This training came out of a personal family tragedy that happened this last week. Are you living with no regrets? I encourage you to apply these 3 P’s to your life and live life to the fullest!
Listen Below:
Play in a new window | Download
Subscribe to the Podcast: iTunes | Stitcher | RSS
Your Downloads
Get the PDF transcript and my planning video here:
Click Here for Instant Access
Thanks for listening!
You ROCK! I appreciate everyone of my podcast listeners. If you have a specific question for me, submit it here: www.shelleyhitz.com/ask
Click here to leave an iTunes review and subscribe to the show. Not sure how to post a review on iTunes? Read my step-by-step tutorial and find out all the details about the special gift I have for my podcast reviewers here.
“Even the weakest light can hold back the darkness.” – Unknown
It’s time to let your light SHINE!
Can’t listen right now? Read the transcript below:
SHELLEY. This is a HitzBlitz episode for “Author Audience.”
ANNOUNCER. Welcome to the “Author Audience” show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message, create a book, connect with your audience, and change lives. Here’s your host, Shelley Hitz.
SHELLEY. Today I want to talk about the three Ps of living a life of no regrets. This came as a result of an unexpected tragedy that happened in my family this last week. My cousin’s husband, 43 years old, suddenly died last week, Mike Shroyer. It really rocked me. I think it was Thursday that we found out he passed away. I immediately started sobbing because it was so unexpected, but it got me thinking about this topic of living with no regrets because my Cousin’s Husband, Mike, lived with no regrets. He lived a life that was well lived, he lived a life to the fullest.
I wanted to ask you today, is that something that you want? Do you want to live a life with no regrets? If something unexpectedly happened to you today would you be able to say, today, I lived with no regrets? I want to be that person as well, I want to live that kind of life, I don’t want to live a life where I always think, “well what if I would have done that?” Or, “What if I wouldn’t have let fear stop me?” Or, “What if I would have taken that risk?” My Cousins, Amy and Mike, they took a risk. Mike was a pastor in Andy Stanley’s church, some of you may know Andy Stanley in Atlanta Georgia, he was a children’s pastor there. He resigned his job to follow his dream to follow their dream of starting a ministry for families, it’s called Create. He left that regular paycheck to follow his dreams. I did that about four years ago, I left my job as a Physical Therapist to follow my dreams.
I want you, it doesn’t have to be dramatic, but I want you to live a life with no regrets. I want you to reach your goals, I want you to be able to cross that finish line, whatever it is in your life, that you want to do. I recorded a video yesterday, just to honour my Cousin Mike, and if you’re interested in watching that you can just go to ShelleyHitz.com/Mike. It will redirect you to my personal Facebook page.
I’m not saying you do that without certain steps, and that’s what I’m going to talk about today. I’m going to diving in to these three ways, these three Ps of living a life with no regrets. First P in living with no regrets is Patience. What do they say, “don’t pray for patience because, guess what? You’ll probably have something come into your life where you’ll have to be patient.” When I was planning to resign my job as a physical therapist I didn’t just resign that day, I had to have patience, I had to look ahead and see when did it make the most sense to realistically take that leap? We still took a pretty big leap, but what we wanted to make sure is that we were out of debt first. We wanted to pay off our consumer debt first so that we didn’t have all those bills hanging over our head when I resigned my job. Sometimes living a life of no regrets will take Patience, you may have to wait while you work through the steps.
I want to tell you today, it is worth it! It is worth it to take that time. I’ve talked about it in my podcast the other day, little consistent, small consistent actions over time are what tends to get the biggest results in our lives. We want this big result, we want it right now, we’re microwave society, we love getting those instant results, and so I want you to think about this. It’s the small consistent actions over time that will give you the results. It’s not always just that big thing, like quitting my job! We had to take those small consistent actions over time to pay off our debt the years leading up to that, it wasn’t just an instant thing. The first P to living a life with no regrets is Patience, realizing that some of your biggest goals, your biggest dreams, the biggest things that God will do in your life are going to happen over time. It’s going to take small consistent efforts day in and day out, whether it’s paying off a debt, whether it’s writing a book—you can write a book by writing 15 minutes a day, that’s all. You don’t have to think of it as such a big thing you can do it in those small chunks of time.
So my husband and I, when we were getting out of debt, so I could quit my job, so I could work for myself, have that freedom, do what I’m doing today, it took planning. To be very, very honest, I had a spending issue. So, at that time, one of the things we had to do in that process of planning, I actually froze my credit cards in the freezer so that I couldn’t get access to them to buy anything else on the credit cards. Sometimes you have to do drastic things to get what you want to get, to achieve your goals.
The planning stage can also be—my husband and I talked about it and we decided to use the Dave Ramsey Debt Snowball Method. Basically you pay off your smallest bill, your smallest credit card and then you roll that into the next biggest. So what you were paying on the smaller one, once it’s paid off, you roll that minimum payment into the next one, and once you pay that you roll it into the next one, and basically it’s a snowball effect. That’s what we did, that was the plan that we did to pay off our debt. When you’re writing a book you also need a plan. I recommend that you write in this order, that you create an outline, the more flushed out your outline can be the easier the writing can be for you. So do the outline, then do the preliminary research, then once you have the outline, once you have the research, then sit down and write, and then finally do the editing. If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to sign up for my free writing challenge at writingweek.com, it’s a free seven day challenge to help you get started in that writing process.
So the first P is Patience, the second P is Planning, and the third P is Perseverance. Anytime you’re wanting to do something significant and live a life with no regrets, there will be obstacles. There will be obstacles to those dreams, there will be obstacles to achieving your goals, and when you have perseverance it’s basically having that attitude of “never giving up!” I tell this on my webinar, Three Book Writing Formulas Every Non-Fiction Author Needs to Know, if you haven’t joined me on that webinar you can join me I’m going to host it again in a few weeks, you can find out at Shelleyhitz.com/livewebinar. At the end of the webinar I share the story of my journey to finishing the Pike’s Peak Ascent. It’s a half marathon at the top of Pike’s Peak, which is over 14,000 feet, where you have only a very small percent of your oxygen at the top of Pike’s Peak, it’s a hard race!
I’m not an elite athlete like my husband, so it was very difficult for me, and I faced many obstacles. One of the obstacles that I faced while I was training for that race was that I had a miscarriage. I am 40 years old, at that time I thought it might be my last chance to have a child, we haven’t been able to have children, and I was devastated. I was grieving and it was really hard for me, and I thought about giving up on training for this race. Instead I decided to keep going, and actually running because therapeutic for me in 2014; it was a form of therapy. Have any of you found that to be true of exercise? It can be a form of therapy and help you with stress, to cope. I ended up finishing that race, and I ended up finishing it in even faster time than my biggest goal.
So, I want you to think today, are you living a life of no regrets? Is there something that is just gnawing at you right now as I talk about living with no regrets? Is there something you know deep down inside that you know you were created to do, that you’re not doing? What is that today? Do you want to tweet me, or you can also DM on Twitter, I’ve opened it up so anyone can DM me there. What is it you know you’re to do, but you’re just not doing it? Where is it that you might be stuck? I encourage you to apply the three Ps in that area, Patience, Planning, and Perseverance.
Last year I created a training video on how to plan with sticky notes. It’s a fun way to plan, and it’s the end of the year, you’re starting to think of the next year goals planning and all that, so I would like to offer this as a free gift to you for spending some time with me today. I think any of you would get value from this video of maybe a different way of thinking of planning. You can get that video at shelleyhitz.com/planningvideo.
Living a life of no regrets, I encourage you to live a life that you know if you left this earth today that you have accomplished all that God has called you to do, has gifted you to do, and the three Ps of living a life with no regrets.
1) Patience, small consistent actions over time that give you the biggest results, that will yield the biggest goals, that will give you the things that you are most proud of, and that will help you achieve the results that you want. Many times we want it today, but I encourage you to have that patience.
2) Planning, and I encourage you to check out my planning video at shelleyhitz.com/planningvideo.
3) Perseverance, like Winston Churchill said, “never, never, never give up.”
*~*~*~*
ANNOUNCER. Thanks for listening to this episode of the “Author Audience” show. Connect with us online at AuthorAudience.com where you will find all the resources mentioned in today’s episode. While you’re there, grab Shelley’s free video training on how to write and publish your book using her “6-Step ASCENT Method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.
Video Overview
Have Comments or Questions?
Share them in the comments below.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Leave a Reply