Unlocking progress in chaos

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:00]:I am feeling so refreshed. We had a weekend together as a family, like just the six of us. And it was so life giving. We are usually going in all of the different directions. And it was super Bowl Sunday. And I am so grateful that my self a couple of weeks ago did not get all excited and social and decide to play on a big thing at our house because that is definitely something that I would normally do. But I was kind of reading the room that we all just needed to plant and stick into our home and be together.

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:32]:So it's like so special. We rode in one car to church, which going to church is not unique, but the one car part is very unique. And after church, my husband had the best idea. We went to our club, country club, whatever. And they have a gymnasium and we played for like 2 hours in the gym. It was amazing. We hit volleyballs. The girls were getting to see that.

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:56]:My JR Is like an amazing shot at basketball. And it was just like so fun. We played together, we sweat together, we were active together, we laughed. Like everybody from quincy to aubrey was so fun and a hot take. I am the second best shooter in the family. So just so you know. Okay, so it was like so wonderful.

Tiffany Sauder [00:01:15]:And I put my phone down for like probably 8 hours since all my kids were there. I was like, I don't really need to know where people are. Everybody's here. And it was so freeing. So amazing. Highly recommend. If it has been a hot minute since your family's been together, stick an eight hour staycation on the schedule and just be together. It was such a good reminder that we really love it.

Tiffany Sauder [00:01:38]:And I made tacos and my big girls were like, this was such a fun day. And I just think it's such a good reminder that we are fun and we have fun as a family and we don't always have to have people over. They don't always need to be at friends houses. It was just like really fun and special. So I'm all in on that. The other thing that's kind of top of mind for me is that I thought I would share is I would say in recent weeks, I have been a decidedly average mom to Quincy, our three year old. I just feel like I've been very just reactive to her. I'm like negotiating with her all day long.

Tiffany Sauder [00:02:18]:She started telling our nanny that our nanny, lexi is exhausting, which has no idea what that word means because I am saying to Quincy, you are exhausting. She's like repeating that word. What a terrible thing to read into your kid that you're exhausting. That is not the mom I am. This is not the way I really think about, like, what is are. I am off the rails, and we are off the rails. It was, like, not good. So this little tip, actually, I picked up from Michelle gams.

Tiffany Sauder [00:02:47]:I had her on. She's a parenting coach, and I had her on a few episodes ago, and she has a podcast where she recorded like, 20 episodes. And I went back and just cherry picked a few of them because I'm like, I need a deeper toolbox with this kid. She is just harder than my other ones, or I am wimpier. I don't know which it is. But this was the tip that she said in an episode that really helps us have a much better weekend. And I feel like it's helping us, helping me. And the tip was, what can you say yes to? So she's talked about how the word no is a magnet for all of us.

Tiffany Sauder [00:03:24]:We literally a. We either don't hear it or it's a magnet for, like, if you tell me I can't, then I'm going to do it. And that is, like, exactly who I am. Tell me I can't, and I will show you that I can. And so I can't be mad at that in Quincy, but I do need to parent her well. And so I was like, okay, how can I think about what I can say yes to? And how do I meet her with the same energy that she has when she comes to me versus, like, she's like, hey, mom, how about I get all these crafts? And I'm like, no way. It's going to make a mess. What a crappy thing for somebody to say every single time they come to you.

Tiffany Sauder [00:03:59]:It's like, no. And to say it in the grumpiest voice ever. So I kind of recast the deck a little bit this weekend, and I felt like it went so much better. So, for example, she's like, hey, mom, can I have a cookie? I was like, that's so fun that you want a cookie. We can have one tonight after dinner. But if you want something sweet, how about if we have apples with some sprinkles on it? That would be fun. I'm redirecting her to something healthy. I'm making it kind of fun.

Tiffany Sauder [00:04:24]:And I'm using a happy, excited tone of voice with her back instead of like, no, you can't have a cookie. Go eat a carrot. Like, two very different reactions. But the outcome I wanted was for her to eat something healthy. And so she had an apple with, like, eight sprinkles on it. Who cares? And we were successful. Or she asked me last night. It was like, 645.

Tiffany Sauder [00:04:47]:Mom, can I get paint out? And normally, I would say, like, no, but I was like, why can't I say yes? We don't have anything going on. Yes, it's a little bit messy, but what do I want her doing instead? Watching the iPad? No. So I was like, yeah, I can say yes to that. It's like asking myself, can I say yes? Another example that Michelle used was, if your kid asks, can I watch a show? You can say, like, yeah, totally. That would be fun. How about if we do it when the clock says 03:00 or when you get up from your nap? So, I don't know. I just felt like I did a much better job redirecting her. I felt like I was able to come up with something that was matching the energy and enthusiasm that she was wanting to experience as a three year old.

Tiffany Sauder [00:05:32]:Who wants to play? Or like, she was like, she went and took a Barbie from Ivy, and they were both annoyed with each other. And I was like, what makes that Barbie pretty to you, Quincy? And she was like, I like the pink dress. I was like, okay, how about if we find a different Barbie with a pink dress on it? That would be a fun adventure. And she was like, yeah, let's do like again. Instead of me being like, quincy, stop taking your sister's toys like, you need to play. I was like, that is not fun. It's not fun to be that person. It's not fun to hear those words.

Tiffany Sauder [00:06:08]:It's not fun for our house to be filled with that kind of stuff. So I was like, what do you love about it? Awesome. How about if we find a barbie with a pink dress on it? And she's like, yeah, I just asked more questions. I got to a place where I could say yes to something. So, again, we'll see. I have a lot of fresh energy for it right now. We're, like, four days in. I feel like the week is going better.

Tiffany Sauder [00:06:29]:I feel like I'm more attentive to what I'm saying instead of just reacting based on the fact that I'm tired and there's words coming at me so fast all day long from my children at home, and I feel like it's going better. So maybe this tip will help you if you have a little one. Okay, today I have on cargo pants. You can only see my head if you're on YouTube, and you can't see any of my body, if you're listening to this in the podcast. But kind of a newish trend. Like, newish trend? Newish to mainstream, I feel like. And I can't decide if they're cute or if who needs to make their thighs bigger. Literally no one over the age of 35 needs to make their thighs bigger.

Tiffany Sauder [00:07:14]:So I don't know, maybe they're kind of cute, maybe they're not. But we're trying them out today. What I've learned, if you're going to style a pair of cargo pants, you have to be able to see your waist in what you're wearing with it. Otherwise, you look like an actual marshmallow with shoes on. Like, that's just what happens. So if you're going to try the trend, be sure you can see your waist. Cinch the waist, ladies. Okay, so what are we really actually going to talk about today? Instead of me just debriefing my most recent life, which is a little bit helpful for me to reflect on? Okay, we're going to talk about the power of deciding one thing.

Tiffany Sauder [00:07:48]:One thing. This has helped me so much and make progress when I feel like I'm in the middle of a mushroom of absolute chaos, because when you are sitting in a bunch of unresolved issues, it can accidentally become very debilitating and you kind of freeze. Like, I just see the long list of crap. I don't know where to start. And so instead of starting, I'm going to put a lot of energy into complaining, which fixes nothing, makes you remarkably unfun, and gives you, like, a really poopy outlook on your life. So we don't want to be those things, unfun or poopy. So what do we want to be instead? We want to be proactive solvers, right? We want to be on top of our lives. So whenever I'm in this state of, like, holy crap, my brain is overwhelmed.

Tiffany Sauder [00:08:39]:I ask myself, what is the one thing I can define so that I can start deciding against it? So when we see a bunch of problems, we can quickly react by being overwhelmed. But how do we take back control? Say, what's the one thing? Where do I start? Let me give you an example. In the last few weeks, I've said this a thousand times, but my brain doesn't work when I'm living in clutter or, like, dirt. The clean spaces, clean house helps my brain work. So my house was a wreck. It was like two thirds Christmas, one third spring. Like, what is happening inside of our place? There's like, dust on everything that's been out for too long. Our garage was so dirty because we'd had snow and rain, and all this crap gets underneath my car, my great big suv, and then it all melts into our garage.

Tiffany Sauder [00:09:30]:And then there's, like, footprints clubbing through it, and then there's, like, dirt that gets left, like, all the things, right, right. And I would, like, pull in my garage every time, like, oh, my word, it's so gross. And I would walk into the house and be like, oh, my word, it's so gross. All this stuff needs to be decluttered. And I started to be, like, just grumpy about it. I was like, everything is a mess. This is what we do when we're overwhelmed. We're generalized.

Tiffany Sauder [00:09:51]:Everything is terrible. Everything is a mess. Everybody's being too loud. All of our food is disgusting. We, like, make these sweeping declarations. That is probably directionally true, but it is actually not true, and you cannot take action against everything is a mess. And so I started to feel this inside of me, and I was like, okay, you got to break it down, Tiffany. Name it, claim it, do it.

Tiffany Sauder [00:10:14]:So I was like, the garage is a. Have we get a live tree every year, which is a little bit source of conflict between my husband and I, but he acquiesces, and we were, like, having people over for New Year's Eve, and we didn't know trash was coming, so we just chucked it out our back door. So we still have this dead tree on February 15, when I'm recording this, this dead tree on our back patio, I think we're praying for a gust of wind. Take it away. But it's like these things are all over the place. It makes me laugh so hard because it's just, like, so uncouth, very uncool. Anyways, it makes me laugh, so I started to break it down. I'm like, the first thing we need to do is the garage.

Tiffany Sauder [00:11:02]:So it's like a nice, sunny day. Put the garage doors up. I went outside with Ivy and Quincy, and we cleaned out the garage for, like, 45 minutes. Is it as perfect as I want it to be? No, but I made directional progress towards everything is a mess. The second thing I did was on Saturday. I was like, hey, we got to get this Christmas stuff down. The girls helped me for a couple of hours, and we're like, 98.5% decristmast, and the tree is still a problem. I got to figure that out.

Tiffany Sauder [00:11:27]:But again, instead of sticking in, everything is a mess. Everything is terrible. I started to say, I got to name it. I got to figure out one thing that makes progress towards what I want, which is less clutter, less crazy, more clean. So just the power of deciding one thing. Another example in my work life is this course that we're working on for all of you, this digital course. We're actually recasting the name a little bit called life of and academy, where we will share this own the ordinary system inside of it. And creating this digital course was such a reminder that you do not have competency until you try something.

Tiffany Sauder [00:12:08]:And so it's been, in good ways, a lot of work, getting all this stuff out of my brain into something that's clear. Beginning to figure out how do I make visuals that support all of the things that we want to teach, and how do we figure out how to record it in a way that's interesting and you want to watch it, and it's dynamic and how do we get the right partners? It's all this complexity. It's so hard. All of it is crazy. It's all so new. You can't solve when things are that ambiguous and that undefined. And so Samantha and I have been working really, really hard at saying, like, what is the next thing specifically? What is the next thing that we need to solve for? Let's be excellent against that. And if we specifically define what we need to be excellent at and we do that over and over and over again, then the total effort ultimately will be excellent.

Tiffany Sauder [00:12:56]:And we are thoughtfully making it so that we can easily update because we know it's not going to be perfect. So this is a tool to help you when you are in a state of like, holy crap, everything is all of you. Find your one thing, obsess over it like a crazy person. Schedule a time to get it done, or at least to make progress towards the first step and make it a priority. Put it in your calendar, put it in your life. Make time for it. Recruit your family to support you, like, publish it, put it on the fridge, and big black sharpie on a piece of paper. This is what we're making progress toward.

Tiffany Sauder [00:13:35]:Move from everything is a mess to I know exactly what the one thing is that I can do to move me towards the thing that it is that I want to do. So we got to be real flexible pants. If we're going to live in a two career home, have kids, have jobs, have careers, have hobies, be serious about our health and nutrition. We are going to have a lot of flexibility, is going to be required in our lives. And so when you're trying to make progress in the, let's call it the natural current of life, we don't have three Saturdays in a row for 6 hours to be able to clean out every drawer in our house that has clothes in it that are too small. Right. But I can do it for six weeks in 115 minutes increment a week and make some progress towards getting all the crap out of our drawers that don't fit anybody in our house. Right.

Tiffany Sauder [00:14:27]:What is one decision, one choice, one small behavior that you can make towards the biggest thing that you're trying to make progress towards. All right. Pick your one thing. Make some progress. Get your phone out. Schedule when you're going to do it. The smallest increment of effort that you can make towards it is a win. Let's hold ourselves responsible for progress and not perfection in this life of Anne.

Tiffany Sauder [00:14:52]:So thank you for listening today. If you want to continue to follow along on this journey, sign up for the newsletter. We send that out every other week. You guys are so kind and giving us your feedback. You're opening it, you're reading it, you're not unsubscribing. So I know it's adding value. So thanks so much for listening. Only 15 minutes, but I think that's fine.

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