How do you create or find joy in your life? Do you really have a vision towards the fulfilling life that God wants you to live? Listen, God wants a joyful life for you, but it is you who has to take personal responsibility for where you are now and where you want to go.

show notes:

This episode is part 2 with Katie Hendrick, she’s a certified Christian life coach, a Jesus-loving coffee-drinking joy-filled wife, and mom of three. She also hosts the Stepping into A Joy-Filled Life podcast. She shares her intentional 4-step plan for creating and living a joyful life.

Listen in to learn why and how to make a conscious choice to move forward or miss out on the person God created you to be.

“If we begin to look for the joy, then we will find the joy.” -Katie Hendrick

Top Takeaways:

• How to grow into the woman God created you to become by defining and taking personal responsibility.
• Stop consuming things and people that are hurting you and choose those that are feeding you.
• Learn to focus on what you’re speaking and speak life and act positively to add value to the world.
• How to reevaluate the fruits of your life if things aren’t in alignment.
• The importance of guarding your heart and mind as a Christian woman.

What you will learn:

• [3:25] How to look, create, and share the joy.
• [6:40] Define the ideal life that God created you to live and be responsible for where you are and where you’re going.
• [8:40] Assess the input of your life- audit the things and people that are sucking off your time.
• 0:25] Become intentional with the output of your life- your words and actions.
• [13:46] Learn to consistently examine the fruit of your life to ensure you’re in alignment with your vision.
• [17:36] Katie’s life scriptures- 1 Peter 5:7 and Roman 12:2.
• [21:10] Katie’s plans for 2021- God, family, and work.

Relevant Links:

• Website: https://katiehedrick.com/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mskatiehedrick/ 
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MsKatieHedrick 
• Podcast: Stepping into a Joy Filled Life™
• PART 1: Listen to episode #29

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Detailed Transcript:

Speaker 1:

So what are some specific ways because you’ve obviously you know, just hearing your story have walked this joyful life yourself, to get from where you were to where you are today. So what are some specific ways that we and the mamas listening can live a joyful life?

Speaker 2:

I love this question. So the joy of the Lord truly is in me, I’m sure you can probably tell that or figure that out. But that’s where it comes from. People ask me, “Katie, how are you so happy?” I’m like, “friend, it is not me like it is the Holy Spirit and the joy of the Lord,” and I truly, truly mean that. But I love this question. So one thing that we can do is that we can look for it and create the joy. So I got to share this story with you. When I was 19, and this is like in between meeting my husband and getting engaged and getting married, I moved into this little basement apartment for three months. And it was… it was fine. It was a cute little apartment. But the problem, there was one really big problem. There were these giant – and I’m not kidding, you can’t make this up. There were these giant slugs that lived in this basement apartment. Like they would crawl up the walls, they would crawl on the door on the windows on the floor. I’m not kidding, girl, you can’t make this up. And so they were just in this basement apartment, right, like, so gross. And the thing is that as I’m noticing them, I began to actually look for them more and more.

So guess what? I found them more and more. We will find what we are looking for. So if we begin to look for the joy, then we will find the joy. And also just creating it. Our family loves to create these little joyful moments. Last summer on Father’s Day, our family, you know, with COVID going on, it was like we ordered takeout all the time. So we went over to this little taco joint and we ordered tacos for takeout. And we’re sitting outside at one of the picnic tables. At this little taco joint, we’re eating our little tacos and just having a great time. Well, out of nowhere comes a rainstorm. Like within seconds. It was like boom, rain clouds like dumping. And so we’re eating and it’s pouring down rain, and we’re laughing and we’re trying to like, you know, clean up the table. My husband, bless his heart. He’s like trying to clean up the trash. And I’m laughing so hard. I’m crying. And I’m like, I take off running to the car. And one of my kids my youngest, for some reason he went running in the opposite direction. So he went running, like under the overhang of the building. So opposite direction to where the car is. And I’m in the car at this point laughing and I roll down the window. And my little guy, he’s so cute and funny. His name is Canyon, so we call him Grand Canyon, he starts yelling, he’s laughing. And he’s yelling, “somebody helped me.” We’re all cracking up. And it’s just this silly, very simple, very real life moment. And we just found so much joy in that. So we’re always doing these silly little things and just creating these joyful moments. So look for the joy, create the joy.

And then finally, I have a four step plan, a very simple but strategic four step plan for creating and living a joyful life. So every single one of us has something in our heart. God has planted something inside each one of us. It’s something that we’re supposed to do, right, our calling. Or maybe it’s who we’re supposed to become, growing into that woman that God created us to be. So he planted something in each and every one of us. And he wants us to live that thing out to become that person to experience a really fulfilling, joyful life.

So step one in this process is first we’ve got to define our ideal life. And what that looks like. This is about identifying that thing that God has planted inside you or the person that he’s calling you to become. We have to define before we can do. So many people are walking around saying, “I don’t feel fulfilled.” For one reason alone. They don’t know what they want. They don’t know what fulfilled looks like. They have no vision, they haven’t designed that yet, or crafted that. They don’t know where they’re going. We have to cast that vision of what we’re called to do or who we want to be. The Bible says that, “without vision people perish.” We have to paint that picture where we want to go and even God Himself feels like that’s important. So we got to define our ideal life.

And then it’s time to get really real with ourselves about where we are now, we’ve got to understand and embrace personal responsibility, we have to take responsibility for where we are now. And for getting to where we want to go. Because someone else can want something for you so bad, but they can’t make you do it, they can’t accomplish that thing for you, right? And you’ve probably seen this on the flip side, you can want something for somebody so bad, but unless they make it their decision to move forward, and that it’s not happening. So we have to take personal responsibility in moving forward and then we have to decide consciously to move forward. Everybody has something in their past that was really hard. Everybody could choose to stay stuck in that to continue looking back at that and then they’re going to miss the boat. They’re gonna miss growing into the person that God created them to be. If they do not make the choice consciously to move forward, we have to decide that the gain of moving forward will be greater than the pain of the process to get there. So that’s step one. All of that is step one, defining our ideal life, taking responsibility and then deciding to move forward in that thing.

Step two. Secondly, we’ve got to assess the input of our life, the things that we’re consuming and the people that we’re hanging out with. They’re either distracting us or supporting us. They’re either nourishing us or they’re poisoning us. Things like the media, podcasts, the books that we are or aren’t listening to, social influencers, social media, our tribe, right? The people that we’re hanging out with, food, vices, habits, all the things that are sucking our time and attention. We’ve got to take a really serious look at all those things that are going into our life. It’s time to stop getting distracted by the things that have nothing to do with your goals. Those things that are not helping you grow into the person that you want to become. It’s time to burn the ships, okay? If it’s social media, delete the apps, shut down the noise, re-evaluate your friend group. Turn off the TV, or even better get rid of it.

That’s another one of my soapbox topics, we have this thing in our living room that’s selling us stuff that we don’t even want or need. So that’s my take on TV is just simply get rid of it. If you’re serious about changing your life, and stepping into that ideal life, then it’s time to get real serious about it. Because the truth, like I said, is that what we’re consuming, who we’re hanging out with, the things that we’re putting into our life, they’re either helping us or hurting us. And so it’s time to take a really intentional look at those things. Because they’re sinking into our heart and our mind, and they’re taking root and they’re producing fruit, what’s going in is coming out, and it’s what your life will become. Jesus taught this in Luke 6:45, “the good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

So the ultimate input. If you’re asking and wondering, there is one and one thing alone and it is God’s word and truth. Don’t get me wrong, there are other good things, right. There are sermons and conferences and podcasts and books. But here’s the deal, every word that’s good and true and wise, it came from God’s word in the first place. That’s where it all originates from his holy living, good word.

Step three, we’ve got to become intentional with the outputs of our life. It’s time to make sure that the things that we are saying and doing are a reflection of who we want to become right? That we learned in step one, back to that ideal life, the person that we want to become. We’ve got to learn to pause and think before we act and speak. We’ve got to be intentional about what’s coming out of our mouth, the things that we’re putting out into the world because like I said before, what you’re speaking out and focusing on – it will become your life. What we focus on is what we create more of.

Sometimes this means that we need to actually hold our tongue, right? The Lord gave us a spirit of self control. And sometimes we need to practice exercising that self control. Our words, and the things that we speak are so powerful. The Bible says that both life and death are in the power of the tongue. So we’ve got to be conscious of what we’re putting out as far as our words. And then if and when we’re going to speak, we need to make sure that what we’re speaking is life and that we’re acting upon it. Action is a huge part of this, the outputs of your life. It’s a huge part of this, it’s time to take massive action. Okay? We’ve got to pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on us because it does. And it does. This reminds me of the parable of talents in the book of Matthew, where a master gave his servants five, two and one talents respectively. Two of the servants went out and they went to work and they took action and they doubled their money and the master comes back and he says, “well done good and faithful servant.

You’ve been faithful over a little, I’ll set you ruler over much enter into the joy of your master.” But that last servant, he was afraid, and so he hid his talent. He didn’t go to work, he didn’t take action, and you see the master come back and rebuke him and call him a wicked and slothful. That story is so relatable to us today. Like if you consider your actual literal talents, when so it’s so practically applied to our lives today. We’re called to take our talents, our gifts, the things that God planted in us, and we’re called to go to work, we’re called to take action, and to use our gifts to produce fruit for God’s glory. Action gets rewarded, the blessing comes after obedient action. And you saw this in the parable of the talents, the servants who took action and produced, they were rewarded. We’ve got to move from this consumer mindset. This all about me, me, me mentality. And we’ve got to shift to a producer mindset and ask ourselves, “how can we use our gifts to add value to the world? How can we tangibly walk out having the output of our life line up with who we say we want to become who we know God is calling us to be?” We’ve got to shift to that mindset and it’s a huge step forward towards your ideal life and where you want to go.

So we’ve talked about defining your ideal life, assessing the inputs, becoming more intentional with the outputs. Step number four reveals how we can know If we’re moving in the right direction, if we’re stepping into all that God’s created us to do and be.

Step number four is consistently be examining the fruit of your life. So if you circle back to your ideal life, what you know you’re called to do, who you know you’re called to become. If you circle back to that, then the fruit of your life should be in alignment with that vision of your ideal life. That’s how you can be certain that you’re moving in the right direction. If there’s growth happening in your life, if these things are unfolding in your life, and they’re moving you toward what God has for you, then sister don’t stop, keep going. If it’s not in alignment, it’s definitely time to re-evaluate right, and take a look at the truth about the obstacles or the things or the people or the vices, the things that are holding you back. It’s time to reevaluate that as we take a very serious look at the fruit of our life.

And sister little by little, we will get there. Consistency is key. I love to say that fast and furious wins the race, sometimes. Slow and steady wins the race sometimes. But consistency is what wins the race, every time. At the end of the day, we all want to hear, “well done good and faithful servant.” That we’ve run our race well and with consistency, right? And when we live out the calling all that God has placed on our life that calling or what he’s planted in us that dream that he’s called us to live out that person that he’s called us to grow to become. It’s so good, it’s so good. And it just starts by obediently taking that one next step, we do not have to have it all figured out to move forward. Thank you to the good Lord above, we don’t have to see the whole big picture, we just have to obediently take the one big step, and the Lord will reveal those steps that are to follow.

Speaker 1:

That is amazing. Amen to personal responsibility. I just when you were talking about that part, I’m just like, “yes, that’s like one of my soapboxes.” Amen to personal responsibility. So yeah, I mean, that’s just so true. Like, if people don’t know what is supposed to fill them, I mean, just kind of going back to that first step you mentioned, they’re not gonna have clarity, right? And like, clarity is the best thing to propel you forward, right? You when you have clarity, you’re like, “Okay, I can handle this, I can do that. I know what I need to do.” You can take that personal responsibility when you’re clear on what you’re supposed to do, right? And then that kind of activates us and moves us forward into the doing. And so I just love everything about that. The input, just like guarding our faculties, right, our eyes, our ears, our hearts. So crucial. And then that, obviously is going to affect what we’re putting out, right? And what fruit we’re bearing. So awesome. I love all of that. I love that just filtering everything out to that doesn’t or I should say that hinders us or doesn’t align with that vision and that purpose and just being so laser focused and almost putting blinders on. So like, you’re not looking up, you’re just looking at God, right, you’re not looking to the right or the left, you know exactly where you’re going.

Speaker 2:

So good. But it’s so good. Another Christine Caine quote that I love as she says, “I’m as diligent about what I keep out as I am about what I put in.” So you mentioned protecting our eyes and ears and our heart and our mind. And I think that that is so very important, especially as we’re following Jesus, we’ve got to be so obediently cautious and guarding our heart in our mind.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, what we choose not to do or expose ourselves to is just as important as what we choose to do and expose ourselves to. So you had mentioned a lot of scriptures in that. And so would you be willing to share some key scriptures in your life?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. So there are two of them. The first one I really consider this my life first. And this is definitely not your traditional typical life verse that I’ve never heard anyone else with this as they’re lifers, but it’s 1 Peter 5:7, “cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” Throughout my life, I have just clung and clung to that scripture, for all different reasons in all different seasons. But I found that scripture when I was, I think, probably middle school age, and I just clung to it. I clung to it, and every time I felt, you know, confused or anxious or scared or sad, I just reminded myself of that scripture, cast everything on Him because He cares for you. And then Romans 12:2 is another one of my favorites. And it’s actually what I based my life coaching program on. It says, “be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing and perfect will of God.” This is what leads to total life transformation is by taking our thoughts captive and renewing them with God’s truth. And I feel like that’s so powerful that like I said, I based my entire coaching program on it because it’s good and it’s true and it will completely change your life.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for sharing that. I’m always about you know, we have certain seasons where certain scriptures will just kind of adhere to our hearts and yet we have these life scriptures as well. So thank you for sharing that. Alright, so Katie, if people want to connect with you, where can they find you?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Yeah. So my podcast is called again, it’s the Stepping Into A Joy Filled Life podcast. You can find it on any platform, anywhere you listen to podcasts. Or at stepintojoy.com. You can find me on my website at KatieHedrickcoaching.com. You also can find me on Facebook Katie Hedrick life coaching on Facebook, and then I do have an online community. It’s a free Facebook group. It’s called Happy Chicks. And you can just go inside of Facebook and search for happy chicks. And we’d love to have you join us there.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and you also have Seven Habits of Happiness. This is an E book that the listeners can download for free. And that’s that KatieHendricks.com/ebook?

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely. Yep. I did forget to mention that. But that’s Yeah, lots of good stuff in there. It’s got some of the things that we’ve talked about today. Yeah. And it’s just a quick little 11 page read full of lots of goodness.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. So you talked about your coaching and your course that you have coming up? What is next for you in 2021?

Speaker 2:

So that’s really what I’m looking at. You know, all of us, I think, have I hashtag all the things going on all the time. First and foremost, just continuing to grow in my relationship with the Lord. I’m right now I’m reading back through all the Gospels and you know, just digging into the word every day and really prioritizing that and growing as a kingdom daughter, first and foremost. And then serving my family well, right, my marriage and my kids. And then with the coaching of course, like I said, I’m just opening up for one on one coaching. I am looking at doing a self guided life coaching course. So I’m thinking that that will probably come out here in 2021. But it’s just so fun, as God has, you know, called me to share my story and the freedom that I’ve found through him with other women. It’s just been such an awesome journey of stepping forward in obedient action and, you know, walking in our calling, and our purpose is so good and so fulfilling. And that’s what lights me up is helping other women find that to figure out who they are and whose they are, and what they’re called to, and how to live that out with great intention. So as far as business wise goes, I’m really fired up about the life coaching and about helping as many women as I can to just live that abundant, thriving, joy filled life with Christ at the center of all of it.

Speaker 1:

Yay. That’s awesome. Well, Katie, thank you so much for joining us today. I usually pray a blessing over my guests at the end. But I actually have, God gave me a word for you. So as I’m honing in on my skill with the prophetic, things are just so much clearer and come to me a lot quicker. And so as I was driving home this weekend, actually felt like how God feels about you. I got really emotional as I was driving, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, like, do you want me to share this with her?” and he wants me to so I’m going to share. I’m going to take a risk. I’m going to take a step. And if you don’t mind, I’d love to share what he has to say for you.

Speaker 2:

I would love that. Heidi, absolutely. I receive that.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so this is what I heard. He says, “Katie, girl, you are my dancing queen. The angels rejoice when you dance. They get so happy and they dance right along with you. And they release the joy in your presence because you release my glory when you dance. He says this is a season of acceleration for you. And you’ve experienced some of that already, because you’ve prepared and you’ve stewarded what you’ve had. And you stewarded the small things and this is going to be an acceleration for you.” And Katie, I get the sense he wants you to put your seatbelt on this is what I had a vision of He says, “Hang on, Katie girl, this is gonna be a wild ride. So fasten your seatbelt.” That reminds me of a quote that one of my kingdom mentors said. I read Dan McCollum. He’s amazing. And he says, “you’re currently moving at the speed of your obedience.” And you just mentioned obedience. I’m just like, “yep, he wants you to put your seatbelt on because you are just saying yes, and being obedient.” So I bless you with that today. Katie, does that resonate with you at all?

Speaker 2:

Heidi, I’m like over here crying. Oh, my goodness. Um, yes. Thank you for stepping forward obediently and sharing that with me. It’s really interesting. And you obviously have such a gifting for the prophetic. I actually back in high school, I was a dance teacher. I danced, I literally danced my whole life. And then my last two years of high school, I actually ran a dance studio and taught and poured into other little girls and dancing is still one of the most important and favorite things in my life. My little girl is a dancer. Wow, Heidi. Yeah, I just like every year we’ve been with goodness, thank you for sharing that the Lord is so good and so faithful. And I am just beyond excited and busting at the seams to see what he’s gonna do next. He’s so good. Thank you for your giftings and for all that you do and are and all that you openly share. Heidi, I pray that you are blessed as well.

Speaker 1:

Thank you.