What Does a Win Look Like for You?

00:01 Hi, this is Katie and thank you for joining me on the My Senses, My Space podcast, and this is a podcast about feeling the world intensely, creating time to support your needs, and planning your space and life to fit you.
00:16 And today, kind of by your request I was asked to dive into what is a win? I talk about this a lot on my YouTube channel, link is in the description.
00:32 If you want to it is kind of, it's all about planning and things like that. So it may or may not be for you.
00:39 But what I do every week is I reflect and I've been using the Makselife system, which is. About five questions that I ask myself each week to kind of look back and just see how the week went.
00:58 And it's not about comparing week over week. It's not about gaming the system. Or, like trying to see how good I am.
01:11 It's not anything about that. And I think the founder, Sierra, would totally agree with that as well. She's very much focused on reflecting so that we can make the little changes when we're ready for each one of those changes to make and improvements when we can and have the energy to.
01:41 And so I found that my brain really did work with this kind of thinking. So the five questions that are asked are, what are your wins for the week?
01:53 We're going to dive into today. I'm not, this is not a series to talk about each step in her system, but then the, but I did want to kind of give an outline of where this came from, where I found it introduced in my life.
02:10 And so yeah, what are your wins for the week? What worked? What didn't work? What lessons did you kind of learn?
02:19 Which I really, I wasn't sure if I would have things to put in that place every week. But I am always a learner and I do find that I'm always putting some kind of lesson in there.
02:34 It's like, oh, you know slowing down really does work or practicing this or. Being kind was something that really worked this week.
02:46 Well, it should work all the time, but you know, or noticing like when I have less energy I need to do this or when I, not need, but just kind of.
02:58 To reflect upon things I'm constantly learning. So, and then the last one is adjustments that you're going to make for the next week.
03:09 And again, I, I know this is working for me now and it has worked probably for about three or four years and there's ways to modify it, to do your own reflections.
03:23 I think there's a lot of excellent ways to reflect on your life and asking questions. Whether it's daily at the end of the day or at the end of the week or the end of the month.
03:37 And so I, I mainly want to talk about wins because it can be a little nebulous. It can be like what is a win.
03:47 And I, I went to the dictionary this morning just to kind of like look at what the definitions are. So mainly it's types of verbs here.
04:01 It's a type of a verb. And a lot of it is about, to me, about like a power or a transfer of power or getting ahead of something else or someone else or taking care of it. Taking something like, and I know all those connotations, well, all these definitions don't correlate to the connotations I'm giving
04:30 it. So I think that's why it's kind of important to dive in. To what is a win for you. Now you could use a totally different word and I think it's really important that when I look at the word I'm not having a negative connotation around it.
04:50 But, If you do, if you look at this word and you're like, I don't have these wins. This doesn't feel right.
04:57 This doesn't choose a different word that or not that not only has a different definition but has a deep meaning to you.
05:09 So as I'm talking about wins for me it may spark an idea for you that you'll come up with a word that will cause celebration in your life.
05:20 That's where I'm headed with all of this. So a lot of the wins here are like winning a championship, winning the war, winning like things or winning someone's heart.
05:35 Like there's just kind of some ickiness here, right? And I'm not saying it's a hundred percent that way, like winning the race but the, the biggest thing for me is when I think about wins is about an experience.
05:57 It's about being in the moment and feeling good about it. That's where I'm coming from. So when I'm going through my wins, when I'm answering those five questions from OxiLife, the what worked section is things that I have control over.
06:17 So when you're thinking about the locus of control, L-O-C-U-S, you're thinking about what can I control in my circle, that little exercise, right, where you have the circle and then the circle, two layers of circles, your inner circle is like things that you can control and then things outside the circle
06:35 you cannot control. So I'm thinking about like, what can I control so that I can control? I can see that my actions are working.
06:48 That's where I'm coming from when I'm seeing like, what worked? Is it something that I put, you know, a schedule together for or a list or a habit that I'm trying?
07:01 Are there things that mechanically are working because I made them happen? Are there thoughts that I'm having that or shifting that through the week I'm seeing like if I shift my thoughts just a little bit, am I having a more positive outcome?
07:22 So those are things I can control. But when I think about wins, and it took me a while to kind of think about like, well, what are these wins?
07:32 It's usually things out of my control. It's like, nothing I could have planned. It's, it's totally in someone else's hands or the universe's hands or whatever you want to define it as.
07:45 It's just totally out of my hands. When I think of wins, I think of like, and this could be kind of silly, like a package arriving early or things flowing, um, I find if I have a lot of ease and flow, Bye!
08:04 Because of dependencies on others, that's a win, like traffic goes lighter or when I showed up to my appointment there was no line or like those kind of things you can't control and I don't expect them all the time.
08:23 It's just coincidences or you know, surprises that are happening in my life that I'm grateful for. So, especially like with traffic.
08:39 Especially in my area. We're in the Pacific Northwest here. There can be traffic for absolutely no reason. And I think this happens in a lot of areas that are very congested.
08:48 It's just like you go into it expecting, okay, this is is going to take longer than I think and then it just kind of flows and you're just like, oh, well that's just a nice gift to myself.
09:00 I arrived early. But I didn't give that gift to me. Like, it just happened. It just, and it's not something Thank you.
09:09 I'm going to count on on the future because there's going to be worst days as well. It may be that you find a certain time, like this little window that allows you to have consistency in the that win.
09:26 I'm putting quotes around it, that win because you can call it whatever you want. But is it something that you could replicate all the time?
09:38 It depends on weather, depends on if someone gets an accident. Than it is. Like, there can be worse things that happen to make that win go away.
09:47 So again, it's out of your control. But when it happens, we can be really grateful for it. Plus, it's Awesome.
09:57 I do try to write some things down that I'm grateful for, but I'm also, I stepped away from that. I think it works for a lot of people.
10:09 But maybe this, this is what I transformed into was recognizing Thank you, thank you. I think these wins that are just some of those little smile moments of my day or my week and going, wow, that really brought a smile to my face.
10:26 I met this amazing person. That was a win for me. I found out, you know, like a team member, like did some extra work and it made all of our lives easier.
10:40 You know, it could be a variety of things. There's just so many Oh wins, I guess, and I'm trying to think of some more examples.
10:53 It could be something as in stock at the store when you're going to buy it because so many times you'll get there and you're like, oh, they're out of it and you have Thanks for watching!
11:02 To adjust and sometimes in the adjustments we find something that feels more like winning to us, that feels more like a better fit, that we had never even thought to consider.
11:19 So that could be a win in itself when we discover something that we thought, oh, it's probably only going to work this way.
11:28 And then we were like kind of forced out of our comfort zone. And then you're like, wait, this works We're here.
11:34 We're here. It works even better. I love those happy accidents of like I mean, it's annoying to have to like keep altering your plans all the time if, you know, again, if you're like meal planning and something's out.
11:50 Or if like a school schedule or a sports schedule or something is a certain way and then it shifts and then you have to adjust.
12:02 And especially with scheduling, it's like if you get into a rhythm but then that Thanks for watching! That's thrown off but then you're like, wait, if we do it this way, it actually works better than what we had before.
12:13 So in those adjustments, and then, and again, that's part of the Makselife kind of questions, those adjustments can really help.
12:22 And when we're thrown into making an adjustment, that's kind of when I see a win as well. I see it like, wait a minute, this works better and I never thought of it and I'm kind of forced to kind of think of it differently.
12:38 But yet I'm coming up with my own solution for it. Again, is that what worked because it's in my locus of control?
12:47 Is something I could control? Or is it like a win something just totally outside your control? And this is where you get to define.
12:57 So you can think of it as what kind of surprises popped up this last week that were enjoyable. What kind of, who did I meet?
13:10 Who did I come across that I never would have thought that I would meet. You know, just, and it doesn't mean like a formal introduction.
13:19 It can just be like, you know, those little chance meetings like someone that's helping you at the pharmacy or someone helping at the store that's just like, oh, they were just so kind today.
13:31 And that was like a total win for myself. And so biggest question is like, how do you want to define a win in your life that isn't about about.
13:43 Having power over something or being the absolute best at something, that's a whole other part of this aspect that maybe I should talk about for a little bit.
13:54 There can be an aspect of winning that's about perfection. I think Thanks for watching! I think we can have a healthy relationship with challenges, with a competition in a way that helps you grow, but there can also be detriment Thank you very much for watching.
14:15 If you're trying to strive for perfection all the time, I think it really depends on your heart and your goals.
14:27 How does a wind look when it's feels healthy for you? How does it look when perfection isn't the goal but striving for the best you is the goal?
14:43 So that really comes back to goals. Thanks for watching! of like, if you make it a point to say, well, my goal for the week is to walk twice.
14:57 And this week you hit it and next week you don't and then you go back to hitting it again and hitting it means, means, going to do with that achieving it. Um, how do you define that as a win for yourself? How do we look at those goals and challenges for ourself and recognize that you're not pushing too
15:19 hard? You that you're staying within what's going to be healthy for your mind and body? What's going to work with everything else going on in your life?
15:31 Because there is no perfect balance. There is no you work-life balance, balance of all the things. There's always something tipping, right?
15:41 There's always something. If you're focusing your, you know, into more physical health, it may be that something else in your life has to give way.
15:51 I and that may be for the good, it may be that when you're focusing more on one aspect, it could be that you're taking time away from something that might be hurting you a little bit.
16:06 So again, that's kind of a happy accident. See ya. Right? You're like, well, you know, I've been balancing out like working these nine hour shifts.
16:15 But if I do eight hour shifts and then focus an hour on my physical health, that could be a very good thing.
16:24 Thanks for watching! And then putting up that boundary of whatever shift that is, whether it's work or volunteering or whatever or being at home with your kids or whatever it happens to be.
16:37 And I don't mean to minimize child care. It's like an 8-hour shift. That's not what it's about. I'm just trying to encapsulate like a lot of different experiences of people.
16:51 That See you next time! In that discovery of shifting the energy that you're putting towards something, it actually kind of improves both areas.
17:12 And again, we're not striving I'm driving. I'm driving. Looking for perfection, we're not trying to make everything equal. But in those little increments of trying something new, that's where we can find a win.
17:23 And again, you could define it as, you know, a happy surprise or Thanks for watching! Having things like work out to your favorite.
17:33 Again, when you're intentionally having control over your schedule and saying, okay, I'm gonna take time away from here and put it towards something else, that is within your locus of control.
17:44 So, So, So, you could define wins as totally stuff that is in your control. I'm not here to define it for you.
17:55 So the biggest part of wins though. This is why I'm really really. Talking about this is that we're celebrating something.
18:07 We're celebrating that something was an achievement in your life. Sometimes it's out of our control. Sometimes it's in our control.
18:17 Control. And when we pause and we look and we say, wow, I probably couldn't have done that a month ago, a year ago, and here I am doing it.
18:31 Then we're recognizing how we're growing. And how we are shifting our life to possibly for the better or we're just recognizing there are shifts in our life.
18:46 It's not always about attaining, it's not always about like there's going to be seasons of our life where we have very little control over what's happening and it could be that we're caring for a loved one or something that has been put I love you.
19:06 I love you. Upon our shoulders that was unexpected or, or it was expected but it was in the future and now the future is now.
19:15 And we have to look at it as like, well, these are my circumstances now. This is my season now. No?
19:22 How do I step through this and still recognize that there's happy little surprises, that there's winds within whatever challenge is put in my life.
19:38 I'm on my shoulders and that we can still celebrate through the really hard times as well. And there's a lot of hard times, there's a lot of hard times in the world, but it doesn't mean, that you're worth any less, that you're not worthy of celebrating achievements that are happening in your life.
20:01 And I think through reflections and seeing that there's winds or things that you're grateful for or things that are Thanks for watching! Flowing for you.
20:12 It's really important to take like a little moment and just celebrate a little bit and say thank you. Thank you.
20:20 Thank you to yourself. Thank you to the universe. Thank you to whatever however that Have a good night. Came about in your life.
20:29 So I hope that helps and thank you for joining me on the My Senses, My Space podcast.