I LOVE conferences, summits, events that speak to my soul. Give me all of the events! For real, sign me up for ALL OF THEM! I love the energy in the room, being surrounded by amazing people, listening to fantastic speakers, and feeling all of the inspiration and motivation that these things bring out in me. I take notes, I laugh, I cry, I share deep things with the people at my table. I AM ON FIRE! I WILL CHANGE MY LIFE! I WILL CHANGE THE WORLD! Then the conference is over, we all go home, still riding the high of the day with plans to make changes in our lives… and a few weeks later we wonder why we haven’t done all the things we told ourselves we were going to do after that conference… Does this resonate with you?!
Cheers friend. This was and still can be me too, so I get it! My opinion - just taking that day or weekend for yourself is HUGE! You need that. You DESERVE that. So even if you don’t do anything with the things you learned and the motivation you felt afterwards, it was still worth it for you to go. For real. But, I also know that we’d all really love to keep the feeling we had from our conference alive. We WANT to make changes in our life, business, relationships, health, etc. that lead to us creating a life we want and love! I’ve come up with some super simple ways that you can use to get even more out of attending a conference. Simple things to help you keep that cloud 9, nothing can stop me, “I’m amazing” feeling alive!
1. REFLECT
This is a hard one for me, but also probably the MOST IMPORTANT THING to do after a conference. Set some time aside for you and you alone - the very next day if possible. Find a quiet spot in your home, have your partner take the kids out for a bit, go to a coffee shop, hide in your car. Whatever you need to do, just find a place that you can reflect without interruption.
During this time you are going to look back on your notes, think through all the feelings you had, the high points of the day, the lessons you learned, the goals you made, etc. Then write it all down. Yep, here I am telling you to journal it out again! This can be messy. This is a serious “brain dump”. You just need to get all of your thoughts out of your head and onto paper. If we skip this step our brain becomes a jumbled mess of ideas, goals, to dos, want to dos, should dos, need to dos. You get the idea. No one can think clearly or make any positive life changes when their minds are a jumbled mess of ALL THE THINGS (can I get an Amen?!)
So there it is. Reflect and journal it all out.
2. Choose 1 thing
What?! Just 1 thing??? But Chrystal, I have 79 things that I want to work on, implement, and change! How am I supposed to choose just 1 thing?!
I hear ya cluckin’. That is exactly me. This is the absolute HARDEST thing for me to do. I want to jump from A to Z in the next 2 days and implement all the things. I will get up earlier, exercise, do affirmations, teach my kids affirmations, start journaling, drink a gallon of water, pray, make homemade healthy meals, teach my kids piano, read, re-do my entire email strategy, schedule 30 days of social media, hire a new person, begin taking voice lessons, shut off my phone at 6, implement weekly date nights, etc. all by tomorrow. Guess what, you cannot and will not sustain this for long. You will be exhausted and get down on yourself for “failing”. This is why we must choose 1 thing.
What do I mean? Pick one thing. One goal, habit, change, etc. that you would like to start with. One thing that will set you on a path of awesomeness. One thing that really sparked something deep inside of you during the event. Let’s start there. One thing is perfect.
To get to your one thing, you may need to look through your reflection brain dump. You might circle a few things that are really important. That’s perfect. Then narrow it down to one. What is the one goal, habit, change, etc. that you can implement first and will then start the momentum you need to implement the second and third and so on? Let’s do that thing!
3. Make a plan.
You have your one thing. Now you must set a plan for how you will do this one thing? How will you begin this new habit? What do you need to do to hit this first goal? Reverse engineer it. That means take it from the end goal and work backwards to now. What do you need to do to get there? Now make the plan. And then stick to the plan.
So a few tips here: If it’s a new habit that you are trying to form, is there another habit you already have that you could attach the new habit to? For example, you want to be better at taking your supplements. Can you set your supplements out by your toothbrush and when you brush your teeth at night, you also take your supplements? Or you want to drink more water, have a glass of water by your bed and when you wake up you immediately drink that glass of water before doing anything else? You may need to get creative, but I have full faith in you and know you will do great!
4. Connect
During the event, you met some amazing people. People that most likely also have goals and dreams and want to make positive changes so that they can create their very best lives! Connect with them!
Set a time to meet once a month or every couple of weeks. The important thing is to make this a very intentional get together. We could easily meet for coffee and talk about the weather and our kids for an hour and never actually talk about our goals, habits, and dreams. The intention of this get together is so that you can speak openly and candidly about your goals, habits, changes, successes and struggles with others who are also experiencing these things. The connections you made at the event you attended are different from other connections you have. These new friends are now your goals and dreams people. You will cheer each other on, lend a shoulder to cry on when one of you is having a hard day, and you will hold each other accountable to the thing(s) you said you were going to do. We all need these people. We can all be this person to someone else. This makes me super excited!
Ok, that was a lot of information! To review:
First reflect and brain dump ALL THE THINGS.
Next, choose just 1 thing/goal/habit to work on first.
Third, make a plan.
Lastly, connect with others who also want to create their best life!
Side note - I feel so so strongly about the importance of building and nourishing deep connections. I believe in surrounding ourselves with wonderful, amazing, beautiful souls who also want to grow, and build meaningful connections with others. Because of this feeling and the joy I get when connecting with others and also connecting others - I am dreaming and planning a Wildly You community of some sort. Some kind of monthly get together where we can discuss important topics, grow, encourage one another, have deep conversations, learn, etc. This is something I feel very passionately about and am excited to be able to invite you into. If that also sounds amazing to you, I’d love for you to stay connected here, on socials, and also through email so that we can be besties and lift each other up during this life. If you are not yet on my email list, I’d love to invite you in so that you don’t miss out when I launch this meeting of awesomeness (not quite sure what to call it yet). As always, you are all amazing, beautiful, worthy, and enough. Keep striving to live authentically as you, as wildly you!
Love ya friends! Stay Wild,
Xoxo - Chrystal
PS - our Wildly Business, Wildly You, and Wildly Fun weekend retreats are in planning stages and we are pumped! Wildly Business will be launched first with the retreat date in January 2022 - this will be an awesome weekend of connectedness and growth and I am so excited!