Ep 89 3 Powerful lessons on Embracing the Present Moment

Have you ever dreamt of pressing pause on life to reassess, refocus, and realign your goals? Ever wonder if your daily activities truly align with your purpose? This podcast episode is brimming with insights from my recent trip to Ireland, where I embraced the power of 'going with the flow' and truly living in the present moment.

Join me, Mikita, as we explore the art of prioritizing goals, living more purposefully, and the transformative power of taking a break. We'll dive into my experiences and the wisdom derived from it, shedding light on the importance of emotional intelligence, handling distractions, and the power of an "idea dump." Whether you're an entrepreneur, a fellow podcaster, or just someone seeking to live more intentionally, this heartfelt conversation will offer valuable insights to enhance your journey toward purposeful living. Let's grab our cups of tea or coffee, and get started on exploring these lessons together.

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Transcript

Mikita S: 0:00

When we're constantly in this state of living in the future or living in the past, you're going to have some anxiety. But when we can bring ourselves and focus on the present, bring ourselves back to the moment that matters most, which is the moment that we're in right now, this present moment. Hey there, I'm Makita, a small town girl with dreams, who started a podcast with an old headset and a laptop at my kitchen table and made my dreams come true. On my podcast, time for Tea with Makita, we chat about living life unapologetically, on your terms, from career advice, entrepreneurship, relationships and everything in between. This is your one-stop shop for real conversations and inspiration. If you're looking for connection, then you've found it here. Join me every Tuesday as we dive into those sometimes hard-to-have conversations. So grab your cup of tea or coffee and get comfy, because this is Time for Tea with Makita, and the tea is definitely hot. Hello and welcome back. I am so glad to be back here with y'all. First, let me just say that it feels really good being back here with all of you doing what I love most. So, real quick, before I get into all the tea that I want to spill and share today, I want to say thank you to each and every one of you who reached out and left a message for my anniversary, and, for those of you who may not know, I recently celebrated my sixth anniversary with my amazing husband and best friend, sam, in Ireland, and for some quick little tea.

Mikita S: 1:43

On that vacation in Ireland, I did something I've never done before, which is go with the flow, without having a real plan, so no big plan in mind. We just decided to wake up every day feeling grateful to be able to explore country full of beauty and history. Now, don't get me wrong. We definitely had some things in places that we wanted to do and see, but we just woke up each morning Like, okay, what do we want to cross off the list today? No real big set, we have to do this today. We have to do this at this time. It was just Go with it and it felt really, really good to just allow myself the freedom to just relax and flow. Now I ate tons of fish and chips, pastries of all kinds and drunk several pints of Guinness, and I can honestly say that Every place that we ate at, the food and the people were amazing. So it was such a beautiful trip.

Mikita S: 2:44

And if you want to learn more, then head over to the show notes after this episode and click on the link and you can get all the updates of what's been happening in Keter's world. Okay, now I really just want to say I'm truly thankful for Eating every blessing as I continue this amazing journey. I am so grateful that you have decided to ride with me throughout it, okay, so Just know that all of your support, we definitely felt all the love and we appreciate it. So now that I am back, I really wanted to use this episode to share some of the things that I've learned and some of the things that I've rediscovered While taking this very needed and intentional break. So in a perfect world, I would have been off, just Chillin and relaxing for the last couple of months, but because of my day job as a nurse, I still had to show up and punch a clock and work like the rest of us. So for all of the solo perno's creators, fellow podcasters and peeps out here hustling and still grinding, I am here with you on that journey. So in this episode, we're gonna talk about my journey and recognizing some of the distractions that you know. We're taking up space and holding me back from creating and like really going forward some of my goals, as well as where I'm at right now when it comes to living intentionally and prioritizing what's important. So pull up a seat and get comfy so we can just dive straight into the tea now.

Mikita S: 4:22

As you know, there are tons of reasons for taking a break. Sometimes it's just so that we can have that space from people, situations, you know, whatever it may be, we just know that we are done and if we don't step away right now, things will not end up nicely and no one wants to feel that burnt out, stressed out feeling that comes with Overworking ourselves. Now, for me, it was all about being able to reassess, realign, refocus and reset, and that was my goal and I really feel like I accomplished that. So I I find like it's so hard to see clearly when you're in a situation, but once you're able to like pull back, you can see where some of the things can be improved or where you can start making adjustments and pivot if you need to. But I Found it's so easy To give other people advice. If you're like that, just say mm-hmm. I'll see you nod in your head like yo, I can give some of the best advice in the world, because we're not emotionally attached to or invested in the outcome of other people's situations, but when it comes to us because there is so much emotion, if you're not Emotionally intelligent, like really high levels of emotional intelligence, is hard to step away and just really assess the situation for what it is. So I Really been working on my emotional intelligence and I feel like I've come a long way in that department and I still strive to, you know, be better, and I feel like as I continue on this journey in this thing called life, there will definitely be moments where my emotional intelligence is a little higher on certain days, in certain situations, but remember to always be kind to yourself. All right now.

Mikita S: 6:27

It's always important to try to be intentional and I really really do try to do that. So when you decide to take a break whether it's from work or situations or certain people we know who they are in our life you have to really be honest about what exactly you need to step away from, because if you can't be honest with yourself about what it is you need to break from, you're going to find yourself coming back from a break feeling more stressed, more burnt out and not feeling like anything was resolved. You're not rested, you're not, you know, still not operating at 100%. So once you get really clear on that, once you're honest about what you need, you can start setting that goal and they can start establishing what you want that break to look like. What do you want it to feel like? For you? Maybe it's your phone not ringing and people constantly, you know, wanting something from you or needing something from you. So maybe you want to be able to take a break and put down the phone and not have a thousand people call you asking you for things, needing a favor, whatever they may look like For me.

Mikita S: 7:42

I knew that social media was getting to be too much. As a podcaster, solo entrepreneur, it was a lot and I just didn't want to get to the point where I was over stressing myself, you know, like over stressing myself and end up in a situation where I start to dislike the thing I love the most, which is hitting record and being right here with you guys. Another thing that I knew was that I really wanted to be more intentional and purposeful with my time, like my daughter's home from college, you know. I really want to make sure that I'm spending time with her. I want to see my mom more often than I do, so I really wanted that family time. My brother's home he's just moved out from Virginia into Virginia and I'm like I want to make sure that I'm actually present and that I'm showing up and that you know I'm there. So all of those things, and also being able to attend family functions.

Mikita S: 8:43

You know, sometimes I get so caught up in being in different events and places that you know I I commit myself to something and then I can't show up for the family events like I want to. So stepping back and take the time off allowed me to really show up at events and be there for family members in a way that felt genuine to who I am as a person. So what I did for myself was I put a lot of things when it came to social media on autopilot, you know I like to use plan. It's an automated app that just kind of like I can build out things that I want to post and I like to usually do it by the week. But because I was, you know, trying to really separate myself, I really built it out for like two months and I normally don't do that, but it felt really good not having to like come back on and do certain things, like it really allowed me to free up a lot of time that I would be spending on planning and content creation and all of that stuff. So it felt really really good.

Mikita S: 9:53

All right, so when I did this, what I realized was that I was really separating myself from distractions. I didn't realize how many things that come at us that are distracting us from reaching our goals, from creating the plan to implementing the plan. But Once I was able to step back, I was like, oh my gosh, like I can't believe, like all these things are like so many distractions, so many different things. And distractions can come in many forms. They can come in the form of a person, it can come in the form of social media. It could be binge watching TV or watching videos, whether it's YouTube, tiktok, no matter what it is.

Mikita S: 10:44

But when you're in a constant state of distraction, it's hard to see which way to go and it's easy for our paths to start to feel unclear. So a question to ask yourself to help you to recognize what things in your life are distracting you from really reaching your goal that's holding you back is. Is this thing helping you in the long run? Will this help you to reach your goal or is it a distraction? Because it can only be one or the other. It can only be helping you or hindering you. And you know, binge watching, four hours of TikTok is not helping you, unless you're doing a research paper.

Mikita S: 11:29

You could be doing something else, and that thing is that you should constantly be in the state of grinding, grinding, grinding. But you definitely should make sure that the things that you put on your to-do list for your goals should get done before you get distracted by other things. And then you're sitting there like, oh my gosh, I was supposed to do this and I never got around to it. You know, I spent all day answering my emails and all day long, you know, on social media. But why? Why were you doing that? Why were you doing that versus the thing you knew you should have been doing?

Mikita S: 12:08

So sometimes we have to give ourselves a little tough love and a reminder, because being intentional has come with so many different eye-opening moments and experience. It has been the one thing that has helped me to realign with my purpose, and once you realign with your purpose, it's this feeling of getting back to you and that's how I felt. I feel like I had this finding myself all over again moment, which gave me the courage to trust my instincts and use my voice for what I wanted and be unapologetic about it, because no one knows you like you, and I find that so many of us question ourselves instead of trusting the voice in us that says you got this One question that I've been asking myself. When I have those moments or feelings or questions like am I doing the right thing? You know, is this the right thing that I'm supposed to do, or should I be over here trying to do this? You know, we get to that moment sometimes, because sometimes we make a mistake or we have this vision for something it doesn't come out of the plan and then all of a sudden we start questioning our instincts and our gut. But the truth is that when we trust ourselves and we ask ourselves that one question does this align with my purpose? And, if it, if it is, if this thing aligns with your purpose and who you are, trust it and move forward, even if at the end of it, you're like this isn't quite what I expected. That's okay, because a lot of times it may not be what I expected, but it's exactly what I needed to get me to the place where I'm supposed to be, and that's exactly what you want. I can honestly say, my time off from recording really helped me to prioritize and focus on setting the goals to move forward. If you are creative, and most of us are then I know your mind is full of ideas that can sometimes make it hard for you to find clarity. So when it comes to goals setting trust me, I am right there with you on this one I find myself at times, instead of making those quick snap decisions that allow myself to just step back for a moment, to hit that pause button, and I do what I call idea dumping, because a lot of times, when I'm thinking about the goals that I want to set whether it's a weekly goal, monthly goal, or maybe it's a three to six month or overarching yearly goal, whatever that thing may look like for me at that moment what I find myself in those moments is I'm like what do I start?

Mikita S: 15:14

Like, how do I get started?

Mikita S: 15:15

You know, I have all these things in my head. I think I want to do this, but when it's time to do it. I have this moment of paralysis, while I feel like I'm frozen, because I have so much on my mind and so many ideas in different directions that feel like they're pulling at me. So I do an idea dump, where I just sit down for three to five minutes and just take every idea that's in my mind and dump it out of there. It's just like three to five minutes.

Mikita S: 15:43

You can do this whether it's notepads in your phone. You can get your Google Docs and type it all out, or you can get a good old fashion piece of pen and paper and just go to work three to five minutes of getting every idea, no matter whether it's a big, small, it doesn't matter. Just put it on the paper so you can look at it, and once you're able to kind of look at it, you can start prioritizing. All right, is this something I want to do this month? Is this something I want to do this week? Do I even need to do this thing at all, or is this just an idea that I don't really intend to do anything with until like maybe a year or two? I'm not even sure if I want to do it, it's just a thought. Then you can put it behind you and say, okay, I'm not worried about this thing, but let me focus on these things.

Mikita S: 16:36

My list tends to get really small and then I can start getting really specific. Then that is when I get the clarity of like okay, so I'm going to start here with this thing first and then move throughout the list and then move throughout. Okay, this is something that's going to happen this week. This is going to be next month. I'll put this on the back burner because a lot of times when we come back to the thing that's going to take the most energy, we may pivot, adjust and maybe just tweak a little things. I really try to work within the month. I like to have some big ideas for moving forward and then come back to them later and see how I feel about it once I get there, because things can change.

Mikita S: 17:26

This thing is called life. It's ever evolving, ever changing. I am okay with just riding along at times with the flow and allowing myself to just be in the moment. If you're someone like me who have a lot of anxiety at times, what I find is, when I'm in this state of constant anxiety, it's because that I'm either constantly living in the future, thinking about what's going to happen next, what I need to do next. When we're constantly in this state of living in the future, we're living in the past, where we're thinking about man. I wish I would do this better. You're going to have some anxiety.

Mikita S: 18:15

But when we can bring ourselves and focus on the present, bring ourselves back to the moment that matters most, which is the moment that we're in at this, right now, this present moment. What I like to do when I start to feel like that is breathe. It's the easiest, most simple thing that you could ever do. That can help you de-stress, find some clarity and some focus. All you do is take a deep breath into the count of four, pause slowly, exhale it all out, focus on that breath, because that's the thing that's happening right now. Nothing else but you breathing in and out slowly, steady, focused clarity. So if you feel yourself there, bring it back to the present. That's me you'll be amazed with. Breathing can do for you. I know I definitely was.

Mikita S: 19:17

Now that's the story for another day, but I just wanted to share that with you and give you something to think about. All right, so, as you know, I've had an amazing time off. I've learned so much, and I'm glad I was able to share all that with you. Now, as I wrap things up, I just want to say that a lifetime doesn't seem that long the order you get. So weed out the distractions, trust your instincts and live every day with purpose and intention. Now, that is all the tea that I have to spill today, but before I go, do me a favor. I would love it if you would go. Leave me a quick review. I can't wait to hear all the amazing things that you have to say. Now remember to join me each and every Tuesday for more delicious hot tea. Until next time, namaste.