Beyond Your Limits with Dr. Christine Jehu

124. Living a Life Beyond Your Limits: INTRODUCING Daily Pages

• Dr. Christine Jehu

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Ever felt like you're operating within self-imposed boundaries? Let's shatter them together as we introduce the concept of living a life beyond your limits! Together, we'll explore the daily pages - a powerful tool that I created during one of the toughest periods of my life. This free resource is designed to help you capture the sparks of positivity from each day, shifting your perspective towards the brighter side, even in the face of adversity. Through my personal journey, you'll see how the practice has evolved and how you can implement it in your life.

We delve into the monthly outlook and daily action tracker, showcasing the power of setting goals and deliberately focusing on specific activities. Learn how tracking your simple daily actions like making your bed, moving your body, and drinking water can have a tremendous impact on your life over time. All it takes is signing up for the daily pages tool, tuning in to the podcast, and joining the active community. So, are you ready to embark on this journey of living life Beyond Your Limits? Let's get started!

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Dr. CJ:

Hey, hey, here we are. Welcome to Beyond your Limits Woo, next episode with the new name. We took a little break. We are back. We are rebranded. If you are a person who does a little skip skip through the intro, you're going to need to go back back and check out the new intro that sets the stage for what we are doing here at Beyond your Limits. I'm so freaking pumped. I'm really excited to see where this takes us. I'm going to do an episode here in a couple weeks diving in a little bit more to the history of this pod and how we got where we are and where things are going with Beyond your Limits and the reason for the name change. I know I shared a little bit about it in the Mountain Recap episode the one right before this but I want to share a little bit more of my thoughts and some of the process that I've gone through this month, and a big part of that is what we're here to talk about today, which is the launch of the daily pages. And so this is going to be a pretty short and sweet episode where I just want to share with you what this is, this free resource that I'm launching for the community. So if you want to hit pause right now and go into the show notes, there's a link that you can fill out really quickly to get a copy of the daily pages sent pretty immediately to your inbox. So if you want to look at it as I'm talking through it, you can do that, or you can just hear about all the greatness and then fill the link out after the episode if you're driving or whatnot.

Dr. CJ:

So let's talk about daily pages. T here's a little intro in here that tells you a little bit more, but this is a daily practice that I started, I want to say, roughly six years ago. I was having a bit of a hard time. I was in a job that I wasn't really feeling and I was just like feeling pretty lost and going into the days with not the greatest mindset, kind of a crappy outlook, and I needed something to get my head right, honestly, and so daily pages came out of that.

Dr. CJ:

So the practice started with every morning I would wake up and when I sat down for my morning routine, I would reflect on the day before and write down something that I was grateful for, something good that happened, something that made me smile, just some sort of highlight from the day before. And, honestly, there were times when I wrote delicious coffee two or three days in a row because that was the one thing that was feeling good to me, and so I share that to say you don't have to come up with something new every day, it doesn't have to be something groundbreaking or earth shattering, but I want us to get into that practice of looking for the things that make our day to day beautiful, and oftentimes it's the small things that are really easy to overlook. And so what I did and you'll see this in daily pages this page in the workbook is titled gratitude, but let gratitude expand how you want it to. So what happened is I had a page and I listed out one through 30 or one through 31, however many days were in the month, and each day I would collect these, these glimmers of goodness, if you will, and Then, if I was having a really, really rough day, I could look back at those pages and say, hey, even in spite of all of this, here's some great things that continue to happen. And it helped me, over time, shift my attitude and start looking for the good, and it took some of the weight out of the pieces that weren't going so great at the time. So that is a practice that I've carried on, even as things have improved and I'm in a much better spot. This is a practice that has just become a rhythm, and so I'm sharing it with you.

Dr. CJ:

So what would happen in my journal is one page would be this gratitude, and then, on the other side of the page, I would leave it open to write different quotes and takeaways from the books that I was reading, and that was the foundation. Again, I had this page where I was gathering all this goodness from my life, but then I was also capturing really powerful elements from others who were enriching my life through their books, through their podcasts. So I had these two pages full of resource material to go back to one for motivation and inspiration, but also when times weren't. You know, we're kind of going crappy and I needed a little pick me up. So that's where it started and it's evolved over time, and so here's what I've done for you. I'm going to take you through page by page. So you've got on your daily pages, you've got your cover page, a little letter from me that shares more about how to use, how to use this practice.

Dr. CJ:

Then the third page is a monthly outlook, and here I give you a box to write down important dates and I don't want you to write down, you know, like every Thursday I'm doing this and soccer practices. Here the important dates are trips that you have, people's birthdays that are coming up, those things that are outside of the typical rhythm of your life, because I want you to be aware of them as you're going into planning for the month, right? What is this going to look like? Because those important dates are things that tend to set us off our axis, and so if we have them up front and we're thinking about them as we're planning for our month, it can be less of a disruption and we can plan for it in the rhythm of our life. So you've got a box for that. Then you've got a box for my team, and your team is going to be your accountability friends, right, and you can be on this team. If you want to be accountable to your daily pages with me, right, you could. If you know me in real life, you can text me about it, but you can also message me on Instagram. You can tag me on Instagram as you're using this booklet. So that's going to be accountability.

Dr. CJ:

It's going to be the people in your day to day life who you know that you need to intentionally connect with, who are going to be there to support you, to challenge you, to help you through different times. This could be, let's say, you are starting a project at work. Maybe that's one of the important dates that you're listing, right? Here's this work project and it's going to shift the rhythm and the routine, and here's a key person at work who I need to make sure that I'm intentionally connecting with. Now. You may find, as the months go on, that there are consistent people of your team that just become okay. Those are the given. But this box is also for making sure we're intentionally tapping into the resources around us. It may be stretching us in areas to ask for help when we're not typically used to asking for help, or we're one of those you know, independent warriors that goes about it on our own. I want you to be stretching yourself and challenging yourself of where? Where do you have opportunity to grow in terms of building your team around you? Your team may be a doctor that you need to connect with right, do you have a surgery or some appointments coming up? So your team think of this too is who on my team do I need that is connected to these important dates, and then also, who's my team on the day to day basis? So those are your two boxes at the top, and then I have prompts for the month.

Dr. CJ:

This month, I want to feel. Yes, I want you to get into your emotions, but it also could be how do you want to feel in your body. I want to feel rested. I want to feel energized. Right, how do you want to feel holistically what your focus for the month is and what your goal for the month is? Now? These may sound very similar. You might be like Jiu. What's going on? This is the exact same thing. When I think about this, I think about the focus as more of an umbrella term. So a focus for the month of September may be I want to, I'm going to focus on slowing down. I'm going to focus on being more intentional and connected with my community. I want to focus on my health, right, and then the goals are more of those action oriented elements that you are going to put into practice for the month.

Dr. CJ:

Okay, so let's say your goal is, or your focus for the month is I want to be more intentional with my community. So one of the goals may be I'm going to send a text message at the start of the month to every person listed in the my teams box and share with them what's coming and how I could use their support. It could also be putting in your planner two people's names at the start of each week that you're going to send a text message to, to connect, schedule time to talk, maybe go get coffee. So you see the intention is building the community and then the goals are how you're going to do it. So I specifically put goal and not goals plural in here, because I don't want us writing a list of 10 goals. You have a focus and then what's one to two goals within that.

Dr. CJ:

I'm not saying that you don't have to have any other goals in your life, because we're all working towards multiple things, but I want us to get really focused on what are those things that you're looking to accomplish, and I don't want us to get overwhelmed. And the other thing I launched I was so excited about this, I launched straight into it is that this daily pages is a tool for you, right, so you may take one of these practices and say this month I'm going to implement this piece and then next month I'm going to implement the next. Okay, so I don't want you to feel like you have to do all of these things every single day, perfectly, without fail. This is giving you a structure and some guidance for how to build a strong foundation for your life. Okay, because we need these daily practices If we're going to be challenging our limits. We're going to be challenging these thought processes in our head and rewriting and redirecting our life, but we can't do that without a strong foundation, and this is a tool that I've found has worked really well in my life of giving me that foundation. Especially when things start to feel like they're like that foundation is cracking, I always come back to these practices, okay.

Dr. CJ:

So, as I say that, in the middle of like the monthly outlook, I do want to challenge you to do the full monthly outlook. Okay, because we want to be setting a stage and getting ourselves prepared, and that's why this is dropping a couple of days before the month starts. So you have some time to dig into it and even if you're listening to this and it's a couple of days into September, jump on board. You can start wherever you are. Okay, so, back into the reflections. We're looking at our focus and our goal and then those action steps to work towards the goal. So I kind of explained that as I was giving you an example. So if it's connecting with the community, so the goal is I'm going to be more present with my community by connecting with people. Okay, so the action steps are I'm going to send text messages. You know the son, the other. I think you get what I'm putting down. So page three is that month outlook. Then page four is that gratitude tracker, like I talked about. Okay. Page five Now this is the daily action tracker.

Dr. CJ:

I have intentionally put five things on this tracker that take absolutely no skill. Anybody on earth can do these things. Okay, and there's research backing, but then also sort of social research. When you listen to interviews of highly successful people, they are doing many of these activities on a daily basis and the purpose of tracking them one is they are. They are things that take no skill, so you can have an immediate win when you've been able to check these pieces off. But again, they're foundational items that sometimes in the beginning we have to be really, really intentional of saying, okay, I'm going to do these elements in my day and then checking in with ourselves to see did I actually do it? And then you have the celebration of checking them off.

Dr. CJ:

I do not want this daily tracker to be something that you judge yourself off of. We talk a lot here about like. Tracking gives us data and when we have data, we can make decisions on how we're going to make adjustments, okay. So please look at the daily tracker as data. So the items on here are make your bed and this doesn't have to be like military corner tuck, but pull those sheets up right, don't leave it all a mess Make your bed, move your body and move your body in whatever way that means for you. So I'll just share that. I'm navigating some health things right now and my energy is super, super low. So moving my body looks like parking at a further point of the parking lot and walking into work Right now. It's not a high intensity workout, okay, it's not even yoga. Right now I'm in a healing phase, so moving my body in this season right now is taking a couple extra steps when I could have parked closer, okay. So whatever that looks like for you, read a book. I don't care what book you read. It could be an audio book, you could be reading words on a page. I just want you digging in. And when I say read a book, it could also be listened to, a podcast, that sort of thing. I want you to be filling yourself with goodness.

Dr. CJ:

Then we're putting pen to paper and you are going to have space in this workbook to put pen to paper. We talk here so much about the power of journaling. Putting pen to paper activates our brain differently than even speaking. What was the other one speaking out loud? Or good grief? This is where we're at. I just completely lost my train of thought, or typing, that's what it was, typing it out. I want you to physically put pen to paper and, if you're doing this digitally, get your Apple Pen or whatever it is. Hand write. There is really cool neurological stuff that happens when we're physically writing. It helps us process differently. And then we're going to drink water, and this doesn't mean just drink one glass of water. This is making sure that we're staying hydrated throughout the day.

Dr. CJ:

Okay, so we're going to track these things. You can put a check mark, you can put smiley faces, stars, you can fill it in with a marker, whatever, whatever you want, and then you have a little bit of space to take some notes here. You may have Something else that you're trying to build, a habit, so you may want to add in. Here's another habit. I don't want you to fill this whole freaking page, though, with all of these habits. We're starting. Remember, we're building a foundation, so we're gonna start with five, five that take no skill and Build from there.

Dr. CJ:

Okay, so then after that, you've got your open space for quotes and takeaways. So this is when you're reading, listening to podcasts, anything that you want to capture, any of that goodness that you want to hold on to. And Then, before we've got some open space, you have your end of the month reflection. So you're gonna reflect back in 30, 31 days and say and see how you felt this month. Right, you Set an intention of how you want to feel this month. Then we're gonna check back in how did we actually feel this month? What did I learn about myself this month? What are celebrations and accomplishments that happen this month? And then what are the lessons and the actions that you want to carry into next month? So you'll see, this is very, very intentional. We've got questions that we're gonna put into action throughout the month, that we start at the beginning our outlook, and then we're gonna reflect on the month, we're gonna celebrate and we're gonna see, hey, what did I learn that I want to carry in to the next month?

Dr. CJ:

Okay, so I purposely put this end of month reflection Before the open-ended journal pages because I don't want you to forget about it, because if we put it at the end of the journal pages and you don't use all of that space. You might forget that it's there. So there it is for you and it's also a reminder. Hey, I'm gonna need to reflect, and sometimes knowing that we're gonna need to reflect at the end of the month Helps us be more intentional as we're moving through. And then you'll see you have a bunch of pages here where you can put pen to paper. I'm a big dot grid person, so it's a dot grid and not lined. I get sometimes a little overwhelmed if the page is completely blank, so I didn't just leave it open-ended or just without any sort of pattern. And then a little note for me from me at the end and Just making sure that you're subscribed.

Dr. CJ:

Hopefully you're subscribed to the podcast and the new Instagram name. That's right. We shifted to beyond your limits pod on Instagram, so that's it, y'all, that is. Those are your daily pages. I'm really excited. I want this to be a community effort. So, as you're going through it, if you have questions, please ask me, please share about the daily pages with your friends and family. The more people we can get in on this, the better. The more community we can build and the more lives we can change.

Dr. CJ:

Honestly, I really believe in this tool and I hope that it helps you so as, as you go through it. If you have questions, if you have celebrations, please share them with me. If you have suggestions, please let me know. This is our first round of it getting out there, so if something isn't printing well or you can't see it or you don't understand a portion of it, please, please, please, ask me. Give me that feedback when you get the email. You can respond right there on email. You can also hit me up on Instagram, please. I'm I'm going to incorporate your edits.

Dr. CJ:

I want this to be a tool that works for you and Truly helps you go beyond your limits. Right, it is called intentional daily actions, designed to develop the foundation for living a life beyond your limits, and I say it all the time it's the small, unsexy actions that we do consistently over time that help produce the big sexy outcome. A lot of people I talk to resist these daily actions, but really, when these habits, when these actions become habits, it takes less energy to put them into place. And so then, these key elements of having that foundation, those foundational practices and a life Foundation to where you don't even have to think about it. You are just going, going. You're making the bed, you're drinking the water, you're doing these things. That frees us up to have so much more space and energy To go after the dreams and the goals that are on our heart, that allow us to truly go and live beyond our limits.

Dr. CJ:

Okay, friend, I'm gonna wrap it up. You've got the tool. Make sure you sign up, get it in your inbox, make sure you're following the podcast. If you were following Beyond the couch, it just changed, so you're already there. Please share it on social. Get your friends in on this action. Let's grow this podcast. Let's grow this community. I have some really fun ideas for what we can do to connect and grow and Go beyond our limits together as a community, but we need to grow the community to be able to bring us all together. Okay, I love you so much. I mean it. I cannot wait to see where this takes us and to see how the daily pages impact your life. All right, we'll talk soon.