Welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, Amy Dardis. In today's episode, we are talking about clarity and what it really looks like to seek God's will and direction in our life and in our business and the rhythms and the structures that we need to put into our life so that we can make sure that we're doing that. Because it is so easy to just go through the motions, to be stuck in the day-to-day of life. And if we don't ever intentionally pause, I think we end up missing out on a lot of wisdom, a lot of revelation, a lot of time with God that's really going to benefit our life in a very life-giving way. So this idea of clarity, it works for anything. But I mean, specifically, I would say in my life, I've seen it work for business and also for relationships. I mean, looking at, you know, my marriage, treating, applying these principles to my marriage, applying these principles to my family, applying these principles to my business and just my life in general, because God is the author of it all. He is the potter and we are the clay, and he has a plan and a purpose for our life. And my heart is to seek him and to seek his will in my life. And I want to live the life that he's directing, that he's leading. And the only way for me to do that is to make sure that I'm creating space, I'm creating opportunity, I am positioning myself intentionally to hear from him on a regular basis. So there's really four ways that I have structured or built in rhythms of clarity or time to seek clarity in my life. And right now, as I'm recording this podcast, we're actually coming up to the end of a year and about to launch into a new one. And I always love the end and the beginning of a new year. I think it is a perfect time to really pause and take a moment to reflect on the last year and really seek God and his voice and his direction in how we move forward. I think we should be doing this at all times, every day, every month, every year, into all situations and decisions. But the end of the year is just, I think, a naturally symbolic time to really seek that for our life. So four areas that I try to build clarity into my life or how I have learned to do it. One is a clarity break. So this is taking a pause, taking a breath. It's short term. Often it's for an hour or a few hours, no longer than a day. And it's really just being intentional about seeking God first. So for me, I factor in a clarity break into my morning. I like to start my day with God, like before anything, before the emails, before the kids, before the noise of life and the world. I want to start in quiet with Him. And so that looks like just silence. I mean, it really is quiet. Like I get up in the morning and before the kids are up, or at least before they start talking to me, you know, it's a cup of coffee and it's just sitting there listening. It's sitting there, just mulling things over in my mind. It's praying. And then eventually that I I move into my time in the Word and reading the Bible. And oftentimes that's one or two chapters of just whatever book I'm in. But I start that in the day. I start my day with that. And honestly, when I was a younger mother, I actually did this during nap time, which we quiet time, and quiet time lasted for years. Didn't end when they stopped taking naps. But before I started doing this first thing when I got up, that was just the time that it made the most sense for me to factor that in. So for some people, it's first thing in the morning. For some people, it's afternoon. For some people, it might be at night after the house goes to bed. But it's not being on my phone, it's not being in front of the TV, not allowing other distractions to infiltrate my mind, but really making space and preparing my heart to just seek God for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, however long that time is required or is realistic that day. But it's something that when I do it on a daily basis, it's it's a habit and a routine that I've built in that really builds builds structure in my life. So I'm like, I'm making it happen, but through the process of making it happen, things are happening in me. My relationship with God is changing. Just being in the Word for 10 minutes a day is changing my heart. It's changing my life. I might not feel it that day. I might read a chapter and feel like I got nothing out of it. But over six months, over a year, I know that my heart is changing and my relationship and my faith is changing with God. And it's in those quiet moments that God will speak to me. He will convict me or he'll give me a piece, the strength for today, whatever it is that I need. And then the other routine that we implement on a weekly basis, which we've been more intentional about in the last few years, is the idea of Sabbath, is the idea of having a day of rest. And for us, oftentimes at Sunday, we get up and we go to church in the morning. And then the rest of the after the afternoon or day, you know, whichever service we make it to that day, it's really for rest and fun and fellowship and worship. And it's us spending time together playing a game or making a meal. Like I'm I'm trying to, like, I don't run errands that day. I'm not working that day. We're not doing chores around the house that day. It really is a day that we choose to say, we are just going to rest and have fun today and engage with people today. And that's just like taking a pause from the day-to-day of life and creating an opportunity to actually like breathe life into our spirit, into our week, into our day, instead of just filling the schedule with every to-do, every task, every event. It's choosing to set aside time that is life-giving and restful. And we're pursuing God through fellowship, like through loving people, and just taking a break from the responsibilities and life. And those are important things, but they will run our life if we let them. So that's what I do on a daily and weekly basis to create space and to find clarity and to seek God in my life and just to make that a very sustainable thing so that I'm not going too long without pausing. And so the next kind of level of clarity is what I call a clarity session. And so for me, a session is a minimum of a few hours, and then it can extend into a day or a weekend or like some type of retreat. And there's, I think, two versions of this. There's taking time to do some higher level strategic focus. I'm going to say focus because sometimes it's work and sometimes it's not work at all. Sometimes it's like active rest or just choosing to take more than a day off of the craziness of our life. But in business, it's easy to get stuck in the day-to-day. It is easy to get stuck in the operational level of our business. So you have the clients and you have the projects and you have the proposals and the bids and all of the moving pieces. And it can turn into something that is very much reactive and it's pulling you in all kinds of directions. So a clarity session is really the process of taking time to get yourself out of the day-to-day and to look at your business, to look at your relationships, to look at your marriage, to look at your life as a whole. It's to take a step back and to really assess all of the areas of your life. So if it's a working strategic session, it's looking at the previous quarters. I would say I like to do a clarity session monthly to quarterly. Quarterly is probably ideal. You probably don't need to do it more than quarterly, but you could do it monthly. But it's looking at the quarter. It's looking at the goals that you set. It's seeing the progress you've made. It's recognizing whether you followed through or not. You hit your goals. What obstacles came in the way? It's looking forward. It's looking at, okay, what are we doing over the next 90 days, over the next three months? What are we trying to accomplish? What are the bigger overarching goals that we are working towards? Where do we want to be in three quarters? Where do we want to be at the end of the year or three years? And is what we're doing in our day-to-day helping us get there? Or are we floundering? Are we running in circles? Or are we actually making progress? Because it's easy to not feel like you're making progress when you're in the day-to-day. Or sometimes it's easy to feel like you're really busy, but then when you take a step back, you're like, oh, I'm actually not going anywhere. I'm actually not moving forward. I'm just grinding, and that's not purposeful. So we're taking a step back to assess the situation, or sometimes even to assess our brands, taking a step back to go through the process of we think we know our brand, we think we know our marketing and our messaging and our clients. But when we get out of the day-to-day and we sit down and we think about the things we're saying and we think about the things that we value and we think about the things that are driving us forward, are they all consistent? Is there clarity or are there gaps? Is there areas of vagueness that are causing friction, that are causing problems? Like what is working, what's not working, and making a plan as to where do we want to be moving forward or what do we want this to look like? And sometimes a clarity session is not work at all. Sometimes it's taking longer than one day off, or even a weekend that's filled with a day off and then maybe a day of chores and to-dos and projects around the house. Like sometimes you need time to get away and really recharge, get a new perspective, get out of your element. I know this is something that has been incredibly life-giving for Josh and I in our marriage. So at least two to four times a year, we actually try to get away together, whether it's a trip or an overnight or a weekend, or it's something where we try to actually leave the house, leave the leave the kids with the grandparents, and and just go have fun together in a different place, new experiences, and just letting that recharge us, reset us, fill us up, reset our marriage and our connection to each other, as well as just our perspective on life and the business, and just being able to breathe life into it. And sometimes if you let it too long go by, thinking, oh, I'll do a vacation and it'll be a week or it'll be 10 days. Well, a year or two years or three years is a long time to wait to create a space to actually get recharged. And I think we need it more often than that. And so we like to do it quarterly or semi-annually just to because we can't go that long. Like it's just too easy to get distracted, it's too easy to just get stuck in the grind and in the motions. And so we want to just be intentional about creating space and looking at our life, our relationship, our business from the outside in, sometimes even getting wisdom and insight into it, like seeking advice. But it's something that we want to do on a regular basis, but we don't need to be doing it daily or weekly, or sometimes even monthly, like just quarterly. It's a good time to take a step back. I know in the EOS framework, there's quarterly strategic planning sessions. So you have your quarterly EOS day where you review the past quarter, you assess what's working and what's not working, and then you spend a few hours planning for the next quarter, making sure you're on target to meet your one-year goals and your three-year goals, and then looking at any issues that are getting in the way or things that you need to take time to really dive into that you don't have the time to really give it during the week or during the craziness of the day. So, this very often a clarity session does require getting out of the office, out of your house, in a different setting for fresh perspective, fresh focus, or even just an uninterrupted time to really look at what's going on. And then the third kind of area of clarity that has been incredibly impactful in my life is fasting. So a clarity fast for the purposes of this episode. And so a fast is when we give something up for a period of time in order to intentionally seek God for wisdom, direction, revelation, breakthrough, intimacy. I mean, we are just choosing to take a period of time that specifically focuses on Him and on what His power can do for us in our life and in our business and in our relationships. Fasting can take any amounts of time. I've done daily fasts, I've done 24-hour fasts, 72-hour fasts, I've done a week fast, I've done a month-long fast, depending on what it is that I was fasting. And usually I chose to fast things that either had a hold over my life in some way, or they were distracting me in some way from really pursuing and seeking God. So some things that I have fasted have been makeup. That was something that actually had a hold over my life. Social media and TV for varying amounts of time. Those have definitely distracted me from God. Sugar, alcohol, definitely things that have had holds over my life. Food. I mean, if we're going through a like a 24-hour fast, 72-hour fast, like actually fasting food and choosing not to eat for that specific amount of time. And I try to do some type of fast at least annually, sometimes even two to three times a year, depending on what's going on. I like to start the beginning of a year with some kind of fast. We were a part of a church where we we actually fasted together as a church, so it usually happened in January, and it would be anywhere from one week to 21 days. We did the a Daniel fast for a lot of years, and so that kind of just taught me to get in this habit of positioning myself at the beginning of the year to really let God lead, to really let him set the tone and the direction for what would happen that year. And of course, he's not limited by time. So I think it goes far beyond that. But in my human thinking, that is that's just kind of how I framed it. And really just choosing to give something up for a while to seek power, to seek wisdom, to seek breakthrough in my life or in a specific season. I know this past year I have fasted multiple times on different occasions because I just I just desperately needed God. I just desperately needed him to do a work in my life. And I was willing to give, give up food, to give up my comfort, to give up the distractions because I desperately wanted to see him move. I desperately wanted to see those breakthroughs. And so it's a I think it's a really great habit to be in, at least on an annual basis, to go before the Lord and say, Look, I am, I want your will for my life. And maybe I recognize that these things have a hold over me and it's keeping me from. These things. So I need you to break those chains. Or I'm feeling lost and confused, and I have no idea what direction to take. So I'm canceling out the noise and media and social and distractions. And I am creating room and space to hear your voice, to spend more time in the Word, to really seek your will and your voice and your discernment for this season of my life, for what is coming next, because I have no idea. Whatever, whatever it is that's currently, I've faced all of those things. Seasons of just desperation and being lost and having no idea what's next. And then some seasons of like knowing that I'm trying to strip off something that holds me back and I can't do it on my own. This thing has too much of a hold over me, and I'm recognizing its power in my life. And I need to lay it down. I need to let it go. And I need God's grace and power to do that work in me. I need him to work through that in my life because I can't do it in my own strength. And so then that moves us into what I would call a clarity season. And so a season can be something that takes months or years because not all clarity comes as fast as we want it to. Sometimes that's how long it takes. And a clarity season is really a season of something being stripped away, stripped down. It's a season of rebuilding, shaping. It's a season of shifting or preparation. Some people can call this a wilderness season or a Job season. I've used all of those terms to define different seasons in my life, depending on how difficult it was. And so these are things where it's like we know that God is working on us in a specific area, and He's working on stripping some things away or healing some things or bringing something to the surface. And it doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen in a week. And so it's it can be months and sometimes even years of that change happening and you recognizing that you're in that season, you recognizing that God is doing a work in you or doing a work in your business or in your marriage, and you see it for the season that it is, and you're looking to move your way through it and kind of get to the other side. I know I think about these different seasons of for sure our marriage. I mean, that I there was like a five-year season of hitting rock bottom, starting to go to marriage counseling, working through those things, relearning new habits and new communication styles and tools and building up trust. And it's like I just knew I was in a season where I was focusing on God healing us from the inside out and then teaching us to kind of like reconnect and rebuild something new together. Or I think about the season of my anxiety. I was going through a season where I was like so overwhelmed by everything, and I was being challenged to simplify my life. And that started very practically with actually like simplifying my house and simplifying my routines and simplifying my calendars. And I was trying to look at every area of my life from like food and fitness and my schedule and my closets and my wardrobe to simplify all of these things because I felt like I was drowning in my stuff and in my calendar and in my commitments, and I knew I was falling apart. And so I went through it's probably like a two or a three-year period, a season of just stripping away these old habits, stripping away all the stuff and the clutter. I was literally like decluttering things like every weekend, taking trips to Goodwill, but just trying to find new ways of living and maintaining so that I could spend more time with my family, more time resting, more time having fun than managing all of these things. Because I was basically angry and bitter. I was working all the time, and then I would spend my weekends doing chores, working on projects, cleaning. I was never resting and I was never having fun, and I was not spending like quality time with my family because I did not even create space in my fa in my schedule to even do that. And I recognized that. So I was like, okay, God, I am in a season of having to have better systems, take all that stuff away, and rediscover what fun looks like, rediscover what rest looks like, rediscover what quality time with my kids look like. Like, how do I want to engage with them? What things do I enjoy doing? Because I didn't even know at that point. And so that took a few years of things changing, but I knew what I was working towards. I knew what I wanted to get out of it, but I also recognized that it just wasn't going to happen overnight. And so I was just in a season of that happening. And then eventually the months go by and the years go by, and I can look back and I can see, yeah, it's different. It's like I recognize that some of those changes, they just don't happen overnight. But when you can acknowledge the season you're in, it helps us to not lose hope in the process. It helps us to stay patient through the process. It helps us to keep planting, keep sowing, keep doing the work, knowing that we might not see the fruit today, but we are going to. And it's all of this is going to be worth it. And we're not going to give up, we're not going to get frustrated, we're not going to throw our hands in the air. I mean, maybe we do, but then we have a tantrum and then, you know, have a little pep talk and kind of get back at it. Like that's probably what happens. So just these different seasons of life and recognizing God at work, but also God needs to lead. He needs to be directing our steps. But if we allow ourselves to just get stuck in the day-to-day, just get blown and tossed by whatever is coming at us. We're reacting, we're reacting to the schedule and to this and to that, and to the kids, and to the business, and to the clients, then we start to feel completely out of control because we are, and I guess we're never really in control, but we're not, we're not making putting God in control. Like we're just allowing all of these things to kind of determine our steps instead of giving it to God and saying, How do I be more intentional? How do I do this wisely? How do I bear fruit in this season? How do I make sure that I'm becoming the person that you want me to become? And by implementing these habits and these routines and these systems and these rhythms into our life, that creates space, that creates focus to say, okay, God, you are in charge, you are in control. Here's what I do on a daily basis to remind myself of that. Here's what I do on a monthly or quarterly basis to remind myself of that. Like here's how I keep going through these difficult seasons to remember that you're over all things, you're in all things, you're through all things, and you will see me through. And the enemy he loves to steal, kill, and destroy and prowl around, you know, it's like he's coming, he's looking. And distraction is a silent killer. I mean, I it just it doesn't happen overnight, but distraction. It's like distraction through business and schedules and activities. And it's like the more he can just distract us away from God, the the easier it is for him to, you know, steal our hope and our joy and our purpose and our identity and our faith in God. And then we're stuck and we're on this slippery slope and we find ourselves in a hole and we're just like, what the heck happened? So building in these boundaries keep us in line, they keep us in check and they help us just to stay focused on what really matters, on who really matters. So as we end this year, I think it's a great time. Take it, take a step back, you know. Look at look at 2025, look at the year you just had, and you know, recognized how you've grown, what you've done well. Do you feel like the same person? Do you feel like a different person? What were the struggles and the obstacles? What did you learn through this year? And then, you know, whether it's through a fast or just through some time away or a couple hours, you're even just starting a daily habit of being like, okay, God, you're in control, you're Lord and Savior over my life. Like I want to live a life that honors you. I want to be surrendered to you. Show me what path to take, and I'm gonna do my job to make space for you, to seek you, to draw close to you, and to put you as the center, to put make you a priority in my life through my time, through my actions, through my focus and my words and my thoughts and my prayers. So that's all I have for you today. As always, you can learn more at ClearAuthenticbrands.com. That's all for this episode. See you next time.