Ep. 23 – Resolution Alternatives

Hey, my beautiful friends. How are you doing? You know, we are into a new year and with new year’s comes all kinds of amazing thought processes about possibilities. So I just wanted to speak with you just have like a conversation with you as you’re going about your day, whatever you’re doing while you’re listening to me and just talk to you about a few things about new year’s resolutions, which I don’t particularly.

Like, and I’ll explain why and also about January. So let’s get started. What if I told you that your divorce could end up being one of the best things that could happen to you? I’m Doreen, YFA marital and family, lawyer, and certified life coach. I’ve been coaching and consulting women for over 26 years.

I’ve seen it. Now I’m sharing my expertise and my own personal experiences to help you turn a difficult time into your amazing divorce. Did you know that January has the highest. Filings for new divorces of any other month. There are some statistics that I looked up in 2016 from university of Washington.

They examined the data about divorce filings over a 14 year period. And what they found was that divorce filings spike in January. They say that, um, us lawyers have reported seeing an increase in cases of 25 to 30% in January. And according to psychology today, it may be because the holidays are over or that people.

To have a fresh start for the new year. You know, sometimes couples plan to divorce after the holidays, or if one spouse wants to divorce and the other doesn’t they usually wait until after. The holidays, as you know, I’ve been practicing for over 28 years now. Can’t believe that. And I always gear up for January because just in my own practice, I see the phones start ringing the emails start coming in.

People wanna consult about divorce and definitely for our firm. I know that there has been a trend that January usually is one of our busiest months. , you know, another reason people wait until January is generally because if you have children or you have family that you spend the holidays with, mm. You probably don’t wanna go there.

Meaning talk about divorce in the min middle of the holidays. And certainly not, you know, when the children are celebrating the holidays, Christmas, Hanukkah, whatever it happens to be. So while there is no perfect time for divorce and there is. A perfect time to divorce. If you are thinking about divorce, you might consider a new year, a new beginning, a new start, a fresh start out with the, the old in with the new, as I say.

So talking about resolutions, new year’s resolutions, you know, for some people getting a new start. Starting off fresh getting out of a relationship that is not working is part of their new year’s resolution. They have gone through the stress of the holidays and they’re feeling a bit stronger, motivated and optimistic.

So just thought that was interesting to share with you. And if you are there, meaning you’re thinking about the new year and maybe considering divorce, I’m sure you’ll you will, first of all, consult with a family lawyer in your. Area in your state that knows your law and most divorce attorneys, not all but most give you a complimentary or free consultation.

I always say knowledge is key. Also. It doesn’t hurt to go and speak with a lawyer. If you are thinking about divorce, if you wanna understand your rights, because I can tell you that nine times outta 10 or even higher after. A potential client has a consult with me. I can just see in their face, if I’m doing it by zoom or in person, or hear it in their voice, if it’s over the phone, they’re a little more relieved.

They’re like, oh really? So I get what and I’ll be okay. And here’s the procedure. So knowledge is key and your consultation is. Confidential there’s attorney client privilege. So your spouse doesn’t need to know just something to think about. All right. So let’s talk about new year’s resolutions because it kind of plays into this, right?

Um, some, some of you have resolved or have thought. About your resolutions and thinking I’m out of this relationship, others of you might be going the opposite direction saying, Hey, I’m gonna really work hard at my relationship and I’m gonna do X, Y, Z, and take some real, real action on it. But. in general, let’s not talk about divorce for a minute.

New year’s resolutions. I frown upon them because think about it. What you’re saying is I am going to resolve myself to doing X, Y, Z, but it’s not specific, right? It’s not. Time dated, it’s not set forth and outlined. It’s just like, Hey, I’m gonna lose my resolution is to lose 15 pounds or to get my finances in place or whatever it might be for you.

Right. But here’s what I wanna say for you. I want you to think about looking at resolutions differently, like kind of throwing that word away and maybe looking at some alternatives to resolutions. So whether you made a new year’s resolution or not, let’s see if we might think about the new year and possibilities and alternative to resolutions a little bit differently.

So the first thing I wanna talk about is to consider. what my coach has taught me, which is to set an impossible goal. You know, one that is kind of like so far out there that you kind of know, or you really mostly know it’s not gonna happen. Right. And the reason you wanna do that, I did this, um, recently for my business.

1. Basically an impossible new meaning 2022 revenue goal. Something that I know that really is an impossibility. And I did that because I wanna strive to get there. I’m still going to strive to get to this goal, this revenue goal, but I know that. It’s impossible. Right? It’s an impossible goal to, to reach now, why do I do that?

I do that because it helps us to be more motivated, more focused. And when you’re reaching for something super, super hard and high, then you’re gonna fall somewhere where you probably wanted to be anyhow. So, and it helps to alleviate that fear of failure because you already know that you’re not gonna get.

okay. So it helps you to learn how to handle rejection, to move past failure and to continue even when you’re disheartened, you know, which is a really important life skill. To learn that you’re going to have failure that when you’re trying to reach a goal, there is failure. What happens is we’ll have a goal that is attainable, that we know we can attain.

And the minute that we don’t get there, something happens and we fail. I’m gonna continue with business cause I’m in a business mode today. Like I might have a goal for example, to bring in a certain amount of clients over the next, um, Month 30 days. Right. And I then am gonna outline how I’m gonna get there.

I’m gonna do some networking. I’m gonna reach out to my marketing team. We’re gonna put an ad together. I’m gonna do some webinars or seminars. I’m going to reach back out to, um, what I call potential clients that saw us last year and check in with them and see how they’re doing. I’m gonna set forth all these specific.

Items tasks to get there. Now, if I go through my entire list of potential clients that we consulted with last year, which is a, which is a pretty big list that have not filed, okay. That have not gone forward with the divorce, then I, and I call all of them and let’s say, nobody’s interested. No, they, they still wanna get divorced, but they, for whatever reason, don’t wanna use us big mistake anyhow.

And, um, I could just at that point say, oh my gosh, this is not working. I failed. We failed. And just give up on all the other things that I had set forth to do. And that’s what we tend to do. We tend to have this goal that we know is attainable and once we start setting forth and trying to get there, I always use weight loss, you know, cause it’s always a struggle for me.

I’m up and down, up and down. But you know, weight loss is a good thing to think about because it’s easy for most of us to identify. Right? Most of us have had a point in our life where we’ve been a little overweight or maybe we had a child and we, you know, we got those last 10 pounds. We’re having a hard time getting off or maybe the opposite.

Maybe you’re trying to gain weight. Maybe you’re one of those wonderful people. That I look at and I go, oh my gosh, you know, she eats everything and never gains ounce, but maybe she’s trying to gain muscle and she just can’t do it. And you know, you’ll, you’ll get on the scale one day and you’ve been really, really good the whole week.

You’ve followed your protocol on your food. You’ve gone to the gym, you know, you got your sleep, you drank the water, you did everything you were supposed to do. And the scale went. Five pounds or two pounds or even a pound, or maybe it didn’t even move. And then you’re like, screw this. I’m just gonna go downstairs, you know, and get into the kitchen.

And I’m gonna make me that big, old fat, grilled cheese with the fries that I’ve been craving that I haven’t had. And you give up. Right. That’s what happens. But when you set an impossible goal, you kind of already know it’s gonna be challenging to get there that you’re not gonna get there. And. I suggest that you pick something for yourself, that’s somewhat impossible.

You know, it might be a business goal. It might be, uh, a body goal, you know, to gain X amount of, uh, of muscle over fat or, um, it might be a goal to. Do something in your home that you know, is not really doable within the year, but you’re gonna make some changes towards that goal. Some action towards it. Now, when you look at your impossible goal and you work towards it, I want you to consider writing down all the reasons that you won’t be able to achieve the.

Every single reason, just write it down. Okay. Also have a think about the kind of person you would need to be if you became or achieved that impossible goal. So maybe you’re going to bring into mind, somebody that you admire, somebody that’s already achieved that goal, write down their qualities, the qualities that you see.

The reasons that they became who they are. You know, I tend to always think about Oprah Winfrey and I think about her amazing success, you know, as a business person, as a talk show, host as an interviewer, as an author and on and on. And I think about her qualities. Why and what is it about. That got her there.

And so for you and your impossible goal, think about the person who has already reached that goal. What do they look like? What do they believe in? What kind of action do they take? Then? I want you to write down at least 10 to 15. I like to do. Ways that you are going to get there, how you’re gonna get there, how you’re gonna work towards your goal.

And each of these tasks, each of these experiments, I call them experiments because if you haven’t. Achieved a goal yet the only way to get there, because you don’t know how to get there, cuz you haven’t done it yet. Right. Is to experiment. You try one thing and it doesn’t work and then you consider it a failure.

I don’t, I consider it like, yay. That didn’t work. So let me try something different. And then you. Just keep going. So I want you to think about all the things, at least 10 to 15, maybe even 25 that you’re going to do to get there and then start do it now as a side note. Um, my husband and I, my husband, Jeff and I were at this amazing party on new year’s Eve, just beautiful, beautiful people, small group, but very successful people in the south Florida area.

But it was a small intimate group and everyone was just so kindhearted and we were new and we were invited to this party for the very first time. And, um, we felt very fortunate and grateful and appreci. All of them for welcoming us and making us feel part of the group. Um, and I looked at them and they’re a little older than us and, uh, CEOs of various companies.

I’m not gonna say any of them, but they are, um, very successful in their, in their business, but they’re also well balanced, you know, meaning that they’re just good hearted, nice people who also do other things in their life, but they’re mostly in their, you know, late, I would say mid sixties to probably mid seventies.

So we’re a little younger and I was looking at them and I looked at my husband. I said, I think I know what our. We’d like to have a, a, a saying for our new year should be. And I think it should be do it now because when I was listening to them and they were talking about. Their businesses and their life generally.

Okay. One of the things I heard over and over again was that some of them regretted, not doing certain things and that they were at an age right now that maybe they felt they were running outta time to do, or that physically they were unable to do because they’re older. And I. That’s sad. So our phrase, my husband and I for the new year, which I shared with my team is do it now.

Now there’s a balance there cuz I also have young kids. Well, they’re not young kids. I take that back to me. They’re young kids. They’re 19 21, 22 and 24. And I thought, Hey, I can’t really share that with younger people, like do it now. They’ll be like, Woohoo, I don’t have to go to school today. I’m just gonna do it.

I’m gonna go learn how to surf at the beach or something, but, so it’s balance. So I’m really talking to those of you who obviously are responsible. I know you are and have dreams. Don’t wait. We have a neighbor, two, two townhouses down that just passed a few days ago. Now he wasn’t well, and he was older, but he certainly wasn’t at an age that he should be going on, you know, going on and, and passing.

And he died rather suddenly he was not well, but he wasn’t at that point or in a position where you would think that he would pass immediately and he did. It kind of just opens up your thoughts about what am I waiting for? Why am I waiting to do certain things? So anyhow, my husband and I came home that night from the, uh, new year’s party, or I should say that morning and we actually booked a trip.

We love Kenny Cheney. We love, um, all his music. We listened to it all the time, while we’re on our boat. It’s kind of just our thing. Um, and, uh, we’re gonna go see him in Nashville. We’ve been wanting to go to Nashville. We’ve been talking about it. We had tickets to his show and it was canceled before because of COVID it’s back on.

And I said, you know what? Let’s just do it. Let’s just get it done. We got a V R B O we got the tickets and we are going, just do it all right back to resolution alternatives. So the next thing I wanna suggest is, and you got your impossible goal in setting. And outlining it, like I said is a 30 day habit tri trial.

In other words, you know how you wanna try something new, but you’re not really sure how it’s going to go, or if you’re gonna like it, I’m gonna take reading. I love to read, but I read mostly, um, for educational purposes, which I love, I read about self-help and how best to serve you guys. Meaning my listeners and I read a lot of educational type of materials and I’ve been wanting because I have one daughter who loves to read, actually she’s studying right now to be a journalist.

And I thought I really would love to read, um, fiction, good fiction books. I read a lot of biographies and, and educational. Um, materials, but I want to read for pleasure. And so I decided that I’m gonna try it on for size for 30 days. I am going to try reading, even if it’s for 10 minutes a day. Just my little personal time by myself.

I hope to do more than 10 minutes, um, and gets through some great books. So if anyone has any great fiction books, I don’t have a particular type of book. I like, you know, like mysteries or romances, I’m open to anything. Send me an email at D YFA that’s capital D. YFA Y a FFA at life balance, lawyer.com and let me know about it, cuz I would love to, to, uh, get started.

So try a new habit on for size. See what you wanna do, what you’ve been thinking about doing and see how you like it. I mean, 30 days is not a big commitment. And then if you like it, you can keep going because we know that once you start doing something as a habit, it just truly becomes a habit. The next thing I want you to do is to write a letter to your future self.

About your goal. So you’re gonna write it today about your future self and where you’re gonna be. Let’s just say December 31st of this year. So for example, you might start with the. Now, remember you’re gonna open this up December 31st, and you’re going to say you were so concerned that for example, you couldn’t get a job because X, Y, Z, and I want you to be as descriptive as possible.

Then I want you to write back to yourself from your future self and say all the reasons why. You achieved your goal, that how you feel now that you’ve achieved your goal. So I might say to myself now I’m talking my future self, talking to my present self. You were so worried that you couldn’t find a job.

You were concerned that you couldn’t get a job because you’ve been out of the marketplace. For so long, you’ve been out of the workplace for so long that you needed to go back to school, that you had young children at home and how you would balance going back to school, finding a job and taking care of them.

And you did it look how far you came, you set your mind to it and you. I want you to take this letter and then put it somewhere safe. I want you to then consider noting on your calendar, reminding you to take out the letter, read it back to yourself, see what you’ve accomplished. See what really happened, and then consider writing a new letter to your future self in the next year.

Next. Again, alternative to a resolution. I want you to schedule self care. I talk a lot about self care. I talk a lot about putting your mask on first, before you help someone else. And I want you to consider this for the new year. Taking care of yourself is a priority and it should be part of your new year’s goals.

The happier, healthier, stronger, emotionally, and physically that you are the better you are to achieve your goals. The better you are for your family, the better you are and serve the world. So consider that as part of your new year’s plan. The next thing I want you to consider for the new year’s. Bucket list.

I love doing this with my husband. We sit down. Usually we like to eat dinner at bars. We’re very, no, we not because of the alcohol though, from time to 10, we do partake, but. We just like interacting with people. Um, and so we were out and about the other day, and we said, it’s time to do our new year’s bucket list.

We looked at the list from last year, and then we started to contemplate and think about why we didn’t achieve certain things. You know, most of our bucket list items are. travel involve travel. We, we really we’re at a, a stage in our life where, you know, our kids are out of the house and they’re well situated and our businesses are well functioning and I’m always creating new businesses.

So that’s, that’s like, You know, some people like to, I don’t know, do other things. I just get such a high out of creating new businesses and opportunities and being an entrepreneur. So, but I looked at the list and I was like, wow, most of these things, most of these things on our list have to do with travel and, uh, the COVID.

So why didn’t we. Go to one Caribbean island a month. I mean, we’re in south Florida, we’re a skip and a jump to most Caribbean islands and we are just water people. You know, we enjoy the water, we just enjoy the warm weather. We’re kind of those types of people. And we wanted to, and we still want to get to every single Caribbean island.

So. We’re gonna determine which islands are open, which islands are more challenging to get into what that looks like. But we also set some new bucket list goals. We decided that we’re going to start going out more. Yes, we go out, like I said before, but we want to socialize more with friends. We wanna get to know new people.

We wanna, we have a membership here. We wanna utilize our membership. And get involved in our community. We wanna give back is on our bucket list. We wanna help people and we wanna determine what charity we can best serve based on our skills, our interest, our available resources. So with all this being said, I just wanted you to consider.

Again, I’m just having a conversation today about the new year alternatives to resolutions, some things to consider like an impossible dream, a 30 day habit, self care, and your bucket list. Think about these things you deserve. It. You’ve been through a lot. You’re going through a lot and there’s nothing wrong with taking care of what you want.

As a priority, it’s all a balanced life. Remember life is both good and bad. And if you’re going through a divorce or you went through a divorce, things will get better. I promise. All right. My friends have an amazing, amazing, amazing day. Do great things for yourself. Love yourself. And remember, yes, you can have an amazing life after divorce.

Bye. And until next time, have an amazing rest of the day. And remember, yes, you can. Bye everybody. Thanks so much for listening for tips, updates, and expert advice. Be sure to visit your amazing divorce.com. And remember my friends. Yes, you can have an amazing life after divorce. See you. Views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of nor are they endorsed by YFA family law group or your divorce law center, their respective officers, directors, employees, agents, or representatives.

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