Today we are going to talk about S Power. This is finishing up a series where I talked about M Power, which is a morning routine, N power, a nighttime routine, W power, a weekly routine. And now I’m going to talk about S Power, which is a seasonal routine. It could also be done monthly. And sometimes people do this in quarters.
Seasons or Quarters or Even Months
But what I was finding in my life right now, I have more like five typical seasons a year versus four quarters a year. Quarters are typically like January or February. March is first quarter, April, May, June is the second quarter, et cetera. But for me, I view them more as seasons. But again, what I share, you could do each month if you wanted, because a month is a little season, which is like a piece of time, right?
My 5 Seasons
So this is how my typical seasons are at this point in time with kids at home, going to school, I have January through Spring break is my first season of a calendar year. Then April through the end of school, then summer. Is a season. This year, I feel like I had an extra season because we had a wedding during our summer, so there was kind of like a wedding season mixed into our summer season, which was interesting.
Then for me, the start of school to Bryson’s birthday, which is in October is a season. Then I have a holiday season, which is Halloween through the New Year’s.
Season changes = new routine
The reason why I like breaking up, what I’m going to explain to you now into these seasons is I love routine and at each of these junctures, it seems like a new routine kind of starts.
I also sometimes have additional seasons, like I talked about the wedding season, but last year my son was in a musical and it was pretty intensive practice, so we sort of had like this musical season. of two months of really intense practicing, et cetera. So this is what I like to do, and I do it backwards.
Review – Reflect and Reset
If you think of S Power, I start backwards, but I also go out of order, which I’ve explained before. But if we start with R, it’s reviewing the last season. So I like to reflect on the four goals that I set for that season. I like to set spiritual goals, personal goals, vocational goals, and relational goals.
And I’d just like to review how I feel those goals went in the last season, and then I might reset them. Either I’ll keep a similar goal and just kind of reset it, or I might pick a new goal in those categories. E is my expectations for this season. I usually write a list of everything that I. Coming up that I know about all the things I want to do.
Any traveling we might have, any other plans we might have or family members might have, and sometimes it feels like there’s way too much on that list.
W- What do I actually want?
Almost every time when I actually write out everything, I’m like, Wow, that is a lot. What am I thinking? Like too much. So that’s where my W comes in, which is want.
What do I actually want or desire for this season?
What is actually important?
When I ask this question and look at that list, I usually am able to cross some things off. I might push it to a season in the future, or I might change the way I’m doing something.
For instance, the last few years, Every end of December, I do a find your word challenge, find your word for the next year challenge.
However, it’s always more time consuming than I want it to be. So this year when I saw that on my list, I know it’s still something I want to do because the people that participate in it have always said how helpful it is, and it’s something that’s helpful for me as well. But what I decided to make it easier and more streamlined is I’m going to do a live Zoom, walking through the steps with whoever wants to be there with me, and I, of course, will share my worksheet and the recording, whoever can’t be there too.
So they’re able to do it, but then really it will only take me the amount of time it would take me to find my word. It won’t be a lot of extra work. I hope this is my intention. , and I’m excited about this because I actually do want to do it. However I was realizing it, it really interrupts my holiday break because I’m focused on it and it takes time away from my family.
So what I actually want is to do it and to have that time with my family. So now I can probably do the whole thing. With probably an hour to two hours of work total instead of, it usually used to take me five to 10 hours of work to get everything set up and et cetera. So that w of thinking about what do I actually want is so helpful.
O – Observe what you are grateful for (in past and future)
The next letter, oh, is to observe what you are grateful for, that was a stretch, right? Because I always like to have gratitude in there. Especially when I review the last season, what things am I grateful for? I like to write those down, and that often then leads me into what things am I grateful for that are coming up.
Kind of like a pre gratitude, and this is an opportunity for me also to really look at my thoughts about things that are coming up and create what I want with my thoughts. For example, the wedding. I don’t love giant social event. Especially if I feel like I have to be like on show I don’t know, like helping be a part of it.
And so I was really nervous when I looked at my wedding season. It’s not even my wedding, but you know, my child’s wedding season and the part I had to play into it, and I wanted to just really enjoy it and have gratitude. I was so grateful. I am so grateful because he married an amazing. Girl, so happy. So I was able to see, I want to be grateful for this and really have a positive experience.
So what thoughts do I need to have? What mind work, thought work do I need to do before this happens? And I came up with flexible, calm and present, or staying flexible, common present can help me to enjoy this day, and I have a whole podcast episode on it. I can link to it. Super important. That goes really with what I want or what I wanted, but also how can I be grateful for it almost ahead of time by using my thoughts.
Prayer Sheet – Update
Then P is updating my prayer sheet. I definitely do this every season and it’s funny because I thought my last season well, Was going to end a little sooner than it did, but there was a big thing happening that I was really intentionally praying for, for quite a few months, and I didn’t change my prayer sheet and didn’t even really shift into this next season until that project was completed.
But it was so fun to be able to look at my prayer sheet, my old one from last season, and put smiley faces next to all the things that happened. So grateful, and then write a prayer cheat sheet for this season that’s coming up. I will link to the podcast episode I have on prayer cheat sheets in the show notes in case you don’t know about them.
S – Simplify
And S, which stands for seasons, but it also stands for simplify. This goes back to what do I actually want? How can I simplify things? So, I can get what I want so that I can be more present with my family, especially with this upcoming holiday season. It’s especially meaningful to me.
My plans to simplify this holiday season
And on that note, I think I’ll be mixing up my next few podcasts throughout the holiday season with some new podcasts, but also mixed with some old podcasts, replaying ones that I feel would be appropriate in this holiday season when I was thinking about simplifying for this next season.
That is what popped in my head. I love recording the podcast, but it also takes a lot of time, not so much the recording as much as the editing and posting, so I need a little bit more space so I can create this holiday season to be the way I want it. So enjoy the replays that I’ll be doing over the next few weeks, mixed in with some new ones, knowing I will be back with all new ones in the new year.
I hope that learning about how I plan and reflect on my different seasons has helped me and maybe will inspire you to do the same. I am extra curious to hear your experience when you take a moment to sit down, look at your year, and divide it into seasons.
How many seasons do you have?
How many seasons do you have? What are they like? Do they have a title? Maybe I should name my seasons, right?
I don’t know, it’s easy to say winter, summer, fall, et cetera. But I don’t know. It’s just, it’s interesting to take that moment and chart out time chunks, see what they entail. And that actually makes me kind of wanna name mine cuz I do have holiday season, but it might be fun to name my other seasons too.
Feel free to share what seasons you came up with.