Thirty-One
This week, I am celebrating my 31st birthday. Honestly, it is still hard to believe I’m in my thirties and that I’m a mom. I went from single for a decade to married and being a mom in what felt like a blink of an eye, and that’s still something I’m processing.
There has been a shift happening in my heart and life since I entered my thirties, and it has been amplified since I became a mother this year: the desire to figure out what matters most to me and focus on that. To quiet down the noise; to simplify; to put down roots; to grow in what matters.
There’s a phrase used in the corporate world to help make decisions: how does this impact the bottom line? For most companies, the bottom line is the profit left at the end of the day.
But that concept can also apply beyond this context, because if you know what your bottom line is - the things that matter most to you at the end of the day and the goals/vision you’re working towards - then you can better prioritize how you spend your time, energy, and money.
If something is going to move the needle towards your bottom line, it is worthwhile. If not, then you can freely let go, guilt-free.
A lot of people go through life not knowing their bottom line, so we chase all the things the world, social media, our parents, influencers, the media, and everyone else tells us we should do, be, buy and accomplish. Life passes by so quickly and then you look back and wonder where the time went and what all you have to show for it.
As someone who has always been really ambitious and multi-passionate, I have embraced doing all things, all the time. But becoming a mom forced me to slow down and re-evaluate what truly matters to me. Because all of a sudden my “free time” became extremely limited, and my family became a higher priority over most everything else in my life.
Now, when something comes up, I have to stop and ask (1) if it is worth sacrificing my time with my family and (2) if it moves the needle towards the vision my husband and I are working towards for our family.
At the end of each year, I complete the pre-work in my PowerSheets (it’s a goal planner that I’ve been using for years), and it’s a process that helps me gain clarity on what truly matters and what I want to focus on that year. To go along with this process, I put together a vision board for each year and keep it in a place where I can see it to serve as a visual reminder of what matters most to me and what I’m working towards.
For 2022, this looked like becoming a mom, more reading and learning, growing my newsletter, advancing in my work, working towards our dream of buying land and moving into the country, building community, prioritizing my health, building up my home, and growing deeper in my walk with God.
Ultimately, I want to be a woman at peace and content with who God created me to be and the work He has given me to do in each season. To only be influenced and shaped by God’s preferences and desires for my life. I want to be fruitful and obedient in every season and invest my time and energy wisely to steward what God entrusts to me in each season of life. I want my life to point people to Christ in everything I am and all that I do.
To do that, what moves the needle is:
Time spent in fellowship with God in prayer, Bible study and Christian community.
Investing my time and energy into my family and the people God put in my life in this season.
Stewarding the resources, talents and opportunities God gave me in each season to multiply and grow what I’ve been entrusted with. This includes my finances, talents, skills, work, health, etc.
And what doesn’t matter? The number of followers I have on social media, how pretty my Instagram feed is, people’s opinions on my family and life choices, staying forever young and chasing what my body looked like in my twenties, keeping up with trends and influencers, and the list goes on and on.
The truth is, it is the little things that make the big things. We often think that a few minutes spent on social media or a few dollars on random purchases every week aren’t a big deal.
But when you step back and look at how you spent your money and time on a macro level, you realize that a few minutes of social media use becomes hours, weeks and even years of our life, and all those small expenses quickly add up to thousands of dollars and we wonder why we can’t achieve our big financial goals.
For context, if you spend $13.70 per day, that adds up to $5,000 per year. That’s like eating out once a day, and if you gave that up, what could the $5,000 you free up be used towards to move the needle on your bigger life goals and vision?
So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. -Psalm 90:12
Because you become the woman you’ll be little by little, day by day. You build the life you envision and seek one choice and one day at a time. Those decisions become easier to make when you know who you want to become and what you’re working towards.
This is still something I’m working on daily, but it is something my husband has been a great teacher on. When he is considering any purchase, he asks if it is worth more than our dream of buying land and living in the country. More often than not, the answer is no.
One area of my life where I’ve had to often apply that thinking is my social media and phone use. I’ve started to ask myself what I can do instead of scrolling social media, because that is such a big time waster for many of us. Sometimes, that looks like listening to a podcast instead, watching an educational video on YouTube (like on homesteading since that is one of our family aspirations), or writing a blog post on my phone while holding my son for naps. Or, some days, the better thing is choosing to rest instead of scroll.
When you know what matters most to you - when you’re clear on the bottom line for you, your family, and the life you’re building, that anchors you. It helps you clear through the noise of this world. Seasons may shift, and priorities ebb and flow, but the core things that matter and the vision you’re working towards remain constant.
The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. -Proverbs 21:5
I once heard someone say that every year, or every time a season changes, they go to God and lay out all the things they have going on in their life and ask the Lord what they should pick back up and what needs to be laid down for a season or permanently. I love that practice, because it forces us to stop and re-evaluate if we are still on course or if we maybe wandered off the path and grew lax on moving the needle on what truly matters.
So, if you haven’t yet, I hope you’ll make some time to sit down, get quiet, and prayerfully consider what matters most to you and the vision of what you want to work towards becoming. Don’t wait until January 1 or a birthday or some other life milestone to do this. Do it now. Because every hour and every day is a chance to work towards the woman you want to become, the vision for what you want out of your life, and the legacy you’ll leave behind.
If you need help getting started, I have a post on how to write a mission statement for your work and/or life. I also highly recommend the PowerSheets (you can do the prep work without buying the PowerSheets on Lara Casey’s blog in the Goal Setting series).
