Day 2 Challenge
===
[00:00:00] Hello, welcome back for day two of our 12 day roadmap to parenting clarity and purpose in 2024. Just a quick introduction for anyone who's newly joining us. My name is Katy B. I'm the founder of Covenant Collections Christian Parenting Company, and I'm also a certified parenting and family coach. So we're on day two of this roadmap where we're going to refer.
reflect and face the challenges from 2023. These are anything that essentially prevented us from showing up as our best self as the parent we wanted to be. And then we will implement some highly effective strategies to set ourselves up for success in 2024. Let's briefly acknowledge the parallel to our road trip theme.
If you took a road trip last year, and you ran out of snacks, your phone died and you lost your Google Maps, you got a flat tire and you didn't have a spare, you waited too long to stop for gas, and [00:01:00] then you ended up on one of those long stretches of highway with no civilization in sight and you ran out.
Your kids spilled something sticky all over themselves and you didn't bring anything to clean it up. You didn't know you were going to end up on a toll road so you didn't have any cash or exact change and you don't have an E ZPass. So you ended up paying about 10 times what you would have paid when you got that bill in the mail.
If all of those things happened on your last road trip and you were about to sit down and plan another, I guarantee that you would take the time to strategize and prevent as many of those challenges as you could. Because the truth is Most challenges are preventable. Not all of them, but most of them are.
And we want to prevent the ones that we can, so that we can have the energy and the capacity to better navigate the ones that we can't. What can you expect from day [00:02:00] two? We will identify those challenges we faced in 2023. We will illuminate the true impact that those challenges have on your family, the obvious ones and the ones that are deeper below the surface.
We'll take a moment to have a little biblical insight for context and reflection. We'll work on our resiliency and our sense of empowerment, and we will protect ourselves and prepare for the challenges to come in 2024. Today's free resource that you'll receive is the 2023 challenges reflection map. So if you're signed up for the challenge, you'll receive that to your email when this video is released today.
And if you're in the free Facebook group, the Christian parenting community, you will. See that posted in our guide section? And if you aren't, but you want to be, those links will be in the description. So what we're gonna do in today's training is essentially the exact same process of what you'll find inside this challenges reflection map.
I need [00:03:00] you to be open minded, and I need you to be honest. You're not gonna have to share these things with anyone else unless you want to. So start with a deep breath. It's time for a brain dump exercise. This. Is the time to overshare. Do not overthink. We'll decide if these things are relevant to your parenting journey after the brain dump.
So think of anything that could have potentially stopped you from showing up as your best self in 2023. Include the things that are within your control and the things that are not. So some examples could be financial trouble. If inflation hit you especially hard and you had to say no to your kids a lot more than you wanted to, um, they can be running late for school, which made you super impatient and frustrated and had you raising your voice.
It can be co parenting issues that you dealt with if you're managing a relationship with an ex. It could be marriage issues. It could [00:04:00] be health challenges. Any types of illnesses in the family. It could be personal challenges that you face like your mental health or your friendships even if you don't think that they affected your children or your parenting.
In this step, we're just collecting data every challenge we faced in 2023 that we can think of, you can write it down, you can type it in the notepad on your phone, or you can wait and work through it inside the map. If you print that out and just use this time to think through it. So what were the challenges that you faced in 2023?
I want you to look at what you've come up with so far, and I want you to Reframe immediately if this has caused any negative feelings to come up at this point because every single challenge that you're looking at is just a stepping stone to growth, resilience, and a much better future for your family.
So what you're looking at is not a [00:05:00] bunch of ways that you failed. You're looking at a ton of opportunity for growth. Now, before we go into our next step, I want to take a second to give some biblical context here. Most of us know this Bible verse, where we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, Philippians 4.
13. Paul writes this from prison. I love this scripture. It's not him saying that he can do anything in the world with God. Not in the context of like, I can win this football game. I can be the best parent in the world. I can knock this public speaking event out of the park tomorrow. What he's saying is that even if he loses that football game, even if he struggles to be the best parent, even if he totally bombs the speaking event, he can handle it.
Because God, because His [00:06:00] contentment comes from God. He can handle feast and He can handle famine. He can handle a palace and He can handle a prison. He can do all things through Christ who gives Him strength. So that context is what we need here. That doesn't promise us an easy, perfect life. It doesn't promise us success at everything we try.
But it absolutely does promise us that even if Even if it all goes wrong according to our standards, we can do it. In context, what he says is, I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.
I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed, Whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this [00:07:00] through him who gives me strength. We're going to set ourselves up for success in as many ways as we possibly can. And we're still going to face challenges.
We're going to prepare, and then we're going to face things that we weren't prepared for. And even then, The true key to success through any challenges is exactly what Paul shares with us here in Philippians. The secret of being content in any and every situation is in Christ who gives us strength. In step two, you're going to take everything you came up with in step one in your brain dump, and you're going to review them.
Which ones stand out to you as potentially having the most significant impact on your well being, your family's well being, your children in particular? We're going to draw those out, and that's what we're going to work through all the future steps with. For an example that we can work through together, I'm going to use the rushing in the mornings [00:08:00] example because that's actually something that I've personally struggled with that I felt like prevented me from showing up as my best self as a parent in the past.
This step has the potential to cause us some guilt, but it's still important. So we're going to do it anyway. We can do all things through Christ who gives us strength. Okay. Some mornings in 2023, I was super rushed to get us ready and get out the door. So I would get frustrated. I'd be less patient. And I just wasn't the fun mom.
I'm not as I like to be. I wasn't making a game out of getting dressed and having a good time and giving all the options for breakfast. I wasn't doing those things. I was snippy. I was rushing. I was do this, do this, do this. And I don't like showing up in that way, so What were or what could potentially have been the effects of that?
For me, I think about it all day long and it makes me feel terrible. I'm a [00:09:00] working mom, so I only have so many hours in the day with my son. And if I start that day out on a negative note, I quite literally feel like I've wasted our valuable time together. And that causes a lot of mom guilt. It causes me to feel angry with myself and then I'm overthinking if it hurt his feelings or if it upset him, if it's affected his day.
And that just lays on the mom guilt. So on his side of things, he has no concept of time or the importance of it at this point. He's not the one who has to worry about getting us somewhere on time. That's my problem. And when I do this, I'm making it his problem, which is completely unfair. My time management is 100 percent my responsibility.
So this does have the potential to cause our child confusion and hurt feelings. They don't understand why their mommy was super nice and fun and cool [00:10:00] and made getting dressed a fun game yesterday. And then today when you try to make it a game, she's frustrated and she won't play and she keeps telling you to hurry up.
Think about it kind of like any other relationship. If you've ever been in a relationship with someone whose behavior is inconsistent. One day they're great and they adore you, and the next they're really short with you and they're not treating you the same. And that's an issue in their own world, so you don't understand it and you didn't do anything to cause it.
But over time, getting treated with that level of inconsistency, it makes you feel like you're walking on eggshells. And it absolutely stops you from being your best self to them as well. Because you don't feel safe with how you'll be received. And now your energy towards them is negative even when they're on a positive and they don't understand.
So it totally imbalances a relationship. In a professional setting, if you have a boss who jokes around with you most of the time, [00:11:00] and then once in a while they break up, So, um, I'm going to talk about how to deal with that. So, um, you might bite your head off for trying to joke around and you have no idea what was different in their lives that day that made them present to you differently, but at 100 percent absolutely will change the way that you present to them going forward because you lose that safety of being in your best self capacity in that relationship and you readjust for your inner safety.
So this is one area that we often as parents overlook as a very strong. Why, behind a child's misbehavior, if they're facing inconsistency through you, they don't have the safety and connection in that relationship that allows them to show up as their best self in that relationship. Does that make sense?
This is what I'm risking when I change who I am to my child because of something in my world. And to fix that, I have to understand that. So take a moment and look at your [00:12:00] challenges that you identified, and I want you to break those down into three categories. Number one, the negative effect that this has had.
So in my example, that's me feeling guilty, me being angry at myself. Number two, identify the potential effect that this challenge could have. That could be my son being confused by my inconsistency, or his feelings being hurt by the frustration that he senses in me. Number three, identify the actual risk that lies under this challenge.
So in this case, the ultimate risk would be a negative impact on our parent child bond. To help you do this, I have a few questions for you to think on. How has this particular challenge impacted the way that I engage with my child? What mindset shifts have I experienced as a result of this challenge?
What mindset? What mindset shifts has my child [00:13:00] or might my child have experienced as a result of this challenge? Have I noticed any behavioral challenges in my child that could align with the timing of this other challenge? Connecting the dots between our challenges and their consequences, even the potential consequences, helps us gain a more holistic understanding of the impact on our family dynamics.
Now it's time to reflect on what you've discovered to this point. How does it make you feel? What concerns has it brought up for you? In my example, it makes me feel guilt, of course, and also fear. On top of that, it's just frustrating. I feel frustrated with myself for allowing that risk to even exist.
Because it's one of those things that you know is your fault, and you just have to sit with that. There's a space in your challenges reflection map where you can write all this out, or again, you can just keep recording these things in your notepad. or on a blank sheet of [00:14:00] paper, however works best for you.
Step five is my favorite part. I love the concept of it. So it's somewhat of a root cause analysis. What are the potential root causes beneath the surface of this challenge we've identified? In my example, there's a few things, because it can turn into a domino effect that'll take you from the root to deeper underground, and eventually you find the true core of your problem.
In my case, for the root cause step, I looked at what is the root cause behind me rushing in the morning and ending up frustrated, impatient, stressed. The surface one If you're not taking this as seriously as you should, could just be, well my kid wasn't listening. They wouldn't cooperate and get dressed.
They kept making a joke out of it. But that's not the root. The real root is that I didn't get up in time to leave enough of a window of space to [00:15:00] navigate our entire morning routine. Including any unpredictability in his behavior. If I didn't have enough time to manage all those very normal things, and still be the best version of myself that I am on other mornings, that is simply because I did not get up in time.
But think of the root of a tree. A big, strong tree. The roots are deep, and then they branch out, so go as far as you can. I didn't get up on time because I was tired. Why was I tired? Probably because I didn't go to bed on time. Why didn't I go to bed on time? This could vary, but let's say, real life example, because I was struggling to wrap up a task.
I'm working on my doctorate, so, homework. I was struggling to finish homework that was due that night, so I had to finish it. I had no choice, so I was up late. But [00:16:00] deeper, why didn't I already have it done? It's not like it was just assigned that day. It's because I procrastinated. So, at the, at the core root of my issue is my procrastination.
I'm ending up not my best self or my child in the morning and causing this undesirable risk that I'm not okay with because of my procrastination towards these tasks, which is causing me to be up late, which is causing me to be tired, which is causing me not to get up on time. Do you see what I mean? So, if you sit and say, Well, I don't like that I'm acting that way, so I'm just never going to do that again.
That's good, but the only way to guarantee that is to readjust all of the circumstances that lead you to that. So I have to get up earlier. Now I have to readjust all of those circumstances that lead to me struggling to get up earlier. A common theme here through All of our training and everything we do to help you show up [00:17:00] with full clarity and purpose in your parenting journey is to set yourself up for success with everything inside of your control.
I absolutely do have the power and the ability to discipline myself enough to make sure my homework is always done at least one day early. I'll just tell myself the due date is a day earlier than it is. That way, even if I struggle to finish it, I haven't left myself to last minute. to get it done where it causes me to stay up late.
And now I can make sure I'm always going to bed on time, which allows me to wake up on time, which allows me to be my best self as a parent during our morning routine in every way that I can predict and prepare for. So I've set myself up for genuine achievable. And the most important key here. is maintainable success around that particular challenge.
And I want you to work through that with each of those core [00:18:00] challenges that you identified for yourself from 2023. In our final step, we're going to use the same exact SMART goals framework that we learned yesterday. And you can use the same worksheet to walk you through it. I need a specific, measurable, achievable, relevant And now it's going to really make sense if it didn't already why identifying that challenge is only step one and we had to go so much deeper than that.
So here it is starting today. I will guarantee that all of my homework is completed no later than one day prior to the due date. It's specific, it's measurable, it's achievable, it's relevant, and it's time bound because it starts today and it continues throughout 2024. It's an ongoing expectation that I'm setting [00:19:00] for my behavior, and I have a goal identified to hold myself accountable to.
You've completed day two, and here's a quick reminder. To do your extremely simple homework comment in the Facebook group to enter to win our giveaways I've loved reading the values that you guys identified for a day one day two's homework is just to share One takeaway from today one key insight one thing that you learned or discovered that's how you enter to win our giveaways and And speaking of giveaways, I'm finally going to share what our giveaway gifts are.
And I'm so excited. So just a reminder, there will be 12 winners, so you have plenty of opportunities to win and the entries are so simple. But you can only enter the giveaway drawing inside the free Facebook group, the Christian Parenting Community. So, winners of the giveaway [00:20:00] will receive our complete A to Z program that takes parents from chaos to calm in their families.
In the two days of this challenge so far, you've already gotten a small taste of reclaiming your inner peace. And the peace within your home. In this program, we dive so much deeper to find inner peace, boost your confidence and self esteem, rediscover your purpose, strengthen your family bonds, embrace positivity, achieve balance in your day to day, master time management, and This program is your secret weapon to demonstrate resilience and commitment to being the best parent that you can be.
It exists solely to remove every obstacle from your path that prevents you from showing up as your best self. With coaching support to walk you through that [00:21:00] process and on demand training for specific challenges. Which is amazing, but that's not all you get. You will also get our full leadership inspired parenting program, which is the complete transformation from confusion to lack of structure and direction and consistency in your parenting.
to a full confidence and efficient strategies that will work for you and your family. Imagine learning your specific leadership style and tapping into how to utilize that in your family in ways that are tailored to you. as an individual parent and your child's unique needs as well. Building a family company which is part of our signature method that allows you to create the peaceful and efficient home that you've been praying for and tapping into full confidence and clarity to learn exactly how to [00:22:00] create that.
You get to be the CEO of your family and you get to drive this company straight towards the vision that you created on day one. And you will actually also Get our Complete Connection Blueprint, which is the Parent Child Bond Mastery Training. In this training, it's not just learning why those bonds are so important, it's a step by step for how exactly to build unbreakable, lasting connections with your children that will stand the test of time.
And all of the curveballs that life throws your way. This is where you'll learn strategies for creating an environment of deep care. Establishing an unbreakable trust. Fostering family bonds that endure the test of time. And put the final touches on an unshakeable. Unbreakable foundation for your family, but [00:23:00] that's not it.
I'm also including bonus trainings with which may include guest trainings coming up and additional digital resources like what you're getting here in this challenge for your 18 now 19 free gifts. But more comprehensive products as well, like our 59 page Parent Child Bonding Journal and our 25 page Chaos to Calm 7 Part Success Guide as well.
All of these digital resources and trainings are created specifically to simplify every step of the process for you. It's like having a personal coach. in your pocket. And I'm still not done. Do you see why I've been so excited to tell you about the giveaways? You'll also get a separate private community for like minded parents to connect, monthly Q& A sessions for tailored coaching support, live calls with me and with those other parents for meaningful [00:24:00] connections and deeper conversations.
All of this is actually part of a brand new membership called the Calm and Confident Club, which exists to help you tap into your most calm and confident self and find a peace in your family that you've almost forgotten was possible. You'll learn step by step processes for overcoming the chaos, embracing the calm, and creating a more peaceful and efficient home.
Even while managing a busy schedule, and I'm giving the full membership for free to 12 of you throughout this challenge. Actually, I'm giving you the full membership for free for an entire year. Actually, I'm also upgrading you to VIP, which comes with everything I already shared with you plus Three group coaching sessions with me every single month.
Plus, [00:25:00] one member each month will get a one to one breakthrough hot seat coaching session at no additional cost. Plus, and this is finally the last thing, kind of, VIP members get to receive digital coaching by email once a week up to four times a month, which is an insane value. The very last little piece, is that this is just the beginning.
As the membership is built up, you can expect to see new trainings, products, and resources dropped multiple times each month, and even after it's full of all of its core content, you can expect ongoing value and continuously having new products and trainings that meet you where you are with whatever you're currently facing.
It's the giveaway of a lifetime for any Christian parent And twelve of you get all of this completely free for an [00:26:00] entire year. So, don't forget to do your homework. I'll see you tomorrow.
