place where they feel comfortable and really try to take some deep breaths, close their eyes and imagine their life a year from now. Imagine the life that they’re living in. Maybe they’ve accomplished the goals that they set, maybe their experience, the feelings and the things they’ve always wanted. And just imagine what you would like your life to look like for your relationships, your family, your health, your faith, their finances, your work. And and imagine yourself actually experiencing it in the moment and think about what it’s like to live that, you know, and what does it feel like? What does it sound like? What does it look like? And I think that just process of visualizing what you would like to see really can be a starting point for you to start to then create some goals and intentions around what you would like to look what you would like your life to look like a year from now, five years from now, whatever that timeframe may be.
00:21:41
Michelle Croyle: Thank you. And I will put that link to the workbook into the show notes on the podcast Web page. Can you tell me, though, if you could leave our listeners with encouragement for those times when they know they’re going after a goal and it’s taking longer than they thought or something doesn’t go quite right or someone puts down their dream? What encouragement would you have for them?
00:22:06
Christy Pennison:: I would say, number one, get yourself around some people. Back to community, back to community.
00:22:12
Christy Pennison:: You have to find the people that are in the same mindset that you are, are that are even even if you’re following somebody like, let’s say on social media, somebody that you admire, somebody that seems to be in the place that you eventually want to be. And I don’t want you to get caught up on comparing your life to theirs, because I don’t think that’s always very healthy. But just being able to find somebody that you’re like, wow, they’re like.
00:22:38
Christy Pennison:: Or what it seems like their life or their relationship or their their work, that’s that’s where I want to be able to head. And so whether you put yourself in the the space of that person or whether you get other people that are also wanting to grow in the same space as you. That’s going to go a long way when you start to get discouraged because you your brain is going to want to stop you when you start doing business. Like there’s going to be times. I have it all the time still. And Michelle, I don’t know if you have this, but there are still times when I do things that I’m like, oh, do I really have to do that? Oh, when? Only a few days ago, I was excited to do it.
00:23:20
Michelle Croyle: And when you actually have to, it’s just like dragging your feet, right?
00:23:24
Christy Pennison:: Exactly. So I think when you have people that are around you to help you, that helps you when you get discouraged or you don’t feel motivated. But I think when you are creating goals, it is important to really get clear on what you’re why behind why you want to have that goal happen. So what is your key motivator for achieving the goals that you set? So when you get discouraged, you can go back to that key motivator. The reason why you started going towards this goal in the first place, and that will help hopefully re energize you and help you continue to put one foot in front of the other.
00:24:04
Michelle Croyle: Oh, I love it, Christy. Thank you so much for talking with us today.
00:24:08
Christy Pennison:: Yeah, I’ve loved it. Michelle, thank you for having me. And hopefully this can help people move forward.