The “Do Something List” is the one thing that really started this all – the blog, the podcast, the community, and everything else. Several years ago, and six months before I turned 30, I had an idea to create a sort of bucket list. I have spoken about this time in our lives before, and share more in the episode, but it was truly a time where I just did not feel like myself. From the outside, I had everything I wanted, but on the inside I felt like a shell of myself. Pursuing that first list helped me find me, and I have made one every year since.
In this episode I’ll walk you through exactly how to create your own Do Something List, and you can get the DSL training that I reference to follow along with me. I’ll explain what it is NOT (no goals! no shoulds!) and what it IS. The most important thing to remember is that this list will not be something that you fear, it will be something that feels fulfilling and grows with you in your current season. You’ll hear me go through the whole process as I create my own 2023 list, with steps to support you if this is your first time or fifth time doing this.
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TRANSCRIPT
Monica: Welcome to the DSL workshop. I’m Monica Packer and you have been answering some great questions as you’ve been coming into this workshop. Why are you here? Even just reading these comments is so exciting for me because it means you already know a lot about the DSL and what it serves. We have a range of ideas.
I’m not gonna read each of these, but some of you want to, to do a different way of, of finding yourself. You don’t really feel like you want to accomplish goals as much, but you still want to accomplish some things. You want to grow. Outside of perfectionism, goals don’t work for you. Some of you are asking deeper questions like, what is my purpose?
Some of you just want to have more fun or to feel rejuvenated. Others of you want to have more time to yourself to rediscover who you are. And you want some ways to do that. Let’s see. More fun things. We’re seeing a lot of that thread, which makes me really happy. I love the idea of having an experience list more of a stressful goal list.
And I, oh, thank you for this comment here. I created a DSL two years ago and it changed my life. Can’t wait to have another progressive shift in my life. So obviously you are here for many reasons. Some of you, it’s because goals and resolutions aren’t appealing to you or they haven’t worked well in the past.
Others of you just want to supplement goals and resolutions, but in a non-pressure kind of way you want to add to them. Some of you feel really lost and a lot of you want more fulfillment in your life. I first created my own DSL a couple years ago, and it’s based in because of, I just didn’t know who I was. I, if you asked me like, who are you? I, I feel like I would’ve been like, huh? I don’t know. I don’t know who I really am right now.
And that’s pretty scary. And if I were to answer that question, why are you here? I would answer actually all of the above.
Like I, I needed all of those things. Goals and resolutions at this point in my life were a no-go. I was so stuck in this all or nothing cycle of perfectionism with my life and personal development. I didn’t know how to work towards improving myself or knowing who I was or prioritizing myself in ways that weren’t.
Like hyper diligent. And because of that, I didn’t make goals and resolutions for years. I’m gonna tell you a little bit more about my story in a bit, but I will say this is a picture from me from seven years ago, and this is right before I made my first DSL and the Do something list totally changed my life, and I did not expect that at all.
And it has changed so many other women too. And I, I wanted to start our workshop with a little bit of an explanation of what the DSL is, what it isn’t, and why it works. And I’m gonna be really upfront that there’s nothing for sale. So just sit here, be open and learn together. This is going to be, I mean, a lot of you know, teaching, but mostly it’s gonna be informal like workshop time.
And my goal by the end of this is for you to have your own DSL in hand or really close to it. So let’s talk about what a DSL is first. For those of you who are new to it, this is how I define a dsl and it’s taken on many different shapes of my life and definition.
But this is really how, what I feel like it is a DSLs, a personalized push to explore fulfillment in your daily life. Now, there’s some keywords there. One obviously is personalized. The second is push, the other word is fulfillment and daily. Those are some of the key words I would point out there.
And this is to help those of you who kind of tend to get stuck in the all or nothing cycle like I really did in the past. And it’s still pretty tempting for me now. And this list is really just for you. It’s to help you with this in your life, to find more of who you are, to do something, to be yourself.
And it’s about the exploration, not about completion. So with this, let me tell you what, a DSL is not, okay? A DSL is not a list of shoulds. A DSL is also not a list of goals or resolutions.
They’re very different. And a big part of this workshop, I’m sure is going to be devoted to helping you recognize the difference between the two. And as part of the workshop, we’ll have some time for you to ask me questions about like, what is this? Look at this item on my list. Is it more of a should or a goal?
Or how do I word this? So it’s more of a DSL kind of list. But let’s just start by saying if it’s feels pressure driven or prescription bound, or more of like, huh, I feel like I should do that, or I should want that, then that does not belong on the dsl. That is not what the DSL is. To better help you understand what it is, this is where I’m gonna tell a little bit of my story.
So I told you seven years ago, this is a picture of me. And at that point in my life, I really would have a hard time to answer, like, who are you, what, what are you about? And I also was stuck in that all or nothing cycle I told you about. And this picture was shortly, I think about two months after I’d had my third baby.
And I had three kids, four and under. And I just felt really lost. I felt lost to good intentions, lost to wanting to be a good fill in the blank, a good teacher, a good wife, a good mother. And it just morphed into me really being stuck on the sidelines of my own life.
And at this point in my life, I, I have a pretty clear memory of my husband and I driving to his family’s home around Christmas time for just like a little family get together. And as we’re driving there, I am just thinking about. This big milestone I have coming up and the milestone for me was turning 30 and I’m, I’m definitely older now, right?
But at that time it’s, it felt like a pretty monumental time. And you know, sometimes we go through little mini midlife crises. For me, this was more of just like this realization that I had spent, so all of my adulthood actually, not just so much of it, almost all of my adulthood on the sidelines for myself.
I could show up for the people who needed me and the responsibilities who needed me, but for myself, I stayed stuck. And that was largely because I was afraid. I was afraid of failure. I was afraid of not getting what I wanted. I was afraid of messing up. And another big thing was I was afraid that if I were to prioritize my interests, my own development, my own hobbies, and my own goals too, things like that, that it would come at the expense of the people that I cared for.
So that held me there for so long, but approaching that milestone really made me think differently. It, it kind of like put me straight a little bit and made me think, is this how I wanna feel ? Like every decade I’m approaching a new decade where I’m just like, I do, I say the, that I wanna do these things.
Like I, I say I’m interested in writing, but I never write. I, I, I used to read, but I don’t really read anymore. And I, I know eventually I want to, to work outside of the home, but I have no idea what that could even look like. Cause I don’t even know what I’m interested in anymore. It felt really startling to me, but in a good way.
And as we were driving to my in-law’s house, I kind of thought about these bucket lists that people have and I thought like, what if we had a bucket list that wasn’t so big, like hike Machu Picchu or like, you know, more about traveling and like, even though those are really cool, but really like huge experience base, which I knew I could not do, but what if there was like a bucket list of sorts that was just about me rediscovering who I was and what it meant to feel like myself again?
And what if that list was not a goal list about me meeting certain targets? What if it was just about in the trying? The point was to just be in the trying. In other words, I was allowed to be mediocre at things. I was allowed to be messy. I was allowed to not complete things or even the full list. And right there in that car, I opened the notes app of my phone and I started brainstorming what that kind of bucket list would look like for me.
And it turned into what additionally was called 30 before 30, and then later I called the do something bucket list. And now it’s just the do something list. Because for me, what it was really helping me do primarily was to move away from all or nothing, and instead do something. Do something to prioritize my fulfillment, my joy.
My interests, my passions, and I want to emphasize that this is, again, coming from someone who really did not know what any of those were. So it wasn’t like I had like this whole dependable list of things I already knew would help me feel like myself. For me, at the time it was, I really don’t know what that is.
So what I thought I would do is show you my original DSL again, it used to be called 30 before 30. And I’m just gonna put this up here for a minute. You don’t have to read each of these. I’ll read a few. Learn how to watercolor. Go to 10 new restaurants, take a mom day. People always wanna know what that is.
Just means day off from my responsibilities. My husband just takes over for the day. I wanted to visit certain places, read 30 books, which I hadn’t read in a long time. That was the first half. And the second half. Things like staying in a hotel running a race. Going to a concert eating at a really nice restaurant, going on a major bike ride, which is cool.
I ended up biking to the top of this big mountain nearby us on this really awful bike . So, as you can see from this list, like none of these things were newsworthy. I mean, no one’s going to put on a headline. Monica Packer went to a museum, right? Or that, congrats Monica. You’ve read 15 books. None of this is like Pinterest worthy, headline worthy.
It’s not something that people would be like really congratulatory of me completing and yet in doing and prioritizing what was on my DSL slowly, but sure. A lot changed in my life in the ways I didn’t even fully recognize until hindsight, right? But most of these shifts were internal. I began to feel different.
I began to feel more of surprising things. One is that I felt more confident even though I was totally mediocre at everything I tried, and I didn’t complete or succeed in like everything I, I did. But I strangely still felt more confident. I felt more like myself, which is just kind of this intangible feeling.
But once you know what that feels like, you know the power of it, you know that this is what I feel like. I feel like myself. I felt strong. I felt more calm. I felt more value driven in my life. I also felt less resentful of my responsibilities. And the things that I chose to do with my life in terms of my day-to-day work in terms of caring for children at that point in my life.
I felt less resentful of them because I felt more whole and I learned a lot. But one of the biggest things I learned was that the transformation lies in the process, not the outcome. And for me, that was especially huge because I didn’t know that in my life at that point. Like for me, it was all about arrival.
And it was either about doing everything you could to get to an arrival, an outcome, or holding myself against my lack of getting to an arrival. Like basically saying, look at me. I’m such a failure. And everything I learned, I could change in the process. It wasn’t the outcome that changed me, it was the process that changed me.
And as I said, most of those changes were internal, but I had another kind of moment that helped me see the literal changes I was going through. Now, one is I don’t have a picture of, so I’m just gonna tell you about it. Like I told you about, resentment faded a lot for me. There’s a really clear experience.
I had pre DSL and post dsl, and they both involved me sweeping the floor. A regular chore that really made me so angry. At one point, and I, I, you know, had done that so many times, or I’m just sweeping the floor and feeling kind of bitter and resentful and, and just angry, which is not me. It’s not who I am.
But I had had a lot of anger, a lot of rage. Then after the dsl, after I had worked on that, I think I’d already had my 30th birthday. I was sweeping that same linoleum floor that you could tear with like anything like even your toenail scraping against it wrong. And the, and the flooring would tear.
And I’m sweeping that terrible floor, and I had this thought, and the thought was, I feel so fulfilled. And that’s when I realized my life hasn’t changed much, but I’ve changed and I feel like myself. And to me, that’s what fulfillment is. So when I gave you that definition of what a DSL is, I’m just going back to that definition really quick when I gave you that definition, fulfillment is when you feel full of yourself.
And I’m not saying, you know, full of yourself like a bad way. I actually want you to feel full of your real self. And that’s what I felt. And that was honestly miraculous at that point in my life. And then there were some literal changes too. So much was internal, but there were literal changes.
Changes in how I was showing up to my responsibilities, changes in how I was feeling. That really affected the people around me too, in positive ways. But there was also literal changes. And one of them is kinda funny. I think I’m gonna share this with you. This is like, I took a picture before I started my dsl.
And to me, this is not about like, I I I zoomed in to the most important to me, part to me it’s the eyes. If you can see the difference in the eyes, the left that you’re seeing is pre dsl. The, the right is one year. Into this experiment. And to me it’s not the mascara cuz I have pictures with mascara of the same before and after.
And next time maybe I’ll include one of those pictures. It’s that the me, like I can see me in the picture, in the right, I can see my eyes, my light was different. And that was startling to me that I was still experiencing literal changes. So something interesting happened. Alongside of that, I began to share about this DSL with my about progress community.
Part of my dsl, by the way, was starting a blog and that blog turned into my podcast. So you often can’t predict what a DSL will lead to. And as part of that podcast, I started sharing about this, this list that like really was kind of fun and interesting and changed my life, but I didn’t think people. One act on it, and two think much of it, and three, that it wouldn’t make much of a difference for them.
But I was happily wrong with that. What we began to see is that other women were experiencing real change too, not just me. I, I’ve gotten comments like this over the years. I don’t feel as depleted. The DSL helped me have fun. Again, it helped me prioritize myself in ways I felt stuck. It taught me the power of Doucet thing.
I scroll my phone way less, which is like one of those kind of fun ones, like, oh, didn’t even know that could be a great byproduct. I love what Paula said in the, in the chat here. It’s not focusing so much on the destination, it’s about focusing on the journey and join the process. That’s a huge revelation for a lot of us, and that’s what the DSL has helped other women learn to do too.
I also wanted to share, and these actually came from literal comments I got from people. I wanted to share screenshots with a few too of some that I think go under this umbrella of the most common thing I’ve heard from people saying it changed my life, which really blows me away every time I hear that.
So we see like it helped make time to the things that I enjoy and changed everything. It brought joy in my life. This one I loved right here. Just, it’s such a beautiful experience that she was able to have. She did 27 by 27, which is her version of the DSL, and it changed my life. I had really bad depression for several years and just doing something and just for fun, it changed me.
I hadn’t felt like myself in five years and boom, the clouds parted just a little bit. You helped change my life. And those are one of like the ones where I’m just like , you know, feeling like, oh my gosh, I just wanna cry and let’s go back. What this list is really for. We talked about how it’s a push for fulfillment in your daily life, but you get to decide what that even feels like for you.
For some women, that list is things that scare them. Other times it’s stretch, it’s inspire, it’s empower, it’s move, it’s challenge or it’s comfort. It’s, it can be purely about comfort if that’s what you need. But no matter what, you’re gonna get these same kind of byproducts that these women have had. You know, you’re going to be able to feel like you have more fulfillment, you’re gonna have more confidence, and you’re also going to have more of that personal knowledge that I also got here.
The biggest lesson that the transformation lies in the process, not the outcome. So before we move into actual workshop time, which is just about to happen, so thank you for staying here for this part because I think it’s really important for you to know what this is because otherwise it’s really, really easy for us to go right to our old models of what it looks like to grow ourselves.
The all nothing models, I want to tell you about one woman in particular. Her name’s Ashley. She was actually on the podcast this past fall as a coaching client that I shared the, the the, the replay of the coaching call with her permission, like she went into the coaching call knowing it would air on the podcast.
She originally actually came into this coaching call thinking that we were going to be talking about her morning routine, and it became really clear in our chat together that what she really was lacking the most was fulfillment. Just general fulfillment and I tried to bring up the DSL for her a little bit.
We talked about it on the coaching call and I could tell she was resistant to it and that was totally fine. But the reason why we found she was resistant to it is because she thought it was a hobby list and she didn’t think hobbies were for her and she never really had them. But she also just didn’t wanna do like a list of hobbies.
So we talked more about what the DSL really is. After the call, I sent her the DSL guide and then she moved through it, and then she kept sending me a couple emails as I asked her too about her progress. And she sent me an email that she gave me permission to share and I wanted to read it to you.
She says, I wanted to email you to just say how much the do something list has helped me. I had heard you talk about it on the podcast, but just didn’t really think it was for me. I viewed myself as someone who didn’t have hobbies or honestly, as someone who didn’t really enjoy doing things. I love my people, but I thought I was just one of those people with a low baseline for happiness.
I can’t say that life has been perfect or I haven’t had hard days, but getting unstuck from the idea that I am not someone who enjoys things and giving myself permission to try things and hate them, and only do them once, freed me up to find things I truly enjoy doing. Even pregnant, which she now isn’t.
She just had her baby a little bit ago. She said, I feel more like myself than I have been in a while. So thank you. That is what we are going to create for you through this dsl. So here’s what we’re gonna do. I am actually going to start by giving some examples of real DSLs. Again, this is to help you in the creation of yours.
Hopefully you have your guide here. I printed that off cuz I’m gonna create my DSL for 2023 alongside you today, we’re gonna spend a lot of time just working through this guide. Without me talking, without any of us talking, we’re gonna get to work. But in order to help you do this well, I wanted to share some examples of what of real DSLs.
So these come from women in our community. Let’s go to this one. And what I want you to do while you’re looking at these is I want you to just notice some things. Like tell me in a few minutes, what do you notice? And you actually can you put it in the chat Now, what do you notice about these?
Okay. I’m already laughing at the one that you noticed. Taryn, my favorite item so far. Stop being PTA President. That was such a good one, right? Just tell me some things you notice about them. We’ll take a minute.
Fun exploration. Yep. What else? What else do you notice?
Taryn, each was unique, varied, individualized, and creative. Jessica, I’m noticing that connection, fun, and learning are all on them. Madison, everyone’s was so different. Lindsay. No pressure. Lots of cool stuff. Not many shoulds. Curiosity. Discover, try, explore, learn. Those keywords are beautiful.
Yes. Trina, you’re right about, the numbers can be daunting if you go too high. And we’re gonna talk about that, Becca. Some are personal, some with a spouse, some with family. Very unique to what people must like to do. Or try some family time, some alone. Mm-hmm. , this is great. So some of the things that people tend to do are things that you might notice on that list.
Sometimes people attach numbers to certain items. That’s totally optional and we’re gonna talk about how it’s usually better to do lower numbers. But you can always tweak the DSL too, just so you know. We’re gonna talk more about that too. Some people do it theme-based, like sometimes they know I want this year’s DSL to be all about creativity.
Other times it’s, I want it to be all about adventure or rest. Or sometimes they break down their DSL into many themes. It’s so individual, right? There’s some goal crossover and a few of these, let me show you one in particular where this one was actually, yes. This one, the first one version of this one was very goal-based and I helped her refine it to be more de something list based.
So initially this was more like she wanted to eat healthier. So the top one, discover five to 10 recipes that includes of fruits and veggies. That came after. I said, okay, if you want to eat healthier, that’s a good goal, but a DSL version is more about exploration.
So what could help you explore a goal you want? So sometimes your DSL helps serves a goal. Other times there’s a habit that helps serve your DSL . There’s some crossover there, but in general, you want your DSL to be about exploration. Taryn your 2022 DSL was about connection. I love that.
Okay, so here’s what I really want to emphasize with your dsl, and I have this in the in on page one of your guide here, that the dsl, each one is unique to its creator and it’s even unique to the time in which the same creator makes one. So you will likely make more than one DSL in your life, especially if you have a good successful experience with your first one.
I will give you tips on that too, but some are long, some are short, some are theme based, some are all the things. My first list was all the things. My first list was really long. My 2020 list was really short and it changed a lot over the course of that year, and it was more about just helping me be sane
So summer are just for a season, summer for a year. You can do a DSL for a couple months if you want, or you can have it for a whole year. Okay? But no matter what, each DSL has the power to help you get off the sidelines of your own life. It’s that personalized push to explore fulfillment in your daily life.
And because of that, a lot of women struggle to make their first dsl. And that’s what we’re gonna do now, because there aren’t prescriptions, I don’t give you like this. You need to have this many items. It needs to be for this season of time, it needs to have this theme. It needs to have these kind of areas of your life.
It’s not about that. It’s about you. But let’s go to the guide now because this is, We get to do the work together. If you have the DSL guide in front of you, or if you can pull it up electronically, I first want to just tell you, this has five sections to it. The first part of actually creating your DSL involves reflection.
This is super important, and many of you might wanna skip it because it’s a little painful sometimes to reflect. This is coming from someone who gets that, because I tend to not like to write in my journal because I don’t like to reflect . It just feels hard, but it’s so important. So we’re gonna move that through that together.
The next section is to brainstorm, then tweak. This is really important. Define and share. What we’re gonna do first is move through the reflection part together. Whether or not you have the guide in front of you, the literal guide, or you just have your notebook. We’re gonna spend time going through those sections, literally together now.
Then we’ll do the brainstorm section together. Before we define, I’m going to give you some tips and define means. You’re gonna create your list and these tips are for both. Before you define your list and after how to be successful with A DSL.
Then we’re gonna talk about what tweaking looks like, and we’re also going to share. So now let’s do this. I am going to pull up, The actual guide. I’m gonna share that screen with you if I can find it. There it is.
Okay. So we’re gonna start with reflection. Here’s where I’m going to invite you to, one, have your DSL or a notebook in hand, but two, also be ready to maybe place some music because we are going to take like, you know, three to five minutes per section here under reflection. And again, I’m doing this alongside you.
So let’s start with this very first explanation and then we’ll move into the questions here. The reflection segment is designed to help you uncover what can help you reconnect to your past self. So that’s why we need to have this reflection. And it also helps you discover. Exploring what your soon-to-be future self could look like.
Okay. We’re cuz we’re bringing those two parts together here with the DSL. So let’s go into that first question. What were you naturally drawn to and curious about as a child? I’m gonna hit mute on my side cuz I’m gonna be writing away. We’ll take about three minutes and then we’ll move on to the next question.
And for accountability’s sake, we have about two more minutes of this question go into the comment section if you can, and just share one thing, even one word you can just say Harry Potter, or one of mine would be climbing trees.
I’m gonna read a couple examples. All things animal outs, animals, sorry. Outside play, writing, imagination, poetry, exploring and playing outside, dance. We got another climbing trees, eating, love it, pottery .Trina. I wanna do scouts with my brothers. Yeah. So you wanted to adventure sounds like, making performances and directing them with siblings.
Okay. This is great. For those of you who feel like, I don’t remember, just put yourself back into that time. Imagine the things that you would do in your spare time when you didn’t have school or chores or even at school. What were you interested in learning about and exploring?
Okay, you’ve jotted down a few ideas there, and for my accountability, I’m holding up my sheet. Now. Let’s go to the next question. Recall what you used to be interested in before life and responsibilities happened. So this is less about childhood and more about maybe young adulthood or even older teenagehood, maybe pre-children if you’ve had children, maybe pre big like life responsibilities, like career and and work like, you know, before life got to you, , what were you interested?
We’ll take about two minutes and for accountability, please again, go in and share something.
Here are some ideas for those of you who might be struggling a bit. We have traveling, performing music, playing a piano, exploring new places. Music, that’s actually one I put for my husband cuz he, he loved to like, make playlists and stuff like that and go to new concerts. He like went to yellow card before people knew who they were.
And that’s a part of his life that was used to be really important. Photography, watching football and basketball, visiting museums. Art history is one I put down.
Making things, okay, if a section is hard for, you know, that you can just come back to it. But the English teacher in me is gonna say, if you just start writing, more ideas will flow too. So even if you just write down one word here, there’s no complete sentences needed in this guide. Just start writing like one word.
And even one word is enough. First section. Okay. Or, or theme here. I like what Kelly said, changing, challenging myself physically was something she was really interested in. Thanks for sharing that. Okay, let’s go back to the guide. Let’s go onto the next question, and that next question is, this is like anytime, and I would say childhood, young adulthood to adulthood.
Now, if you can recall sometimes where you have felt fulfilled, meaning like yourself, what were you doing in those moments when you have felt most like yourself? My first answer to this personally would actually be, I have clear memories of feeling like myself even when I’m depressed or resentful or going through a hard time when I’m on a top of a mountain.
I feel like me. That’s one example I could give of that. So we’ll give you three minutes for this one, and if you can for accountability, share in the chat too.
Now, some of these will be really experiential based. Like you might have a really profound memory, but others might be just another word for you. Like an example here. Volunteering. Okay. Or cross-stitching. So like another example for a memory for me is riding on my bike. As I was riding home from teaching and out of afterschool program and riding my bike home and just feeling so alive, it was the teaching that really helped me feel alive.
So for me, that’s both the memory and one word I could put here. I’m gonna share some of the examples When I’m in the sun and with nature doing math, sitting with my feet in a stream, I love this. Dancing with no ambitions, singing at the top of my lungs. This is helping me think of what I even forgot about performing was always something I used to make me feel like myself.
So as we’re seeing ideas here, you’ll get more. driving my car on a road trip. That’s a beautiful answer. Training animals.
Okay. I think we are ready to move on. I hope you’re beginning to see are some threads here. You’re beginning to see some ways that you can uncover and discover who you are.
You’re be being able to identify some commonalities that we can carry into your dsl. All right, let’s go to this next question. What would you love to do but you think it’s too late to try? These might feel a little dream oriented or goal oriented. It doesn’t matter. Still put some things down or they might feel so small and insignificant that you’re almost embarrassed to put down.
Doesn’t matter. We’ll give you two minutes on this one, and again, for accountability, go into the comments, which have been so helpful in helping us get ideas.
Great examples here. One I first thought of was a bigger one, like going back to school, but another one is being in a play . Like I don’t really know how to act, but that’s something I would love to try, but I think it’s too late. We have relearning the violin. Write a book, being in musicals. Programming, creating an app. Art, there’s a lot of piano, guitar, banjo, violin lessons, swimming lessons. Ooh. I wanna talk to you, Cassidy. Relearning the piano. Great job. Okay, well done. Let’s now go to the next question. There’s not too much more here. Think about what things you see other people do and you and you think, I wish I could do that well, that looks fun or that looks interesting or fulfilling.
Or, I wonder if I could for years that that was for me blogging. That’s actually why that was on my first 30 before 30 list is startup blog, because that was the thing I always saw other people doing and thinking, I wish I could do that. Another one in recent years has been rock climbing. Oh, that looks cool.
I wish I could do that. Spend two minutes on this question.
Okay. We have some other things. We have quit my job and started a business, run a marathon. Photography, gardening performing music, traveling with friends, hosting people at my house without worrying about decorating cross country road trip out of a van rv. Rug Tufting. That sounds awesome. Cook without a recipe.
That’s a cool one. Sing in a choir, own bees. Hmm. Cut Flower Garden. Mm-hmm. . Fantastic. D I y. Home improvement. That’s a cool one. I feel like half of my search feed on Instagram is about that. . Well done. There’s two more. The first I want you to to do right now is what is missing in your life? For some of you, this will be a feeling, an emotion that you were just missing in your life. Maybe an experience, maybe it’s like not little others do. It will be literal. Like there’s things that you know you need a part of your life.
Again, like maybe you need music in your life. Maybe you need therapy in your life. Just go with what the answer feels like.
We have some great examples here. Beauty in my living spaces. That’s a really interesting one. Spontaneity, lightness, creativity connected time with loved ones. Fun playfulness.
Confidence or trust in myself. Satisfaction. Clear head space, focus, movement. Joy, downtime, connection with others.
Organization. Yeah. Balance and courage. Ooh, good stuff here.
Final reflection question. How in your life do you feel the call to be pushed? Like in what ways do you feel I need to be pushed in this area, or I want to explore this area, or I need to prioritize this, this thing. This is almost you kind of identifying some threads and what you’ve talked about all before this.
What are some of the threads here? Or maybe there’s not a thread. Maybe it’s a surprising thing for you, like maybe, you know, you need to prioritize adventure. Or you want to prioritize rest or there’s a big like umbrella of, of creativity maybe, you know, you need to prioritize being with friends, having regular time with other people.
Let’s give you about another minute, and I’m looking forward to seeing your answers too.
Okay. Let’s share some of these examples here. Some of you know you need to stretch yourself, explore some of these things, time with other women, follow through in inviting people.
Decluttering.
Developing new friendships, making my body a priority, art, fun, rest. Also not shying away from the scary things like writing a book and Jessica that do something was originally that for me it was to do something that scared me. So sometimes that’s a good one to feel.
Lou, for you it’s identifying what you want to say that you have to show for your life. Less mindless phone and internet time. More time for reading, music, art, friends. Yeah. Really letting go.
Hmm. Okay. I love what you said here, Paula. I want to feel like I accomplished that thing and not just survived. That is what your DSL is for. We are moving away from just surviving life to really feeling like we’re living it. Okay? Good stuff, my friends. Good news here is we have moved past this section and now we’re ready to brainstorm.
I am not going to give you a ton of advice yet. We’re gonna do tips next. But right now we’re not editing right now. We are, we’re not worrying about is this a.
Is this a habit more or is this a DSLs? We’re not worrying about any of that. We’re not worrying about is this too big, is this too small? Is this right? Right now we are just going to brainstorm and this is where I am going to give you, I’m gonna start with five minutes and just push you to just do as much of a brainstorm as you can on that five minutes and then we’ll likely take just a little bit more time if needed.
And the reason I’m starting with a smaller amount of time is because sometimes that push is what will help you to begin to write and the ideas will begin to flow. One tip I have for you and the only one I really have for their brainstorming, besides do not edit. As you write, all our ideas are good ideas, just go back to some of the threads you see there, some of the threads in that reflection and how you can turn that into some DSL items.
So if I want to. I’m gonna give an example here if I know something that I want to prioritize or I feel the push to, to, to prioritize. Right now I’m looking at my, my own guide here is that I want more creativity. What are some items on a DSL list that can help me do that? And that’s what I’m gonna brainstorm right now.
Like, attend a watercoloring class with a friend, or even on that same, that same thread there, watercolor a painting, like a, a card or something for a friend as a, as a gift. You know, a way to explore it. Okay, my friends, let’s give you time.
Okay, we are five minutes in and that went really fast. . I’m thinking we need more time. So let’s do another five minutes. If you can put an exclamation mark in the chat if you want for sure. Another five minutes. Or do a period if you’re like, Hmm, I’m good.
These are fun ideas. I’m gonna share some of them while you’re doing your exclamation marks for more time periods for I’m good. Paint my nails at least once a month. Great idea there. Host a, a murder mystery party getting lots of exclamation marks. Okay, so we’re gonna do that. Learn a new crochet technique.
Learn how to play john Legends, all of me on the piano. I’d love how specific these already are, you guys. Okay, five more minutes. So we’ll go to 15 after the hour and I’ll check in.
That time flew by a little fast too. Hopefully you’re starting to get some ideas Now, I promise this would, this class would be 60 to 90 minutes. So we officially have 15 minutes of our time together, and I want make sure we’re maximizing this. Your brainstorm doesn’t have to be complete to start to move on to this next step.
Just so I can teach you about what this looks like, and this is what tweaking is. This is where you’re going to go through the brainstorm and weed out these two things, anything that are shoulds. So these are, these can even come well intentioned, like. You know, you notice something else that someone else is doing, but you’re like, wait, I should have that on my list. No, take it off. and goals, which are really sneaky, there’s gonna be lots of goals in disguise. So with those ones, you can either put them on a goal list for the year.
Okay. Another thing you can do though, is you can reword it or change it so that it’s a way to explore your goal. So an example for this for me is I want to create a garden this year. That to me is more of a goal, but as a way to help me explore that goal, I can do something on my list. Last year really helped me.
I had interviewed three gardener friends about their process, cuz I know nothing about gardening. So that’s what I did last year. That was my goal to create a garden and I interviewed three gardener friends about their process. I ended up not being able to start a garden because of issues with piping in the backyard, but we are gonna do that this year.
So I would think about what’s another way I could explore gardening without it having to be outcome based. So that could be what you do. So weed things out, cross out things that are shoulds, reword or cross out the goal ones. And then I want you to circle any that are standouts to you, but maybe just need to be worded a little differently, perhaps because they are a little bit more goal-based.
Or you just wanna tweak the wording. And I want you to put stars next to the no-brainers. Like this for sure is gonna go on my list. I’m actually gonna give you about three minutes to start that process.
And if you need to, you can just continue to add to your brain. There’s been a lot of great ideas on, in the chat here and roll. Do touristy things in my, in my state. Go on a trip for our 25th anniversary. Learn a new hairstyle for myself and my daughter. Spend more time in the pool. Use my passport.
Take a pottery class. There’s some more ideas for you. So let’s take two minutes to begin. Tweak.
I’m gonna give a little example of, of a way I tweaked something here. I had on my list, try out for a play. that’s not gonna likely work for me this year with having a, a nursing baby. Hopefully a nursing baby. So I’m gonna cross that tryout for a play, but I would like to still get into that community play scene.
So I’m, I put attend three local plays or maybe I’ll just even put, attend a local play cuz that’s where I’m realistic to my season. Another option I now have on my list too is talk to two local performers about how they got into plays here.
Okay. Our next section is where we define. You do not have to be done with the brainstorm yet. Again, this, this can just be the start. If you need more time with that and you need more time to tweak, which you likely will. This next section. Define, this is where you actually finalize your dsl. In your guide you have, you have a page for that, like at the very end of your guide where you can do that.
Before you do that, I have some tips for you, and this is pre creation, so meaning predefining, your official dsl. I have some tips for you on how to be the most successful with it and post creation. I’m gonna go through these really fast. Before you define your dsl, I want you to get selfish. Remember, this seems to be about you.
I want you to be open because your DSL will likely surprise you. I want you to be willing to get messy with this process, and we’re in the process right now, my friends, the brainstorming, the tweaking, the finalizing, that’s the mess. So stick with this mess, stick with it. And some tips I have as you are beginning to define, make the things on your list more doable.
Especially if this is your first list. If you’re gonna lean to something, lean to more doable. So fewer items, more than a lot of them. My first list was way intense and I’ve done shorter lists almost every year since. Do more simple things. Do more fun and easy than serious. Lean on the side of doable.
Then the fifth one is really important. Be seasonal. There are certain things that you would love to do that this isn’t just your time for, there’s gonna be future DSLs. So honor your season. Now, once you’ve defined your dsl, there are some tips I have that make your DSL way more likely to be successful.
We have the first one is really, really important. I can’t understate this. You’re gonna think it’s dumb, but it is so important. It’s make it visual. Put your DSL somewhere where you see it easily and often. The years I’ve done that, I have been exponentially better at making progress on my dsl. The second one is be accountable.
I resist this. I’m not someone who needs a lot of accountability and yet having a way for me to share more regularly about what’s been going on with my DSL this past year has made me, I honestly think the most successful with it that I’ve ever been. And for me, that meant I just shared a reel once a month where I reported in on how my DSL went that month.
The third here is, is similar to the get messy, the first one, but this is different like just commit to messy action. This is why the list is called “Do Something” Get Messy, and a final one is prepared to pivot because your list will need to pivot. Be prepared to regularly revisit your DSL and tweak it.
It’s a living document. It’s not like the constitution where it’s really hard to change it. You can change this anytime and in any way. Sometimes that means I lower the number cuz I like a lot of numbers on mine. Other times that means I make a higher number. Other times I cross things off or I just tweak it to match my season.
I also wanna point out on the guide, you have two pages of ideas that really exemplify what DSLs look like, that are not goals and shoulds or pressure based.
So you have those to reference. So after you’ve tweaked, then you move into defining that means creating your list and then. We talked about make you know, make it visual. Visual, but also share it, share it with our community. You can do that on social media. If you do it, you do a, a post tag me. I would love to see it.
You can also privately DM me. You can privately email me or you can share it with just people in your life. Share it with a friend, a loved one. Tell them about it. Okay, so I told you my goal was to help you leave with the DSL in hand. I don’t know if we got quite to that goal, but either way, I hope that you have at least gotten to a point where you can now move on to the tweaking, defining, and sharing sections because those, those really matter.
And again, when you do, please know you can reach out to. I’m happy to just applaud you or to answer more follow up questions. I would love to do that for you. I’m so glad you made the time.
And if I can give you just one little kick in the pants, cuz if you listen to my podcast, you know that I like to give hugs and kicks in the pants. And I say that because we need a little of both. So here’s your kick in the pants right now. I said this before.
Stick with the momentum you are in right now and prioritize creating a terrible, messy DSL today or as soon as you can. And then share it with me and I’ll help you. Or share the mess with someone. Put it on your so social feed and be like, this doesn’t look finalized yet, but here’s what I have. Share the progress.
Lean in to the biggest lesson that we had both me share and other women. I’m gonna pull up that slide for you. This is my final kick in the pants. Remember this, the transformation lies in the process, not the outcome. Believe in that and try it out. Just try it and create a terrible messy DSL.
I’m so glad you were here. I’m excited for you and your DSLs for this year and I really hope we can see a lot of them. Thank you guys so much for being here, and I look forward to hearing more from you. Thank you everyone.
