Episode 22: Sharing My New Year Goals
Welcome to our podcast– The Jess Connolly Podcast!
I LOVE the New Year! I love vision casting and goal-setting and this year I’m making it even more thoughtful and gospel-centered than in the past. On this episode, hear Jess share her 6 personal goals for 2024 while she also shares the HOW. How she sets them, how she tracks them, and the heart behind these goals. This episode is for you if you are a ‘Goals Girl’ but even if you are someone who feels hesitant about setting goals. We hope this episode is encouraging and freeing for you!
Let’s Go.
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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.
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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.
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And I'm so glad you're here.
Let's go.
Like many of us in the last few years, I've gotten better at being gentle with the new year, more thoughtful and more gospel centered.
I've stopped doing the wild cyclone of striving at the beginning of January only to sputter out of steam a few days in.
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But don't get it twisted.
I still love the new year.
My husband calls the new year my Super Bowl, and I find that while every year I'm open to not necessarily having clear and defined goals, I often still end up with them. 2024 is no exception, and I'm using this episode to share my personal goals for the year as well as how I'll be checking in on them.
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If you're a goals person, I have a feeling you're like me and you love hearing about other people's goals.
If you don't love goals, if you haven't said any for the year, I pray this episode is still encouraging and maybe even a little freeing for you to hear the behind the scenes of someone else's goals.
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Let's go.
All right, friends, if you've listened to the podcast for any amount of time, if we've been friends on social media for any amount of time, you've probably heard me reference or mention the fact that I love goals.
I am a goal setting gal.
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But preparing for this episode, I started to ask, When did I become like this?
When did I become so obsessed with setting goals?
When did the new year become such a big deal for me?
And I kind of started tracing back in my life and I want to say my mom is a big goals person and I watched her set goals my entire life growing up.
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She loved the new year, She took it seriously.
She would share her goals, she would act on them.
So I feel like I had a really good example in her.
But I think for me, the very first year that I kind of took some ownership over this process and maybe found a lot of joy in it was the year 2010.
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So that was obviously about 14 years ago.
I want to kind of set the stage of what my life looked like in 2010.
Number one, I hope you can laugh with me at myself a little bit about how I used to be about goals, but also maybe to give some different settings for women who might not be in the same life, season or stage that I'm in now.
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You can hear about what it looked like for me in a different season.
So in 2010 my husband and I lived in Seattle.
We had a 2 year old, A1 year old and a baby.
So at new year 2010 my oldest would not yet have been three, My second was not yet two and I had a maybe like 7 month old baby so I had three kids under 3 that same year.
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We had just transitioned out of full time ministry in a nonprofit into just kind of like regular life.
We were in formal ministry.
We were just going to a church, and again we lived in Seattle.
We had moved out to Seattle to be a part of this ministry and then left it after we had kind of reached our limit.
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And so we were just living, but we were actually in a really kind of perilous and heavy season.
We had left the ministry in the middle of the recession and so finding work was really difficult for Nick.
And also he was in seminary at the time.
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I think he was wrapping up seminary.
I think he technically graduated in like May of 2010.
Our kids were obviously very young, three under three.
I don't think any of them were body trained.
I was a stay at home mom who had very little resources.
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I did not have any outside work and I did not foresee myself necessarily having any outside work for the future.
I thought I would be a stay at home mom for the next couple of like maybe, I don't know, a decade and I just didn't perceive that I'll be working outside the home for a long time.
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So it's just kind of a weird and like quiet and bleak season for us.
And that holiday season, I remember that we really wanted to go home for Christmas and we couldn't afford it.
And some of our family members were crazy generous and bought all of our family tickets home to fly home.
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But because they were being so generous and buying tickets for us, we couldn't afford tickets anywhere, like around Christmas.
And so we got tickets on December 26th, or maybe we even flew on the 25th, I can't remember.
And then we stayed until early in the new year and sometime over that break where I was so grateful to be with family, to have help with my kids who were all so little.
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It felt like we just had like a gentle change of scenery for a couple of days.
I remember I bought a fresh notebook and I went to Starbucks and I sat down and I really set goals for the first time in my life, like New Year goals.
And I remember sitting at that Starbucks and this is where I want you to laugh with me a little bit.
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You guys, I went so crazy.
I remember setting really detailed and really stringent goals about every area of my life.
I think I wrote down probably like 100 verses Bible verses that I wanted to teach the kids.
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My kids who could barely talk.
I think I set a lot of like home making goals and cleaning goals.
I remember setting a lot of like discipleship and mentorship goals.
I want these people to speak into my life.
I wanna speak into these peoples lives and I set blogging goals.
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At the time I was a mommy Blogger and I just, I remember they were so detailed.
I wanna say that I had maybe 8 to 10 pages of notes and I remember taking them to my mom because I was so proud.
And I wanted to show her and say, like, look, I'm a goals girl now too.
And I remember she was so kind and she was like, I love this for you.
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You know, don't feel bad if you can't accomplish all this, but like, I love this for you.
And then I remember a few days later sharing the same goals with a friend.
And I remember her not being as generous and she was like, this is way too much, like you can't do this much.
I can't quite remember if I set goals the next year or the year after that.
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But I would say by like 2014, it was a really serious rhythm for me and one that felt really helpful for me.
What shifted, I would say, between 2010 and maybe 2014 or 2015 is that I started to see goals less as an opportunity to change my whole life and become someone new.
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And I instead started to see this rhythm of setting goals at the new year as a better way to steward what I already had.
And so I have noticed that still now when I set goals, some of them are about something new I want to do, but most of them really are about taking care of what I have.
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And so that's the first kind of piece that I want to just share with you as an encouragement for someone who would say, like they feel intimidated by setting goals or they have like a big side eye at the whole thing, that may be a fresh approach.
Instead of saying like, how are you going to take new land and how are you going to change your whole life.
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And, you know, you guys know, listening to this podcast that we just kind of reject this notion of like New Year, new you because we believe that God made you and placed you where you're at on purpose.
And we're constantly being made new.
But he's not asking us to become a whole different, tidier, better versions of ourselves.
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Maybe this idea of approaching the idea of setting goals at the new year as less about changing yourself and more about stewarding what you have and growing it and tending to it and nurturing it, that might be an approach that's more life giving.
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And you're going to see that really kind of played out in my 2024 goals.
OK, so 2010 is the year I can really remember starting to set goals. 2014 is when it became more of a constant rhythm for me.
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I want to tell you about the year that changed everything for me, goal setting wise, where it really became not just something that I liked and that I enjoyed and that I felt hopeful about, but something that I relied on.
And for me that was kind of reset.
That was the year 2022, and in 2022, early 2022, when I started to set goals, I got more specific about lead measures versus lag measures.
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So if you are familiar with the business world at all, or if you know somebody who is, these might be phrases that you're familiar with.
But for me, the idea of lead measures versus lag measures and applying them to my goals really changed the game.
So if you're not familiar with these phrases, hear what they mean.
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So a lead measure is something that it's an activity or a rhythm or some kind of movement that helps you achieve a goal.
A lag measure is how you track or measure the success of your important goal.
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So what's interesting is that I notice when a lot of people set goals, what they're actually doing is they're identifying lag measures.
They're saying I want my life to look this way, but they're not paying attention to lead measures.
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So we're I'll talk about this a little bit in my goals for the year, but knowing that I didn't want to just maybe name some nebulous vision or even some fruit I wanted to see.
But for my goals, I wanted to identify lead measures, activities I could actually do that I could actually mark off that I could actually accomplish.
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That helped me to see my goals totally differently.
Because instead of looking at them a month later or six months later or a year later and saying did I do that, I'm not really sure.
It's kind of a nebulous thing.
I could actually look at my goals and say, I did that.
I accomplished that.
10:40
So again, we'll talk about this as it goes forward, but I find that this is a wildly different way to set goals.
So I want to give you an example of what changed for me in 2022.
Instead of saying I want to take care of my health, I thought about the types of rhythms that would help me take care of my health.
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And even more than that, I tried to look at some domino effect rhythms in my life that I knew if I did this one thing, then I would do five or six or ten other things to take care of my health.
So IN2022A domino lead measure that I made.
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A goal for the year is that I wanted to run 400 miles, and I knew about myself.
If I run 400 miles this year, if that was more than I had ever run in a year, if I broke it down month by month, if I made a goal, if I ran a couple of times weekly, I knew enough about myself to know okay.
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If I'm running that much during the year, I'm gonna have to be weight training.
If I'm running and weight training that much during the year, I'm also gonna have to be focusing on my nutrition.
If I'm focusing on my nutrition, I'm gonna be wanting to support it with supplements.
So this one kind of lead measure of I wanna run 400 miles this year, instead of just saying I wanna be more healthy or I wanna be more active or I wanna exercise more, it really helped me.
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And so that's when I started watching all of my personal goals and making sure that I was putting measurable lead activities on them rather than just kind of loosely defining the lag measure that I wanted to see in my life.
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And again, I'll talk about this a little bit and how that plays out in my goals before I share my six goals for 2024 with you guys, because we're friends, because this is my podcast as well as it's yours.
I want to just be vulnerable with you.
And I want to say that sharing my goals with people actually feels pretty tender.
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And you'll understand a little bit more when I tell you about my word for the year and kind of like my entire ethos behind how I'm setting goals this year.
But I just want to be honest to say I don't know if you hear a lot of people just kind of like boldly or excitedly exclaiming this is what I'm going to do.
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I want you to hear the underside of that, too, which is #1.
It makes me vulnerable.
I don't know why, but I always feel less tender talking about my hardship, my weaknesses and my failure than I do about my success.
And I think there's still something in me that is in a lot of us that feels insecure.
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When I start to talk about things that I believe God has called me to, I feel like if I take a step forward, if I say I want to do this well or I want to do this thing, or I I feel called to this thing, that there will be some, like, judgment or some misunderstandings about me or about whether I want God's glory or my own.
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And I am not saying that because I need you to tell me, like, no, we love you.
It's great.
But I am telling you that to kind of model for all of us that sharing our goals with people can be really vulnerable.
And Lord have mercy, we don't all need to share them on a podcast.
But if you feel tender, sharing your goals with people you can check in with, I just want you to know that's human.
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That doesn't mean you're weak, but I also if it's helpful for you to see someone being courageous and saying, you know what, this does feel tender because number one, what if these things don't come to fruition?
And #2, it feels tender because I know I might be misunderstood.
If I can model bravery and courage for you in that way, I want to.
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OK, before again I tell you my sex goals for the year, I want to tell you a little bit about my word for the year and how I came up with it.
So back in December, my team got together for our Team Retreat or going to AL's Team Retreat.
And when we have a lot of extended time like that, what we really do is we spend a lot of time talking about our who.
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We talk about the women that we coach.
We talk about what we feel like they're struggling with.
We talk about how we can serve them best and what we most want to tell them.
And as we all sat in that room at the team retreat, we all agreed that we thought something that maybe a lot of the women that we are coaching are struggling with is this idea that they need to hide behind their mediocrity.
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That if they're great, if they try hard, if they try something new, if they're even good at what they're called to do, if they succeed, that they'll somehow face judgement, or that they'll be so scared of trying to do something good that it'll be easier for them to just stay put, to stay where they're at.
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And as we all kind of said, like man, we have so much compassion for this woman who might be hiding behind her mediocrity a little bit, we all said.
And that's in us too.
And I felt that maybe more than anyone, I was like, honestly, this has been my struggle for years.
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It's so much easier for me to be that version of myself than to really bring my full self to the table, to bring my full strategy to the table, to bring my full leadership to the table, to bring my full desire to the table, even my desire for God's glory.
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Like, sometimes I feel like I have to turn that down to serve people well, to make them feel more comfortable or safe around me.
And so sitting in that room at our coaching retreat, I just said, like, I really don't want to do that anymore.
I really want to work on that.
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And so I kind of tucked that into my heart and carried that with me as I prayed about 2024.
Then one morning, the week between Christmas and New Year, I woke up and I was journaling.
I was praying a little bit.
And I just kind of told the Lord, like, I don't have a word for the year yet.
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Do you have a word for me?
And immediately in my heart, the word victory came to mind.
And I was like, well, I would love if that was my word for the year.
But I don't know if that's what you're telling me, God.
And I think probably I want that to be my word for the year.
And I don't know if that's you or if that's me.
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And so I remember just kind of praying out loud.
I think I wrote down in my journal guide I would, I would love for my word of the year to be victory.
Will you kind of confirm that?
Will you show me that?
That's not just a desire I have, but that's what you're saying to me.
Later that day, my sister popped by and she was like, hey, can I come over real quick?
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And I said, yeah.
And she, we sat down on my back porch and we're just kind of enjoying some December sunshine.
And she said, hey, I want to tell you about this exercise that I think that all of us need to do this year, she said.
I think for the adults in our family, we're all really close.
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We talk about our goals a lot, she said.
I think it would be really helpful if we said to each other the one thing that we really wanted each other to work on this year.
And you might be in relationship with people who that would not be safe with, who they would use that as like a weapon against you.
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So don't do that with those people.
But we all really love each other.
And I think we probably all see each other as like more strong, I don't know, more gracious, more capable than we see ourselves.
And so it's a safe group of people that we could go to each other and say, what if we share one thing that we'd really like to see the other person work on?
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And I said, I love that Katie, like, have you thought about mine, what you would say to me?
And she said, yes, I have it ready for you.
And I want to say it right now.
And I was like, OK, I'm ready.
And she said I would like to see you take more authority.
And she said, specifically, I would like for you to take authority in your rest with this book.
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And she said, you act like you're not the expert, but you are.
God has taught you a lot about this.
You can really help people.
You need to stay keeping your own authority in your rest.
But I think you need to act like the authority when you put out this book.
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And I was like, OK, OK.
A few minutes later, Nick, my husband, walked outside and she told him about the exercise.
And she was like, all right, Nick, this is what I want all of us to do.
And so he was like, I love it.
And so I was like, babe, do you feel like you can identify the one thing you'd wanna tell me?
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And he was like, let me think about it for a second.
He sat down.
And then he looked at me and he said, I'm just kind of, like, fatigued at seeing you act like you're not an expert.
And I'd really like to see you be more courageous and brave in your leadership and just live out the, like, strength and victory that you have.
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And he said, specifically, I'd like to see you do it in your book.
I don't want you to play small.
And I was like, Oh my gosh, it's so crazy because these people who are so safe for me, who I love so much, who I respect so much, are both saying this to me.
And I said, can I tell you guys that this morning I was just kind of praying about my word for the year?
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And I think it might be victory.
And I said, what I sense God saying to me is, in a spiritual sense, how would you live this year out if you knew you were going to win?
How would you live this year out if you knew you were going to win?
19:39
I highlight for you that I really do mean in a spiritual sense, because I don't care about winning in a worldly sense.
But I think so many times I hold back on the gifts God's given me, or the words he's given me, or the jobs he's given me, or the roles he's given me, Honestly, because I just, I'm so much more comfortable in the mediocrity of, like, not trying that hard.
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And so I don't know.
I'm still kind of thinking on all this, but I just want to read.
One more thing to you guys that for me has kind of tied this all together.
And again, so I shared that idea with them.
And I said, do you guys think that maybe this might be like what God's telling me about my word for the year, about victory?
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And they were like, yes, that sums like really what we would say to say to you about both of these things.
And I was like, OK, that's really encouraging.
So a few days later, I was again praying about it.
And I don't necessarily, like, always have to check things with God like 10 times.
Like, if I feel like God said something, I'm going to go with it.
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If it lines up with scripture, if it's good for other people, if it brings the glory of God, I'm about it.
But I kept kind of going back and checking this word victory and saying, like, is this really you?
Are there parts I need to understand about it?
And so I was researching different references to victory in scripture, and my study led me to Romans 8 and specifically the Romans 8 passage that says we are more than conquerors.
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What's so interesting about that language in Romans 837 is different Translations say different things.
NIV says that we are more than conquerors through Christ.
But the NLT says despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours.
And so studying the Greek of that word that more than conquers overwhelming victory, it really means like, more than winning, surpassing victory.
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And so as I was, like reading that and praying about that, I was like, God, That's what I want.
I don't even want winning from a worldly perspective.
I don't want other people to look at me and be like, oh, she's winning.
I want more than that.
I want why build eternal spiritual victory?
I want to walk into every room knowing that you came before me.
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I want to step up to every podcast episode or speaking opportunity or writing episode or whatever it is.
I want to know that it's not about me winning, but it's about the fact that through your love you've purchased victory, and that I get to show up for the good of others and the glory of God.
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But partially why that Romans 8 was so beautiful to me is because Romans 8 is one of the only chapters of the Bible that I used to have memorized in full.
I'm going to see if I can get it back this year, and I started memorizing it in 2010 because those words in the beginning of Romans Eight were so important to me.
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There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of of sin and death.
And so what's so beautiful about Romans 8 is that it walks through all these theological perspectives about how condemnation cannot come for us and we cannot be separated from the love of God.
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And there's no one who can come against us when God is for us and we haven't received a spirit of fear.
But all of this is rooted in the fact that we get to call God ABBA Father, and that Jesus is our friend and Savior who has purchased this victory for us.
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And so it's just such a deep and theological perspective on victory.
So I'm gonna be studying Romans 8, hopefully memorizing again the whole chapter like I used to have memorized.
And now I think under that banner, I'm finally ready to share with you my 2024 goals.
23:15
Let's take a quick break.
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GO Teams is for you.
You can go ahead and get on the wait list right now and GO Teams starts in February so we would love to have you see the link in the show notes to get on the wait list for GO Teams 2024.
24:55
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26:59
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OK, we're back.
Without further ado, here are my 2024 goals.
My very first goal is to disciple my kids.
27:16
So for the past couple of years I've had some kind of family based goal and again I try to focus on lead measures instead of lag measures.
But my goal is not always this specific wording.
For me, this year, more than creating a life giving family environment or even in past years, my family goal has been like have a certain number of date nights with Nick or nurture our relationship in some way.
27:42
But this year I just sense God really wanting me to intentionally set time aside to lead my kids.
And especially as they're all kind of important places in their life.
My older three are teens.
They're really developing their life plan and what they're going to do and their relationships and their rhythms.
28:03
And so I want to come alongside them with all of my gifts and coach them and be on their team and help disciple them.
But again, I'm focusing on lean measures versus lag measures.
So I don't want to just end the year and say, like, did I disciple my kids?
I don't know.
So I'm setting pretty specific tasks for how I'm going to do this.
28:22
Now I want to pause right here and talk a little bit about setting, parenting, mothering, loving family goals for anyone that might have one of those goals themselves.
And if you don't, this is still, I think, really helpful.
So this is where focusing on lead measures is so important.
28:39
A lot of times if I'm coaching a woman and I'm helping her set goals, I will notice that she will have a lag measure as a goal for her family.
So for example, sometimes I've coached a woman and she would say something like, see all of my kids walking with Jesus.
28:57
Well, that is not a goal.
That's a hope.
That's a prayer.
But as mothers, we cannot control whether or not our kids walk with Jesus.
We can control how we speak life around them.
We can control how often we talk to them about salvation, but we can't control what happens in their life.
29:16
Or, for example, you can't set a goal to say, like, you know, a year from now, I would like all of our family to be more loving.
That is not a super helpful lead measure, because you can't necessarily quantify it or make it happen.
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But when I say my goal is to disciple my kids, what that looks like for me is I'm setting specific mothering goals, parenting goals, strategic ideas that I actually can check off, what happens to them, what happens for them, what happens next is God's.
29:51
That's his fruit.
But I can control where and how I invest my time and how I speak with them.
So some of the tactics that I'm going to take this year for this goal is things like having a family night every single week, writing kind of individualized discipleship plans for each of my kids based on where they're at and what they need.
30:12
And again, what they do with that, how they grow from that, that's totally up to them and that's totally up to God.
But I will know that I will have invested where I feel like I'm supposed to for this season.
So goal #1, disciple my kids.
Goal #2 is I would like to launch a best selling book.
30:32
If you've listened to the podcast at all, you've probably heard me talk about the fact that Tired of being tired comes out in April.
And this is where I kind of vulnerably tell you as an author that there's a tension here for us.
So if you haven't heard me say it before, I'll just tell you this right now.
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I don't really ever want to make an apology for saying that I want to have a best selling book.
And here's why if you haven't heard this Authors make very little per book.
We make about a dollar at most per book sold.
So this is actually not about money.
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This is about lives transformed.
So when I spent a year of my life really researching and writing and editing, tired of being tired, I did all of that because I actually believe that God wants to provide realistic rest for women.
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I actually believe that many of us, if not all, are exhausted in ways that we don't have to be.
And I use that space and time and that work because I actually truly want to see women experience his kindness and his goodness through rest.
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That being said, I want as many women as possible to read it, so I want to write a best selling book.
I want it to do well because I want women's lives to be transformed.
I want communities to stop living so exhausted.
I don't want women to feel like they're striving so much.
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I do want us to get more sleep.
I do want us to take better care of our bodies.
I do want us to feel more mentally and emotionally awake to what is happening in our lives, but there's this tension for authors where you just pour your heart and soul into a book and then it can kind of feel like you have to just hand it over to God and see what happens.
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You can do a certain amount of things to hope it does well, but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
And the beauty of having written so many books and published so many books at this point in my life is that I know there are launches where I have worked my tail off and it's gone really well, and there are book launches.
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I've worked my tail off and it hasn't necessarily had the same effect.
So that being said, when I say I'm going to launch a best selling book, I'm still paying attention to lead measures versus lag measures.
So some of the lead measures I'm paying attention to for launching a best selling book are things like, I'm going to write a personal playbook for the launch.
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So a personal playbook for me as an author is going to look like I post this many times on social media.
I send out this many newsletters.
I show up in this way to keep telling people about my book until they hear it and hopefully want to take that knowledge and insight for themselves.
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I want to just give a tiny asterisk right here because a lot of times I will hear people who want to write books or want to do any kind of ministry or mission in any kind of way, and they'll talk about marketing and they'll say I just could never, I just could never promote myself like that.
I hate promoting myself.
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And if you're hearing any of this and hear me say like I'm going to show up with this playbook to promote myself, I want to tell you what I will tell women in coaching.
And that is this.
I pray in the name of Jesus.
I will not be promoting myself one day of this entire book launch.
What I will be promoting is wisdom about God's realistic rest that is compiled in a book.
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So I will not be saying look at me, I'm the expert on rest.
I will not be saying look at me, I've got this all figured out.
I will not be saying look at me, I'm so great, I'm so tidy.
But I will be saying, hold on, here's this message.
I took time to research God's word and read other books and to ask him for insight.
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And I've put it all together in this one place for you.
And I believe that if you'll take the time to read this book and ask God about your own life, you might actually experience wildlife change.
So I just want to say that in case you're someone who's like, I'd love to write a book, but I could never promote myself.
Or I'd love to start a business, but I could never promote myself.
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Or I'd love to have a podcast, but I could never promote myself.
Don't, don't promote yourself.
That's not what marketing is do.
Share about what God has given you to do and how He's enabled you to serve people and tell them here is how I want to serve you.
So I'm going to write my own personal playbook for the book launch.
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One of my lead measures for launching a best selling book is that I'm going to write and abide by my own REST rules.
I refuse to get to this book launch and be tired because I've been telling people about tired of being tired, and so I'm going to take that word from my sister to heart and if nothing else, I'm going to be an expert at my own rest and I'm going to obey God to keep resting.
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Along the way, I'm also going to do things like faithfully showing up to record this podcast and other people's podcast starting next week.
Between now and April, I have like 2 to 3 podcast recordings a week at least to talk about the book and to share the message of the book.
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So I'm going to faithfully show up to those and hope that people will hear those episodes and be encouraged and want to buy the book.
So goal #1, Disciple my kids.
Goal #2.
Launch a best selling book.
Oh, the book comes out in April.
Why is that a goal for the whole year?
Book launches take about a whole year to nurture.
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It takes about a whole year to keep telling people over and over and over again.
Hey, here's the message behind this book, because people often have to hear over and over again before they want to get that message for themselves.
My third goal for the year is that I want to live simple and supernatural.
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So symbol and supernatural is actually a phrase that my husband Nick came up with about our church a a part of our culture that he really wants to see us live out.
And I've always loved that phrase and it's always something I've prayed, but this year I want to make it an actual goal for my life.
So just so you know what that looks like, some of the lead measures that I'm going after is I want to declutter.
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I want to cut our spending.
I want to stop scrolling reels and I want to make more space for the supernatural in my life, whether that's listening to worship music when I journal in the morning, or praying for healing for people, or even just making time and space to listen and obey God.
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If he tells me to do something that is maybe not a part of my normal plan.
I know that I need to live more simply, to see God move in a more supernatural way that the more fussy and loud and cluttered my life is.
Often it's a lot easier for me to miss or not hear him or not pay attention to what he's up to, because I'm just maybe like stewarding that mess a little bit more.
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So I'm gonna spend the first half of the year really working on the simple part, and then I'm gonna write some hopeful lead measures to agree with God and see more of the supernatural come to fruition in the later half.
All right, The next two goals, you guys, I think I might be the most excited to share these.
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I have to really tamper my excitement, to be honest with you, because it's a little too much right now.
My fourth goal for the year is that I want to get in the best shape of my life.
And here is why I'm so excited about this goal.
I think that some of you may hear me say this and write all kinds of assumptions about what this means, and that's why I want to talk really specifically about it.
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But the reason I think I feel most excited about this goal is because I truly feel invited by God.
As you know, I wrote the book Breaking Free from Body Shame.
I do not play with Body Shame.
I don't mess around with it, to be honest.
It is an area of my life where I have wild victory.
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I do not cosign on any messages of body shame.
I do not care about what the world says is aesthetically beautiful or acceptable for women.
I want to love God and worship God with my body and that's what I care about.
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I wanna live free and stay free, but I feel this invitation from God not to fix my body.
Because again, to me, this is the core truth of breaking free from body.
Shame is that we don't have to make our bodies good, but we get to treat them like they're good.
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And I feel this invitation from God to see what my body can do.
Strength wise.
And here's the back story for me.
I grew up thinking that I was incredibly unathletic.
I grew up thinking that I was not strong, that I was not capable, that I could not work out.
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And for me, actually the process of breaking free from body shame, of breaking up with diet culture and unhealthy rhythms, of eating and going after a certain shape or size or even a number on the scale.
That coincided with me realizing I actually loved to move my body when I wasn't punishing it.
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And so, about 10 years ago, I realized I loved fitness.
I loved running.
In the process of writing, breaking free from body.
Shame.
I actually became a fitness instructor and got multiple different certifications because I realized I loved leading people in this way.
But again, I think for the past couple of years I've had this kind of damper of mediocrity and I have Honestly, I'm being really transparent with you guys.
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I believe this lie that if I really stepped into the fullness of what my body could do fitness wise or even health wise, that it would somehow hurt people and they wouldn't believe me when I talk about freedom.
And so when I started asking this question, what would it look like to really walk in victory?
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And what would I do if I was really kind of taking the authority and the victory that's mine for the taking?
What would I do?
And I thought I knew immediately.
And so here's the lead measure for me for the whole year of what it looks like to get in the best shape of my life.
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I do not mind telling you, I have literally no number on a scale goals at all.
I do not care.
I do not care what size pants I wear.
I do not care what the scale says.
So what this goal looks like for me, fleshed out.
Is that on my 40th birthday which is August 17th, 2024?
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I would like to do a 40th birthday workout and I am working with my current personal trainer right now at my gym to come up with a workout that is more advanced in like weightlifting and different measures than I can do right now.
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But that is like a really good, healthy challenge for me.
And she's working with me to figure out okay, how many pushups would that be or how many pull ups would that be?
And how much would I deadlift and how much would I bench press?
All of these things that maybe scared me two or three years ago, that I maybe was just like, I wanna be free, but I'm not trying to be like extra in the gym.
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And now I kind of want to see like, what would it look like to stop hiding behind this banner?
Of like, I just want to keep it chill, no big deal, don't make a fuss.
But what would it look like to set these goals and try to do them on my 40th birthday?
And then ideally, I would love to still be able to do that work out at the end of the year because I just want to really take care of my body.
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I don't want to fix it.
I want to see now, outside of this banner of feeling like my body isn't good.
What can it do and how could I steward it to the best of my capacity?
So I am so excited about my 40th birthday workout.
If you want to come to Charleston and do it with me, you can.
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I know a couple of the parts of it right now, but I'm not even going to share the measures of it because the point is, it's what is a challenge for my body in this season.
And some of the things, if I told you like I want to do XY and Z, you'd be like I can already do that.
That's not hard.
And some of you would be like, oh, I would never want to do that.
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And that's why it's so beautiful that walking in freedom from body shame means walking with Holy Spirit and knowing what is healthy and whole and free for our bodies to do.
So disciple my kids, launch a best selling book, live simple and supernatural, get in the best shape of my life.
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My fifth goal, that again I'm so excited to share a little bit more with you guys about is we're going to move into our new house.
And so to tell you about this goal, I have to tell you about our new house because it is really kind of a wild God story that I haven't gotten to talk about on the podcast yet.
Here is the very short version.
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In 2020, Nick and I went on sabbatical, our first sabbatical from leading our church, Bright City.
And while we were on that sabbatical, God gave Nick the vision for our family getting into real estate.
And Nick came and told me and he said, listen, you know, we're going to be in ministry for the rest of our lives.
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But I want to steward our finances.
Well, I want to help provide for our kids.
So I think I want to get into real estate on the side.
And I was like, babe, I don't even know what that means.
And, like, we don't have time for that.
And I did what I unfortunately do a lot of times when my husband tells me some kind of vision is I, like, talked him down from it.
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But he was like, no, Jess, I really do feel like this is God, what God wants me to pursue.
And so he started praying about it and he started trying to understand the real estate system.
Fast forward to spring 2022.
So almost two years ago, there was this particular commercial building that Nick was watching in downtown Charleston that he really felt like would make a great office for go and tell gals that we could also rent out.
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And it was just kind of this like magical place and it had gone off the market and then it went back on the market.
And the day that it went back on the market, we made an offer for it.
Very Long story short, we should not have gotten to go under contract to under that building because we couldn't offer the most money for it.
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But we did.
We went under contract for this commercial building and it was gonna be partial office for Gwen Tell Gals and partially a space that we could rent out to make money for our family to help send our kids to college, pay for braces, etcetera.
So we were so pumped about that, but right after that we really went into like a wild permit purgatory.
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We could not get the right permits for the building and we knew we would eventually, but it was taking so long and it literally took an entire year.
So we owned that building for so long and it wasn't until late spring 2023 we had demoed the building but still not moved in.
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My team was sharing a tiny office at Bright City and still not moved into our new office and we were like, God, what are you doing?
And so Nick and I would just pray about it every once in a while.
And we felt confident that we would eventually finish the renovation.
But we were like, at what time and at what cost?
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This is like so aggressive and we would just kind of pray about it and try to trust God.
And in the midst of that, someone came and made an offer on the building that would enable us to sell it at a massive profit.
And we were stunned.
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I mean, we were stunned speechless.
And it was so beautiful for me to go to Nick and say, like, I am so grateful that you listened to God and you heard from God about this because this is something we could have never made happen, like, in our own strength.
This is only God.
This is a miracle.
So without even thinking about it, honestly, I mean, we prayed about it a little bit, but we felt like this is wild provision from God.
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We'll sell the building at this profit.
And so with that money, we actually ended up buying in July 2023, a new house.
And this new house I honestly, literally feel like, is God's house.
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Like we want to use it to be generous and open with as many people as we can.
And we have a lot of ideas about how to bless other people with it, not just our family, but our community and our friends.
And so we bought the house in July 2023 and we immediately started renovating it.
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That's not true.
We did not immediately start renovating it.
We immediately started the renovation process, which means that it too now has been demoed and we will actually begin construction on the actual renovation of it, hopefully within the next couple of weeks.
So that being said, I want to steward this wild blessing that we do not deserve.
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I want to steward it well and I want to be able to be incredibly generous with this house and I want to do it in a prudent way.
I want to be, you know, so careful and cautious with the money that God has provided to be able to do this.
But I also wanna do it excellently and I want it to be a joyful process and I wanna have fun.
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I honestly, probably one of the reasons why I haven't talked about this online, I haven't talked about it on the podcast is I spent a lot of 2023 having to talk to God about how to process blessing.
Because again, like I shared at the beginning of this podcast, it's often easier for me to share and be transparent about my weakness or about my problem or about my failure.
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But knowing how to process blessing when you didn't deserve it, when you didn't earn it, and when you just have to steward it, this is absolutely not a hardship.
But it's something that we should take time in our souls to be able to do.
And so I found myself really tender and like not knowing how to communicate with people.
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And now I'm just trying to be brave and to be honest and say this is something God blessed us with.
Now we need to finish renovating this house and move in and then we want to steward it well and be generous with it and bless other people with this home.
But it is going to take a significant amount of energy for the year.
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And I think quarter one is going to look a lot like finishing the plans for the renovation.
Nick and I have our hands kind of knee deep in the whole process of it.
And then I believe the second quarter is going to hopefully prayerfully look like packing up this house and moving into our new house, which by the way is just you know a couple of streets over.
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And then the last half of the year I think will look like kind of normalizing in the home and unpacking and taking the time to get used to it.
And then the last half of the year or the last quarter of the year I'd really like to spend being intentional about how we can be as generous as possible with the home and inviting people in and hosting people etcetera.
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So it's a whole goal for this year which again is going to happen anyways.
It's not a whole new part of my life that I'm conquering, but one that I want to steward well and and really dedicate some energy to.
My very last goal for the year is that I want to lead, go and tell Gals to growth.
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So if you don't know, go and tell Gals is the business that I run.
We coach women and we also coach women to become coaches specifically in their calling.
We help women use what they've got for the good of others and the glory of God.
And we do that through a variety of different ways.
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And the last few years, I've always had a go and tell guy's growth goal, but to be honest, my growth goals have been centered more on internal growth.
The business just started in 2018 and so it's really taken from 2018 to 2024 to get an understanding of what it is that we do and how we do it and our culture.
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But now I sense God really kind of saying like, listen, you've strengthened the stakes.
Why don't you spread out a little bit and take a little new ground and see how you can help coach more women and help lead more women, and I'm so excited about that.
We are launching our first coaching group of the year, which is called GO Teams, and it's a group coaching program for authors and for communicators, people who want to either preach or teach or podcast.
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And we do group coaching for women in small business and also group coaching for women in ministry.
And so grow teams is something we've done every single year.
But this year I just sent Scott saying let's press in and see if we can serve some more women through GO teams.
If GO Teams is something that sounds interesting to you, you can absolutely see the show notes and find out how to get on the wait list because it launches early this year and we're so pumped.
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You guys.
If you made it through that episode, you're a trooper, I hope.
I hope it wasn't boring.
I would love to hear your goals.
Listen, share them with me on Instagram, send me Adm, tag me in a post, reply to an e-mail.
I want to hear what God is doing in your life and doing in your 2024 and how he's pointing you in the name of Jesus to grow and steward what it is that you've got.
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Here's a reminder that if you haven't even started setting goals, you can also see a link in the show notes to get our New Year's Goals guide.
It's grace filled and gospel centered.
It is not going to exhaust you and it's not going to lead you to striving again.
You can also see that link if you're interested in GO teams.
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If you're a woman who feels called to small business, communicating, ministry or writing, we would love to get on your team through GO Teams.
Lastly, before we leave, I just want to pray for you and bless you and say thank you for being here in 2024.
Father, I thank you for these women.
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I thank you for what you're doing in each of their lives individually.
I thank you that we get to be women who set goals.
We get to be women who say, what are you doing in our lives and how can we steward this?
Well, thank you for giving us insight, Holy Spirit, thank you for talking to us.
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Help us to approach any goals we set with the gospel as our banner and grace as our guide.
We love you.
We bless you.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
Friends, I'm so grateful you listened to today's episode.
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Thanks for spending time with me.
It would mean the world to me to connect with you.
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.
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Let's go.