Episode 19: Take Inventory Of Your Life

Welcome to our podcast– The Jess Connolly Podcast!

This podcast is for you. It’s not my podcast, it’s ours. It’s for people who crave light-hearted conversations and deeply spiritual truths. It’s for those of us who are busy, tired, waiting, growing, dreaming, working, or praying about what’s next.

On this episode, you’ll hear Jess share about taking inventory, the why, and the how. How can we really dive into the work of partnering with God to see fruit and growth in our lives until we know where we’re at? You’ll hear practical tips regarding taking inventory in a grace-filled way.

We pray this episode is a gentle guide if you’d like to do some reflecting at the end of the year or at the start of the new one. 

Let’s Go. 

Don’t Miss:

Get your ⁠FREE Inventory PDF here⁠ to begin to take inventory in your life today!

⁠Life School⁠ is a new coaching community for men and women who are tired + want to keep going. Get your first month of Life School for free when you pre-order two copies of ⁠Tired of Being Tired⁠! Let us know ⁠here that you’ve preordered⁠ and you’ll get your first month of Life School.

If you're looking to start 2024 by creating a habit of prayer, pick up a 6-month or 12-month prompted prayer journal from ⁠Val Marie Paper,⁠ you can use the code JESS10 to get 10% off your purchase through the end of the year! 

Love our podcast? Then we know you’ll love the ⁠GoodHard Story Podcast with Katherine Wolf⁠. Sit in on candid conversations with Katherine, the Hope Heals team, and some beloved guests as they work out what it means to wholeheartedly live a good/hard life.

Episode Transcript:

Hey friends, I'm Jess Connolly.

I'm an author, a coach, a Bible teacher and a local church leader.

And I love talking to real people who know what it means to have full lives but also want to walk in abundance.

This podcast is for you.

It's not my podcast, it's ours.

0:19

It's for people who crave light hearted conversations and deeply spiritual truth.

It's for people who are busy, tired, waiting, growing, dreaming, working, or praying about what's next.

Wherever you're listening from, if it's quiet, mundane or busy, I am praying for you.

0:39

And I'm so glad you're here.

Let's go.

Don't get me wrong.

I'm a goals girl.

I love the New Year.

I love setting goals and tracking goals and measuring how I'm doing all my goals.

But I don't think any of us can really dive into the work of partnering with God to see a fruit and growth in our lives until we know where we're at.

1:04

We can't steward our finances until we know how much money we have.

We can't know which relationships need investing and attention until we're honest about how they're going.

You've heard me say this already, but we can't even receive God's realistic rest until we know what kind of tired we are.

1:22

I think many of us sputter out of steam in the new year, setting unrealistic and often unintentional goals because we haven't first done the work of taking inventory.

I pray this episode is a gentle guide.

If you'd like to do some reflecting at the end of the year or at the start of a new one, don't be scared to take inventory.

1:44

We're going to do it in a grace filled shame.

Freeway, Are you ready?

OK, you might have heard me talk about Life School on a previous episode, but it's a new coaching community that my husband Nick and I are starting, and it is for you.

2:00

If you are a leader in any capacity, in your home, in your school, in your work, in your church, you need people to pour into you so you can live as healthy and whole as possible.

We want to coach you, to walk through your life, your vision, your goals, your dreams, because we know that you are continually pouring out for the good of others.

2:19

And so life.

School is a place to tend to your own rest, your own relationships, your own rhythms so that you can actually enjoy your life.

It's a coaching community where Nick and I are going to do live coaching where we're going to also do live Q&A once a month and then we're also going to have something called office hours where we just talk about doing this work together.

2:40

So for the first two months of the year, January and February, we are working through life inventory.

So you're going to hear a little bit about that in this episode.

But if this is some work that you want to take even further, you can join Life School by going to jessconnolly.com/life School.

2:58

But here is a fun piece of bonus information for you.

You can get a month of Life School free if you pre-order 2 copies of Tired of Being Tired?

So if you just go to jessconnolly.com, com slash tired of being tired and you've pre-ordered 2 copies and you enter your information there, we're going to send you information to make sure you get the first month of live school free this year in live school we're going to talk about how to take inventory of your life, how to cast vision for your life, how to set goals that matter that you can actually execute on, how to rest well, how to create rhythms, how to have really abundant relationships.

3:33

And we're going to do it all year long, so we would love for you to be a part.

But again, what we're talking about today is just a snippet of taking, taking inventory of your life.

So first I want to hit the caveats.

Why don't we take inventory?

Why as humans, is it so difficult for us to kind of pause and assess how things are going?

3:56

I have three reasons that might be true for you, and they've definitely been true for me in the past.

And I hope that maybe even just airing these issues and letting the light hit them will help a lot of us move forward.

Number one, we don't take inventory because we're scared of what we'll find.

4:14

We don't want to look at our bank accounts because it's terrifying.

Or we don't want to look at how our relationships are going because maybe we'll find out they're going harder than we thought.

We're a little bit terrified of the truth.

But here's two important encouragements I want to give you about this.

4:31

Number one, the truth is the truth, whether you look at it or not.

It's just true.

So the bare bones of it is whether you know how much money you have or not, whether you know how your health is going, whether you want to be honest about your spiritual life.

4:46

It already is a reality.

And so once we are brave enough to kind of take inventory and open our eyes and pay attention to what is actually happening, we will often feel empowered and not more scared.

5:03

The second truth about this is that you can't be brave until you're scared.

So I want to remind you, if you're waiting until you're not scared to take inventory of your life, that day probably isn't going to come.

But courage comes in the midst of fear, so we're going to forge ahead bravely and not be so scared to take inventory.

5:23

The second reason, which I actually think is wise and generous of us in some ways, that we don't want to take inventory of our own lives, is that we don't want to be hard on ourselves.

I don't know if you're anything like me, but I've been in seasons of my life in the past where I've maybe been in abusive spiritual settings, or I've been really tough on myself, or I've gone through long seasons of striving, and I don't want to do that again.

5:46

And so I think sometimes we equate taking inventory or being honest about where we're at in our lives as being hard on ourselves.

But the truth of it is we can move with God's compassion and God's comfort and God's grace toward honesty about where we're at, and do that not from a place of striving or shame, but honestly from a place of a desire and wanting to grow and wanting to steward what he's given us.

6:16

And then here is a hard truth if you might be like me and you might say like, I don't actually necessarily always want to take a hard look at my life because I don't want to be hard on myself.

The honest truth is this, that not taking an honest look at your life is not loving yourself well because you may be neglecting massive areas of your life where you could really be loving God and bringing glory and honor to him, but also loving your own self and the parts of your life that He's given you to steward.

6:46

Here's a third reason why I think a lot of us might not take inventory.

I think we believe that it's just easier to start over.

Let's don't in 2023 by looking at how the year went.

Let's don't pay attention to the goals that we set in the beginning of the year and how they went or how they didn't go.

7:03

Let's just get a new journal, take a fresh page, and pretend like none of it happened.

But the problem with this is that we will repeat what we do not repair.

And often for many of us, healing and freedom is bound up in the redemption of looking at what worked and what didn't in the past and why we got to where we did.

7:26

And so in the name of Jesus, we've got some potentially good reasons for not taking inventory of our life.

But I don't want us to let any of those reasons hold us back.

All right, We've talked about maybe why we don't want to take inventory.

Let's talk about why we should, why we maybe even need to #1 An incredible reason to take inventory of your life is because it is going to enable you to give God gratitude and glory for what He's done.

7:55

I want to implore you before you move on to 2024, before you say like, oh, this was a hard year, I want you to take and make space to thank God for what he's done, because there is no way that he has not moved in your life and on your behalf this year.

8:11

He has a second incredible reason to take inventory is to see for ourselves how far we've come.

We will write kind of passive and neutral narratives about our life and about where we're at and about what we've done and about who we are.

8:27

If we don't pay careful attention and explore even what God has done, what He's enabled us to do, how we've grown, how we've changed and how we've shifted, the third important reason to take inventory is to acknowledge where we want to and need to grow, to just give that some light.

8:49

And so I cannot tell you because I'm a coach, because I help people with their goals all the time.

I cannot tell you how many times people set goals that are arbitrary, that don't matter, that are motivated by unhealthy expectations, because they actually never pause to say, where do I want to grow?

9:08

Where do I need to grow?

How are things shifting in my life, and where do I want to steward them?

The fourth reason I want to encourage you that I believe we need to take inventory is because to move forward we need a realistic understanding of our current capacity.

9:26

We need to know how much time we have.

We need to know how much energy we have.

We need a realistic understanding of how much money we have.

We need a realistic understanding of the relationships that we have to take care of before we add more in.

9:42

We need a realistic and awake and a sober understanding of what we've got and what we have to work with so that we can move forward and we can grow.

So we've covered reasons we might not want to take inventory.

9:58

We have covered why we need to take inventory.

Now I want to just encourage you about some areas of your life that you could possibly pay attention to asking how are these areas going.

In a second, I'm going to give you some great tools to maybe walk through these.

10:15

And then again, we're going to cover all of this for two whole months in Life School.

But these are the seven areas that I think it really helps to pause and take inventory in. #1 is your soul.

So for me, that's going to mean my spiritual life, my walk with God, but also just my being.

10:33

How is my soul doing #2 relationships?

Whether it's family, whether it's friends, whether it's Co workers, whether it's extended family?

How are your relationships going?

#3 is space, so for a long time I wouldn't set goals or even do inventory around my space.

10:55

But this has made a huge shift in my life.

And so by space I mean like my car, my house, the actual physical space that I find myself in and taking inventory of.

How is it?

How am I stewarding it?

What do I need from this space?

11:11

What do I want from this space?

#4 Money.

How's your money?

How are your finances?

What's going in?

What's coming out?

What do you need?

What are you using?

How are you using it?

11:28

Having our eyes wide open about our money is again, sometimes scary for a lot of us.

But always, always, always helpful. #5 Your health.

I don't know about you guys, but health is one of my favorite places to take inventory.

11:43

How am I feeling?

How awake do I Feel in my body?

How present do I feel in my body?

Is my body or my physical health a distraction right now, either in a good way or in a bad way?

How is my physical health number six?

12:01

I think it can be really, really, really helpful to take inventory of your time.

How are you using your time, whether it's leisure or work or people?

Are you using it well?

Are you maybe stacking too many things in your time?

Are you finding yourself in a season with more margin and now you don't know what to do with it but you want to figure out after taking inventory?

12:24

And then lastly, the 7th area that I think it can be very helpful to take inventory in is your vocation.

Now this goes for stay at home moms.

This goes for college students.

This goes for people who work on 9 to 5 and are doing a side hustle to build some kind of a dream, whatever that looks like for you, Just paying attention to how you use your hands for the good of others and the glory of God.

12:47

How you spend your days, how you work and how you utilize the calling that you've been given is an important place where we need to pay attention and take a little bit of inventory.

All right, let's take a quick break and then I'll be right back with a very helpful and easy tool for you to take inventory.

13:09

Listen, I've got good news, friends.

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13:30

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13:48

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14:05

Get a journal for yourself or choose from their selection of journals for kids, teens, men, expecting moms, new moms and more.

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14:26

Go to shop.valmariepaper.com and use the Code Jess 10 podcast Friends, can I tell you about one of my favorite podcasts?

My friend Catherine Wolf hosts the Good Hard Podcast in some way or another.

14:46

We're all living lives that we never imagined living.

They're full of detours and unmet expectations and Plan BS or Plan C and Plan D My friend Catherine suffered an out of the blue stroke at age 26 and she's been living with lifelong disabilities ever since.

15:04

She knows a thing or two about an off script life.

Through the Good Hard podcast, you've got a seat at Catherine's table as she shares her hard won experiences on surviving and even thriving within her constraints.

15:21

Catherine and her amazing guests let us in on how they've developed emotional agility, found purpose and their pain and become better after being broken.

We believe the good story and the hard story can be the same story.

You're going to love my friend Catherine and her amazing podcast.

15:42

OK?

In the show notes you are going to see a link to get a free downloadable PDF that you can print out and use on your own or you can use it on an iPad.

You can take it to have lunch with a friend or use it with a spouse and it is my symbol Red, light yellow light green light tool that I use for quick inventory moments.

16:01

Now, again in life school this year, we're going to do 2 whole months of talking about inventory and I cannot tell you how incredible that is going to be for a year, foundation of growth and fruit and wholeness.

But if you are just getting started and you want to dip your toe into the water of taking inventory, you are going to find in this PDF a red light, yellow light, green light system for evaluating the different areas in your life.

16:31

So I want to unpack it for you really quickly.

Red light means that when I look at this area of my life from soul, relationship, space, money, health, time or vocation, if I put a red light beside that area, that means I need to full stop and pay attention to this.

16:50

I need to pull over on the side of the road, I need to get out of the car and I need to fix something.

This is an area of my life that for good or for bad, really needs attention.

The yellow light means, hey, this area of my life is going okay.

17:07

I can proceed with caution.

It may need some stewarding this year, it may need some attention, it may need some growth.

But Okay can kind of keep going, as is.

A green light means this area of my life is actually going great.

It doesn't mean massive attention right now.

17:24

And I wanna just advocate right now for not being scared to give parts of your life a green light to say, you know what, maybe I worked on this last year.

Maybe honestly, God's just brought a little organic growth here and I don't really have to pay a sense of attention.

It is incredible.

17:41

It's not prideful.

It's actually really helpful to acknowledge the places in your life that maybe don't need a ton of shepherding or stewarding right now.

And I want to just tell you that if you see all red light, you might be being a little too hard on yourself.

And if you see all green lights, it might be time to pause and say like hmm, how can I be a little more self judicial?

18:01

Again, in this PDF you're going to find a little different area for you to say red light, yellow light or green light for every single one of these areas.

And then even take that a step further.

But this is a quick way that if you're just having a conversation with yourself or with a friend or with God, you can say where are the red lights, where are the yellow lights, where are the green lights?

18:21

All right.

We wanted to keep this quick and light and easy because again, in life school we're going to ask much more in depth questions about all of these areas.

And we're going to talk about things like how did it get this way?

How can I move forward?

Where do I need help?

18:37

Where do I need guidance?

How can I celebrate the areas that are going well so that I can really give God glory and thank him for the parts of my life that are green lights Right now?

We're going to spend two whole months taking inventory of our lives.

And here's what I know so that a lot of people like to start in January and like, say like we're raring to go fresh day, fresh page, let's take the land.

18:59

But what I also know is that setting goals without taking inventory is usually very exciting in the beginning and not as fruitful in the end.

And so if you're ready to have a year where you don't just make a bunch of resolutions and then you forget them six months later, but maybe instead take a deeper exploration of your life and get with God and do it in a soulful and intentional way, We would absolutely love to have you in life school.

19:28

Life.

School is for men and for women.

It's not just for men and women who are married.

It's for all of us.

Again, it's for anyone who considers themselves a leader in any way, shape or form, whether you're a leader in your home, whether you're a leader in your school, whether you're a leader in the office, whether you're a leader in your church, whatever that looks like.

19:45

We just want to pour into you because we know that you are pouring out in so many different ways and in so many different spaces.

More than anything, I want you to hear this about taking inventory.

It gives us time to hear from God.

It gives us time and space to fight shame and striving so we don't just step into the new year carrying the pain or the failure of the past.

20:09

And it also often helps us to open our eyes so we can start making immediate changes in our life when we know how things are going and how we feel about them.

Again, if you're interested in Life School at all, you can get a month for free when you buy 2 copies of Tired of Being Tired?

20:26

You can find all of that at jessconnolly.com slash Tired of being tired?

Let me pray for us as we close.

But here's a reminder.

Go to the show notes and download the free PDF to help you take some quick inventory from your life.

Father, I thank you just for the insight and the wisdom of Holy Spirit to enable us to look at our lives, to be honest about where we're at and about where we want to go.

20:49

I pray that you would give us compassion and gentleness toward ourself and that we would know that you are compassionate and gentle with us as well.

Help us to just break free from striving and shame.

Help us to have a desire to wanna see growth, to wanna see fruit and not just close our eyes to how things have been or how they could be.

21:10

We love you.

We're doing this all for your glory.

In Jesus name.

Amen.

Friends, I'm so grateful you listened to today's episode.

Thanks for spending time with me.

It would mean the world to me to connect with you.

21:27

So you can send me Adm on Instagram at Jess A Connolly or head to my website, jessconnolly.com for more ways to connect.

If you have a minute to subscribe and leave a review of the podcast wherever you listen, it would massively help us reach more people with the good news that they can live fully awake.

21:45

Let's go.