Marriage in Real Life
Marriage in Real Life
Transform Your Marriage Through Setting Marriage Goals for 2025
Are you ready to transform your relationship and embrace a deeper connection with your partner? Join us, Eric and Boss Lady P, as we unlock the secrets of setting marriage goals that stand the test of time. With nearly 33 years of shared experiences, we highlight the significance of crafting a unified vision and the profound impact it can have on your marriage. Discover the power of intentional goal setting and how it can prevent conflicts, maintain balance, and support individual and collective aspirations. Together, let's explore how teamwork and shared values are the cornerstones of a successful partnership.
Ever wondered how to set personal and couple goals that truly resonate? We emphasize stepping away from the chaos of daily life to focus on planning with purpose. Practical advice on jotting down goals and key dates, keeping them visible, and starting with a prayer for wisdom are just some of the insights we share. Led by husbands, proactive planning can lead to a thriving marriage. We also delve into personal development, discussing strategies for mental health, overcoming procrastination, and preparing for a transformative year ahead. From healthy cooking to tackling stress, we cover it all, encouraging a proactive approach to well-being.
Our conversation doesn't stop there. We tackle the essence of effective leadership within relationships, championing the need for understanding and adaptability. With pre-marital and couple counseling, we bridge the gaps in expectations shaped by individual backgrounds. From organizing a simple walk to planning an anniversary event, shared goals foster unity. As we close, we express our gratitude to our dedicated listeners, inviting you to engage, share your thoughts, and suggest topics for our future episodes. Your support fuels our journey, and we look forward to fostering a community of loving, successful marriages together.
Season 3 intro done by Carolena
Season 3 Outro done by Carolena
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Welcome to Marriage and Real Life.
Speaker 1:Welcome All right, we're so glad that you could join us for another podcast, right, right, give another shout out, all right. Well, we're so glad we see some people who are watching with us. We want you to like and share. Please make you like. Please make you like. I can't get my words right. Whoa man. Please like and share on tonight. As you see, you, make sure you hit the like button. Tell us where you're watching from. Put your name down there. Tell us where you're watching from. We can give you a shout out For those who are new with us. My name is Eric.
Speaker 2:And I'm Boss Lady P. All right, my name is Eric and.
Speaker 1:I'm Boss Lady P. All right, all right, so we're the host of Marriage and Real Life. Hey, we've been married almost 32 years.
Speaker 2:Almost 33 years 33?. Oh jeez you don't like me very much. Do you? I don't think you do.
Speaker 1:You can't remember the wonderful years that I've dedicated to you, and this love.
Speaker 2:Jeez Eric.
Speaker 1:Jeez, All right. Well, yeah, 33 years man.
Speaker 2:April 27th, just in case you don't remember.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, I remember that.
Speaker 2:Remember the date, but you don't remember the year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sometimes I get lost. I'm getting older now. You're lost in my love. Yes, lost in your love, baby. Lost in your love Again. We want to make sure you like and share. Tell us where you're watching from.
Speaker 1:Tonight is a very interesting topic. We're trying to get ready for 2025. Tonight we're talking about marriage goals. We're talking about marriage goals and we should say why should married couples set goals? So we're saying that setting goals together in a marriage can help each other feel more connected. All right, when you set the goals, you feel more connected because you're working towards a shared vision and improve the health of your relationship. Right, that's why you should, and so we got some reasons why you should. Just a little bit of things. The first one is it creates a sense of purpose. It creates a sense of purpose because goals can give a couple a sense of direction and purpose and help them work toward a shared vision. So you got a shared vision and now you got a road map that you can go to it right, so that's a creative sense of purpose, all right what is number two there?
Speaker 2:number two says it strengthens the connection oh and I really like that, because when you pull together and you have a purpose, it means you can hold each other accountable for them not doing their part, because it's going to be some bumpy roads, things are going to happen, life is going to life and somebody might slip up and they didn't meet that quota. But it's not to criticize them, it's to help them get back on track.
Speaker 1:Right, right right.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we can point fingers and say but you didn't do your part and you didn't do this, and the reason why I, the reason why I did what I did, is because you didn't do what you were supposed to do. But when you do it together, Right, you're a team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're a team. I tell you that all the time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like being in a boxing ring, it's a tag team. When I'm falling short, I got to get in and say here, Eric, you got to pull this weight because right now I can't fight no more, I can't do it no more. So I think that was strength in just being together and coming up to that common denominator the two of us.
Speaker 1:All right, we got Michelle from Louisiana.
Speaker 2:Hey.
Speaker 1:Michelle.
Speaker 2:Hey, all right. Oh, hey, michelle, I just realized who she was. All right, I pray. All is well, my love, all right.
Speaker 1:And the next one is like you says, you went over here, support each other, so setting goals can help partners support each other and acknowledge each other's contributions.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So that's what it does. All right, go ahead, I'm going to get the next one.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm next. Where are we? Okay, Planning goals. It helps plan for the future, how you set steps as to, let's say, for March we want to take a mini vacay. You plan that, you set the foundation for it and how we're going to get to this point. So I think those goals also go into a father. It don't have to be three months, it could be a year or two years, but when you sit down together and you set those goals, you have a master plan, so to speak which you're trying to reach, so I definitely agree with that.
Speaker 1:All right. Next one prevent conflict. So goals can help couples tackle conflicts before they arise. So you're looking in the future and you say this might be a potential problem. And so let's look at, while we're setting this goal, this might be a potential problem like I may lose my job or whatever like this, and now we can tackle this before it even happens exactly and then when you plan together, when you create that sense of purpose, those conflicts are minimal right right because it's a big plan.
Speaker 2:It's like we. It's a bigger plan here versus us fighting over something small right, right, right, right, okay.
Speaker 1:So we also do what. We balance individual and couple goals. Right, all right, we got lucille's got, like what is the most important goal to set? We're gonna be going, we're gonna be going through all these goals. Okay, right, we're going to go through there. So what this couple couples, what you need to ensure that goals are built on something they value, right, right, if you don't value it, you're not going to try to strive for it.
Speaker 1:That's right going to try to strive for it. That's right, right. So if you I mean if you value getting the house, if that's one of your values, I mean you're going to put together and strive for it. So that's why couples again should sit down and and come come up with their goals, because if you do that again, you're motivated to work towards it. Anything that now it is also important.
Speaker 1:One of the things is important in setting goals, and married goals, is that make sure that the goals are realistic, yeah, and attainable so that's why I think you should set small, make small steps to lead to the bigger one but you know, because it's I mean when I say I guess, when I look at attainable, it's like you can't say now you're going to be really doing you, are you a hundred thousand, both of you a hundred thousand dollars in debt, and you're saying, hey, by the end of the year we want to be out of debt and we're going to be saving fifty thousand dollars. Daddy, now, if somebody could do that, then they're good, right. But if you can say, look, like you said, we're $100,000 in debt, but let's make sure that we're going to be $20,000 less in debt, right, and save $5,000. That's attainable. It may stretch you a little bit, but it is to get to that bigger goal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you can have your five-year goal right your five-year goal, your two-year goal and your one-year goal, and part of that five-year goal is your 2025 goal. Like you said, it's small steps, all right, small steps, but it's got a spectrum.
Speaker 2:Five, seven years.
Speaker 1:You can buy that house, I'm telling you and we know, with God, all things are possible, right, and so, with faith, even in faith, the things that are attainable by our own strength, we don't need God, we don't need to have the faith in it. We got to have supernatural faith. When we look at a vision and we set goals and we say, man, I don't know how we're going to do it, but we're going to do it because we have faith that we can do it. Right, all right, all right, so all right, hey Missy, hey Missy, how you doing? Hey, missy?
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1:Yes yes, yes, all right. So when we're going through, let's go through the goal setting, let's go through some things that we do right, and I just want to say that when I'm doing the research, you can go all online and get all of these gold hot. You know all of these people, and some of them are selling their goal setting for 25. You get a spreadsheet, you buy the spreadsheet for 25, or you can do this and you could do that.
Speaker 2:We need our own business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we need our own business, but we're setting our thing out for free. Amen, all right. So it's out there and people have different ways of doing it, but one thing we like to do is that we like to get our big yellow sheet of paper. Oh, we should have bought that. We should have bought our yellow sheet of paper, right? Yeah, and start writing on it, right.
Speaker 1:And I think one of the best things to do I think what we're getting ready to do is leave where you're comfortable, go to a place, maybe at the end of the year, one or two days you're spending time together and it's away from everybody, and it's away from the hustle and bustle, where you can set your goals for your marriage, right. And I also think that, as husbands, I have a mentor group. As husbands, we should be setting the example. We should be calling our wives to just say look, let's set these goals right. If we're going to be leaders, we have to be leaders, and we need to be leaders in this aspect where we're saying, hey, babe, we need to sit down, we need to set some goals for 2025. Because if you don't have any goals set, your marriage will be all over the place, right, and we don't want our marriages to be all over the place. We want to have something.
Speaker 1:Look, the bible says write the vision and make it plain. Right, that's what the. So when people see it they can run with it. Right. And so when we write it down, we can look at it. What do we do we? I like, how you have it, that you got it right there at the door. So every time we leave out our room, there's our goals and our vision for, for what every year?
Speaker 1:for the year. It's right there. So we see it all the time. Right, we know what's going on in our lives and what was attainable and what's not attainable, all right. So so the first thing that we should do is pray. Right, that's the first thing we should do. And the reason why I say pray is because the Bible says we got to use wisdom in because we talk about it got to be attainable, we got to use wisdom.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right, and so the Bible says any man likes wisdom, let him ask and he will give you freely. So I believe that's one of the things that you should do is sit down and let's pray and say Lord, give us wisdom. Again, there's that leader Men, if you're watching, please sit down with your wife, hold a hand and say Lord, give us wisdom on what we need to do for 2025. And if you're setting for five years the big things and what we need to do, but we know for 2025, lord, give us wisdom so we can attain and we can be a fruitful marriage, and so the first thing we should do is pray, all right, so that's number one.
Speaker 2:Number one.
Speaker 1:All right Number two.
Speaker 2:Number two, to write down important dates anniversaries, birthdays If you have children, when schools start, when it ends, if you have any medical things that you might have to take up I need to go to the dentist you want to make sure that most of the dates that are important to both of you, not just one of you right, we're doing this together.
Speaker 2:Important to both of you that you put them down. You write them down, so how I do is I get that sheet of paper and I put the whole 12 months on there for the year.
Speaker 1:We go month by month.
Speaker 2:We go month by month. What's going on? In January, it's Aries' birthday. February oh, it's Valentine's Day. We ain't trying to do nothing. March what's coming up? Oh, my mother's birthday. All of my granddaughter's birthday is in March, high at the end. So we just sit down and we write down that stuff and then we get oh yeah, don't forget our anniversary. So you want to do stuff like that that you aware of, because, as the in leave space, because as the year go, you might have to add. I have to add some stuff in.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right, yep, yep, so even vacation.
Speaker 1:Yep, definitely vacation you got to choose, you should be taking. If you're taking a family vacation, you put it down there. Got to choose, you should be taking. If you're taking a family vacation, you put it down there. This is a goal to take a family vacation. You ain't got to say where yet, but at least you put down the dates. All right. And if you're taking an individual vacation, you and your spouse without the children, you're leaving the children with grand, grandma and grandpa, whatever don't say that too loud.
Speaker 2:Don't say that, don't say that too loud.
Speaker 1:All right, we're going to keep that on the dialogue, all right, all right. So, yeah, so you do that. You need to put those dates down, go month by month to the end of the year. When is Christmas? If you're working like we work for the school board, how does those days mess with this? Put down your grandchildren birthday. What about anniversaries, even your anniversary, especially. Put down your grandchildren's birthday. What about anniversaries, even your anniversary, especially. Better put down your anniversary, guys, you better remember that date. Yeah, I'm telling you and it's two important days that you better remember the anniversary and your wife's birthday. All right?
Speaker 1:And the same with us, ladies, you don't forget anniversaries, you remember that one year I got a cake for you.
Speaker 2:I had it made like a print symbol. I was like, yes, this is Aries birthday and I gave it to you on the 8th and you were like my birthday on the 9th. And you mean, let us eat the cake until the next day, that's right, and the kids are looking like okay, yeah, that's important. Whatever is next day, that's right, that's right. Kids look alike okay, yeah, that's important. Whatever is important. If you sit down together, you'll know what's important to each other. If you communicate, you'll know what's important to each other.
Speaker 2:Honesty- right not holding things back, because sometimes you can't say a person is lying if they just haven't told you all right.
Speaker 1:Marie say you got to put down there when you started dating. You have to remember that.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, that's a new one. Yeah, that's important too, the day that you fell in love.
Speaker 1:Fell in love. Lucille say she's a grandma. She says take your kids with you, right, right, I hear you, lucille.
Speaker 2:She don't take hers.
Speaker 1:She said take your kids with you, All right. So you got to make sure you put down those dates.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those dates are very important.
Speaker 1:You got to make sure you put down those dates. And then the next thing you have to do, all right, so the first thing you pray, the next thing you write down your dates. Right, all of your dates. The next thing you got to do is start picking your personal goals. Right, okay, you should come to the table with personal goals. What do you want for yourself? And you said it before. You said it. The reason why you bring personal goals is because, if you say your goals out loud, you write your goals down. Now, I can know how to help you. Right, I can do that because you write them down. So if it's spiritual, right, I can help you. I can hold you accountable when you and you can hold me accountable for my personal goals and we are, we are helping each other because they are personal. Maybe you have health, like you said, you know your health. Maybe you want to lose weight. Maybe you want to lose weight. Maybe you want to gain weight, maybe whatever.
Speaker 2:However, I don't know many people that want to gain weight.
Speaker 1:But you may have some people that want to gain weight because they lost too much weight. They may want to say you know what? I want to gain a couple. I want to put a little couple of pounds on the hip.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:I want to pull a couple of pounds or I want to be muscular Right, so that's gain. Put some definition Right, and so that means that if you got to get a gym membership or not get a gym membership, is that, once you write it down, we can say, okay, there's, those again are attainable goals, right? You can't go into it and say I want to lose 200 pounds. That's a lot to lose, and being healthy and losing that is very difficult, right? So you want to do some attainable goals and also you want to make sure not only you're doing physical health but mental health.
Speaker 2:That's really important, because sometimes we put more on us than what we'll do so much. But then we'll say, oh well, the Lord won't put more on me than I can bear.
Speaker 1:But that ain't biblical anyway.
Speaker 2:But you put it on yourself. That's why I say small steps until you can attain what it is that you whatever goal it is you're trying to reach, as far as your health, and then your mental health can chill out if you're taking smaller steps.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So we should pick personal goals, bring your personal goals so before you come to the meeting, right, you got to come to the meeting prepared, right, right. So that's why we have our yellow sheet, we have our markers, we have our tablets, we have our computers, we have our tablets, we have our computers. You bringing all of this to the table, you and your husband bringing all this to the table, right? And you're saying, look, I got some personal goals and you write down Eric, these are my personal goals, boom, boom. Whatever your spiritual health, education, do you want to go back to school or whatever you like that, However you want to do it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like what it's going to take for me to go to school. How much it's going to cost? Can I pay per class? Can I get the books online? You want to set those goals and I just wanted to say that. As much as my heart was broken when my lump of dump moved to Tallahassee, but I was comfortable with it because every time I went to visit them, before they moved to the apartment, nikki had a plan. She had it on the wall, she had it written down, she checked this place, she checked that place, and that's how you prepare, that's how you set goals. Her goal was to move to Tallahassee and she achieved that goal, but she set small steps first.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right and it works for you, for you don't have to just be married to to do this, but set some right division, make it plain yeah, so that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Like, these goals are for married couples, but you can be single and do it absolutely, because you need to set some personal goals and not only that once, when you get yourself situated and you know what you're gonna allow, to come and join right union with you?
Speaker 1:you don't want some messy person that don't know what they doing I was saying something but and the thing too is that this is very important, I think, to us and to a lot of people you want to make sure in your personal goals that you're not taking baggage into a new year and if you take it in a new year, you have your goals to get rid of it that year absolutely and if you need it, sometimes it helped to hear what you're thinking on the inside.
Speaker 2:on the outside, like I used to journal, I used to write down Eric is really getting on my nerves, something like that. I would get it out. But then I know, like when I went to see a therapist I really felt so much more released, like finally, somebody else knows how I'm feeling right now. Yeah, because you gotta get it out. And they only really make you solve your own problems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they do, they do, but they help you.
Speaker 2:But they kind of guide you in it and it's OK.
Speaker 1:It's no way that you should be holding on to something for years after years. All it's going to do is it's going to mess up your marriage Right, or mess up a relationship with somebody Right. You either got to get over it or get rid of it and find a way to to come together. Because why would I? This is what I don't understand about. You got to forgive people right. First you got to forgive yourself and then you got to forgive people. This is all personal goals that you should be having that I don't want to take extra weight.
Speaker 1:When I'm talking about. I'm not talking about weight as far as real. I'm talking about weight of people into the new year, and if I take it in a new year, I'm not going into the new year. And if I take it in a new year, I'm not going into the next year, I'm not going to 2026 with it. That's my goal is to get rid of this extra weight of people and unforgiveness and bitterness. I want to get it out of my heart. It is no way that I'm going to let some people control me Right and they don't even know they got the control right and they don't even know they got the control right, but they controlling you just they can be miles, they can be next door, they can be whatever, and they are controlling you and you letting them and they don't realize it and they don't even realize the whole, that I used to tell the girls all the time don't give people the power to control your day.
Speaker 2:No, you wrong me and I used to have a hard time with forgiving people. I used to be like you know what I don't? I don't do her, I don't do him anymore, whatever. But what I realized is that I can forgive them and still be afar yes, but the forgiveness was more for me. Yes, so I can move forward with what.
Speaker 2:I wanted in life With how I want it to be, and sometimes we don't realize the control that we give people. People are going to be people. He ain't going to change. The only thing going to change them is the Lord, jesus Christ, and if they don't want to change, he ain't going to force them to change. He give us free will. So the only thing we could do is we could step back and let it go. Yep, yeah, you can't. I should say this all the time. You can't build a uh, uh, let me see. You can't build a great future if you're dragging the past with you, of course, you can't you can't, because you're going to constantly be in the back of your mind.
Speaker 2:You're going to have bad relationships because you're going to trust nobody because the last person that did you wrong. You're going to have bad relationships because you ain't going to trust nobody because the last person that did you wrong. You're going to have family members that did you wrong and you're going to have to eventually say you know what?
Speaker 1:I love you, sis, but I got to let you go, it's for me yeah that mental health. Right there, that's mental health.
Speaker 2:No, that's mental health, so you have to deal with it accordingly.
Speaker 1:You got to deal with it, deal with it accordingly. You got to deal with it, so you got to hold. And so that's why, again, you bring your personal goals and you're saying to your husband, you're saying to your wife that, look, I don't want to go into next year with this. And so the thing is I would say to you okay, patsy, how can I help you to achieve your personal goals? Because that's what it's all about. How can I, what can I, as Eric, do to help you achieve your personal goals? And you may say you know what Pay for me for therapy? Ok, all right, so that's my help of you, because that's what it's about.
Speaker 1:I'm bringing my personal goals and I'm asking you I'm putting these personal goals not that I can attain it by myself, right, I know I'm going to need God's help that's why we pray first, right, but I need your help in order to attain it. I'm not going to bring stuff that I could attain to myself, that I could do myself. I'm bringing that passage. I need your help to hold me accountable or do whatever to help me attain this goal. And if mental health is a goal that's going to, that I think that I need to deal with. I need to deal with it. All right, all right, all right, we got a few comments she's talking about.
Speaker 1:We have a planning meeting scheduled, all right. And then Lucia said what if you make 10 goals and one of those goals you can't agree? All right, we're going to get to how the goals making when it comes to couples All right. And Michelle said writing keeps her mind right. Right, however, you need to do it. You need to keep your mind right.
Speaker 1:But if you know your mental health is affecting your relationship, right. If you have a husband, have a wife, and say you're writing and say that's not happening, right. You say you bring that goal, you say I'm going to be writing, okay. And say it's not happening, then the next step is therapy. You just got to make sure that you are keeping your mind healthy, you as an individual, right? Yes, you got to make sure, because are keeping your mind healthy you as an individual, right? Yes, you got to make sure because one of the problems, too, that married couples have is that I worry so much about what you're supposed to be doing till I forget about what I'm supposed to be doing yeah, I'm worried about oh, you're supposed to be doing this and you're supposed to be doing this, and you know I to be doing this and you know I hear some people especially like this has come from women.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to let you know this coming. Oh, you're supposed to be the leader.
Speaker 2:You ain't leading Well one thing too about leaders. There's different leadership styles.
Speaker 1:Right From being coming from the military, I have different leaders and I had to learn their leadership style, because I couldn't expect this leader to be like this leader and boy did I have some doozies right. And so you have to understand your. If you're talking about a husband, you're talking about a man. You got to understand his leadership style Cause maybe, like me, I'm soft spoken, right, I don't. You know, I don't get all around. And you've learned to learn to say, okay, I know Eric ain't gonna get all mad, he gonna do, you know, do this. But you learn, that's my leadership style and I know what to give away and I know what to. So you just have to do that, right. So you gotta know what I'm supposed to be doing, and then you do what you're supposed to be doing, and then we all good, right.
Speaker 2:You say so I think a lot of times women feel like a man should lead.
Speaker 1:if he's a good leader, then she'll follow but what I'm saying is that leadership is different from different people. Well, I mean, but okay, it's different from different people.
Speaker 2:Well I mean, but OK, it's different from different people, but it's pretty much the same job. The job is the same you provide, you protect, you nurture your family. And if you can't do those things, I mean, what type of leadership do you need?
Speaker 1:You need to take a class on protection and Well, again, if you haven't had a father in your life. You're saying protect, right, and what you may call protection may be not protecting to me, right? So I have to understand, I have to learn what you mean by the definition of protection. I have to learn that that's what it comes in the marriage, because protection for you may not be protection for the other person. That's why I say I have to learn you and you have to learn me in this aspect. Right?
Speaker 2:Because, again, but don't you think that in the process of him learning that he could lose his wife, Of course he can.
Speaker 1:If the woman is not patient with the husband, she has to be patient. Yes, and the woman?
Speaker 2:is not patient with the husband. She has to be patient.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I have to be patient with you because I can expect. I can grow up and expect my wife to be cooking and cleaning and doing all this stuff. She did.
Speaker 1:Right, I can expect that, because I can say that's what a wife supposed to do. I don't supposed to be cooking, I don't supposed to be ironing, I don't supposed to be cooking, I don't supposed to be ironing, I don't supposed to be doing that. But we understand in a shared marriage that I may have to cook, I mean. But that doesn't mean you are saying that you are not a good wife because you don't do it. Now, to some people they will say that you're not a good wife and I'm not talking about you. I'm just saying yes, you are no.
Speaker 2:I'm not, I, I'm not, I'm not talking.
Speaker 1:But so some people will say you're not a good wife if you don't do these Right, if you don't cook, if you don't clean, if you don't do this.
Speaker 2:And in essence, you are a good wife because you have shared responsibilities. You need to be patient, because maybe she wasn't raised by her mom Again. Maybe, she don't know how to do that stuff.
Speaker 1:And that's right, I'm saying.
Speaker 2:But in the process she could lose him because he might be used to a clean house dinner on the table that's why you have pre-marriage counseling, that's why you do parent-child counseling.
Speaker 1:But you got to know that in the marriage it's going to take patience to learn each other and it's going to take you say, look, this is a leader, this is how I lead. Right, I may not be vocal.
Speaker 2:I mean in other words, counseling is good. Couple counseling is, of course, premarital. Counseling is good because a lot of times, especially the way we do it, how they have to do the test, it really brings out a lot. It brings out a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it brings out the leadership skills and everything especially if you're going to be in a extended relationship, because sometimes you can go for 10 years and then you split and go your separate ways. But when you're committed, if you start out, let's go talk to this person and see. Just see where we at See if we even have the same background of what you believe in, what I believe in, how we believe in you, how you was raised, how I was raised, and I think that makes a difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course it makes a difference.
Speaker 2:And in this day and society, what I see with these kids is we in trouble?
Speaker 1:All right, good to go. All right, we're moving right along, all right. So the next one is what is the next one is number four.
Speaker 2:Pick couple goals. You know something we want to achieve together yeah. I mean, that's pretty much self-explanatory If we want to lose weight, let's get up and let's go walking.
Speaker 1:But that's not something that we do. I'm not finished, okay.
Speaker 2:You can do that together. I see couples out all the time. When I'll be out there walking by myself, I see couples all the time. That's something that you could do. I mean you can say hey, listen, we want to go on a mini vacay. We just may want to get a hotel on the beach for a couple days and toss the cell phones.
Speaker 2:That's something that you can set. You can say, hey, like for us. We say in 2026, we want to have a sneaker ball for our anniversary. That's something that we're going to plan for the end of 25. We'll go to our app and we'll do that. So it's different things that you can set up. You want to talk? You can pray together.
Speaker 1:All right, so this, yeah, so we set up spiritual. So how are we going to do? Devotion together, Pray together, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I pray in the morning and you're just getting in bed, so I pray over you in the morning.
Speaker 1:Um, I pray over you in the morning, but that's part of it. But if that's a spiritual goal, but you pray for me while I'm sleeping at night, right? So I mean so that's a spiritual goal. Right.
Speaker 2:You say, okay, wait a minute, we're not because we're missing. You work at night, I work in the daytime. So since we're missing that connection, we need to find a time. Maybe we can do like we have our Saturday mornings Saturday morning is going to be our time for prayer, right OK. All right, so you know I'm up there.
Speaker 1:So those are that. The first thing we should got to got to do is make sure that we are spiritual connected. Right, that's the first thing. Ok, good to go, all right, what else?
Speaker 2:Financial debt. Let's figure out how we can knock down some debt if we have okay, so we're gonna maybe cut out going out for dinner, maybe take dinner down from five times a month and probably down to two, because that money could go to a hip and eliminate some financial debt, debt that we might have we might want to get rid of. Maybe we might want to pay off a credit card so we can use that credit card to do something big okay um, my second, what my oh?
Speaker 2:the next one is date night. Date night is so important and again, we've talked about it so many times before. Where it doesn't have to be expensive, we've had picnics in the living room, on the floor, that's right, that's right we've raided the refrigerator and bought all of the leftovers out, heated them up, put them in the middle of the floor or got rid of the dog, put out a movie on netflix and we would sit there and we would just eat and just really talk.
Speaker 2:So spending quality time together is so important and going for that walk or a ride because sometimes we'll get in the car and let the roof open and ride down a1a down the beach and just ride and talk, and I find that when we do that most of the time, those moments are so important to me because it's like we really, if we need to clear the air, we clear the air, but usually we just talking about crazy stuff.
Speaker 1:Right, right, but that's kind of. Yeah, it's connection time.
Speaker 2:And then I remember we went on this road trip. We got off from work I think we both had gotten paid that Friday we got in the car and we just drove. We ended up St Petersburg. We were all over the west coast of Florida and that was like one of my most favorite times. Now we did hit the outlets but, that was one of my most favorite times versus us going on a cruise or going wherever Right, right right that was it because we spent time on the road.
Speaker 2:We talked, we laughed, we had a good time. And then it comes down to the next one Set time aside to laugh.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:To laugh, just out of Just laugh.
Speaker 1:Just laugh together. You got to find something. It has to be something a day, every day, that you can just sit down and just think of something that you can laugh together. Right, not individually, you just want to laugh together and just I mean just crack up. So you say, boy, you stupid. But you know, you crazy. It's just something to happen to where you laugh together. It has to be something on on. You see something funny on the TV, you see something funny in Instagram reel or TikTok or whatever, and you bring and say you know what? I just want to send this to you because this is crazy. It made me crack up. And I think memorable times is like when we're laughing together to where we can't even I can't even drive and we just laughing and laughing till we crying. Those are some good times why you laugh?
Speaker 2:because I'm thinking about. We have this thing in our family with James Brown, where he's being interviewed everybody in his family's practice ladies. He said. Well, james, why is it that the ladies love you so much? He said I don't know. He was drunk. He said because I look good, I smell good. I may look good. She said oh well there you have it. There you have it, and it's like such a thing where our family, whenever we hear it, we just die laughing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because he had just got out of jail. He was completely drunk and high, but it was so funny just to see it. I thought Nat started that, didn't he?
Speaker 2:Yes, nat started that getting in the water he was definitely a James Brown fan, but that's something that we'll just. And another thing we do too we'll shoot out something from a movie, just a little small clip. Something I remember one time when Jordan was talking, he was saying something, me and Nat was driving alone and he said something that me and Nat turned around and say you, just a boy, you ought not say that we just laughed, and that was from the movie, sling Blade.
Speaker 2:I have a movie with all of the kids that that I watch with them, and that was one with her, and it even with Nikki and and I mean like just little things sometimes, guys, it's the little things, yeah, it's the little to keep the marriage going you know, I don't get me wrong, I like jewelry, I love my stuff, I like having things, but more important, you know the more important is the little things Like one day you came home and you bought me a Kit Kat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like oh babe you thought about me while you were out and that Kit Kat what they like almost $3, now for $4. I don't know. I'm telling you but just it's the little things. You don't have to go into debt.
Speaker 1:You're right. Yeah, you don't have to go into debt. You shouldn't have to go. If you got a spouse that always thinks got to be expensive, materialistic, materialistic, then y'all got to sit down and y'all got to talk and you got to say, look, you married me and I'm not a materialistic person and that's why you got to find out so much before you get married and date.
Speaker 2:That's why couples Couples counseling.
Speaker 1:Hey, you know what You're materialistic, because you can tell.
Speaker 2:When do you think a person should do couple counseling? How long should they have been in a relationship?
Speaker 1:They can. I mean it's up to them. I mean you don't have to be engaged. You don't have to be engaged in order to do couples counseling.
Speaker 2:Exactly so if you're dating three months, six months.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can start a couples counseling. That doesn't mean that you know you're finding out if you're compatible, because sometimes it takes other people that's been in it, that's done it to draw out the things that you need to talk about, because sometimes you'd be so infatuated oh, he's cute, she's cute, she's fine, and you're going out to eat and you're talking, and you're talking and you just need sometimes you just need somebody else to say what about this, what about that? When you think that you're getting serious, I think that's a time where you start finding out. When you think you start getting serious, like say, you know what, you ain't thinking about nobody else, you're thinking about that person. And I know I'm talking about teenagers, because teenagers, you know how they are. What I'm talking about is you get older, you get older and that person is on your mind and so you can talk to somebody else and say, hey, let's have a couple of counsels, let's go out to eat or whatever, and start bringing out things and you can see that right.
Speaker 2:So my last thought was, which we've been hitting on throughout the podcast is couple counsels. But if you are married, and try doing some retreats marriage retreats so you can hear from other couples.
Speaker 1:Right right, right right.
Speaker 2:Eric and I went to one in October. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was really good. We really. I mean, it's so interesting that we do our own marriage retreat, but for us not to be in charge getting that information, getting impartation from other people and other couples, that was great.
Speaker 2:So you can always learn from other couples. It don't have to be you don't have to, I don't even know what word I could use. It don't have to be, you don't have to, I don't even know what word I could use. It don't have to be that serious. You go, you sit, you learn, you speak if you choose to, because we didn't have to which was great Because we do it so much, and we do our own.
Speaker 2:So definitely and trust and believe we actually found this marriage retreat on Facebook. I actually sent it to Eric and it was free. They paid for our accommodations. They gave us a $200 gift card.
Speaker 1:I got to tell you about our business.
Speaker 2:It was so much fun, so I'm just saying like yeah, try some marriage retreats.
Speaker 1:So we got on. Missy says put your expectation on a yellow paper right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Put the expectations.
Speaker 1:So you're going in and say, okay, this is what I'm expecting this year. You're going in with eyes wide open, what you're expecting on that year. We are tithers, right, and we always start out praying and then we say, lord, we want to give this amount of money next year, tithe. And people may say, well, why y'all want to do that, why y'all say that? Because when we say we want to give that much, that means we're looking for the Lord to bless us enough in order for us to give it. So we say we're going to give $15,000. That's our goal. So that means, as a couple together, we're looking that we're going to make at least $150,000 together right, because we're giving 10%.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right, so that's a good, a good thing to do. Well, like I said, we definitely send each other those IG reels. Yeah, I know sometimes they send it to us too. We have John Russell. He says, says we have to incorporate, putting our goals in a place where we'll see it every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, John, you got to do that. You have to put it in a place where you see it every day.
Speaker 1:Put it in your room. That's your room. I mean, I know people. Sometimes people say you want to put a car and you want to put it on the refrigerator, because you go inside the refrigerator all the time and that's cool. But for your goals, for you and your spouse, put it in your room. If you have two yellow sheets of paper that's why we have the paper where it flips up and all that but just put it down there and so you can see the goals that you're setting.
Speaker 1:You see it, man, because if you don see the goals that you're setting, right, you see it, man, because if you don't see it, you'll forget about it and a month will pass, and a two month will pass, three months will pass and December get here. You'll be like man, we haven't accomplished anything. You know why? Because you think that you got it here, yeah, then you can keep it here, right. You think that you can keep it on your phone. You think that you can keep it in your computer. They are all nice, that's good for organization, right. But when you write it, they would tell you, and when you go to school, they'll tell you to write it, type it, hear it say it, because the more times you write it, you say it and all this stuff it gets into you.
Speaker 2:Right, it's just like the Word of God the more you read it, the more you get into it and meditate on it, the more you hide that word in your belly. I was just telling my brother about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's when you make that vision, you write that and you see that, and then you go back to it and say, okay, so we're in March. Did we accomplish what we was going to accomplish in January? Yes. Did we make it through February? Good. Make it through February good. Do we need to add? Oh, we gotta add so and so, because we forgot about this.
Speaker 2:so we add things and, as you see, I love it because I actually was helping my aunt plan for her anniversary party coming up and one day I went over and I had this sheet and I said here's what we gonna do. Boom, I put that sheet on the wall and I started writing okay, where are we? We're in September, we're in here. And she was like this. And she was like this is good. I was like put it where you can see it every day. And so she was like this works, because now I see it, now I know what my steps are, now I know what my goals are, I know how to get to this point.
Speaker 1:Mind you, she's been planning this about four years now, so when we have our yellow sheet of paper. You years now, so when we have our yellow sheet of paper you may have four or five yellow sheets of paper.
Speaker 2:We ain't putting all that I love the beer.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that you put because you may have. You're talking about every month, you're talking about personal goals and you're talking about marriage goals. You put it all there and then you're going to consolidate it, right, so that's what you do, so you put in all of it, because what you're doing, you're throwing out things. You're throwing out this is what we want to do, Right, and you look at as Lucille's, you say OK, Some of the goals that we may not be able to accomplish agree, agree on.
Speaker 1:Right, we're not. We just going to worry about the ones that we. If we can't agree on those, then we know we need to pray more about it. So you put it in a bucket of prayer. You put those ones that you can't agree on. You put it in the bucket of prayer. The ones that you can agree on, those are the ones that you're marching along. You're just marching along and those are the ones that you're going to be doing for 2025.
Speaker 2:And don't focus on the one that you don't agree on. Yeah, don't focus on it, Because the one that you agree on, once you get the ones that you can agree on, the ones that you disagree on might not even be an issue anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We're going to move on from that. We're going to get this new car. Yeah, we're going to get this new furniture. You know what I'm saying, right? So sometimes, if you focus on what we can agree on, Right yeah. You want to stay focused on the things that you can agree on.
Speaker 1:That's it, that's it, that's good, right there. So what you can do, right Again, you can write them all down, put them, put them on your computer, write it all down. And what you can do, you can get ready to make a compelling vision. So some people say you make your vision first and work the goal to set it. So I say do it reverse, write everything down, throw everything down and then, from all of those things, now you can get a compelling vision from it and you may get help. That's why AI is here. I'm telling you I better go to chat GVT, write it all down and say can you help me get a compelling vision in two sentences? Right For my marriage, or for help me, and that's what is there to help. And you can narrow it down. And narrow it down and say, ok, we can agree that this has helped to reword it and make it personal, and at least it helps you, right, it saves time. And so now you have a vision and you have your goals.
Speaker 2:Awesome.
Speaker 1:And you'll be ready for 2025. Yeah, All right, we're ready for 2025. All right, we got any comments, any comments that we need to talk, you need to talk about here.
Speaker 2:Well, let's just give a shout out to Dayton Ohio. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Dayton Ohio, Dayton Ohio. Oh boy, that's a distance, ain't it?
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you for letting him know he should take them walks with me.
Speaker 1:Oh boy.
Speaker 2:He really should yeah.
Speaker 1:I really should.
Speaker 2:All right. Do you have any personal goals that you want to try for this upcoming year that I can help you with?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean one of the personal goals is I do want to lose weight.
Speaker 2:You do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do want to lose some weight, so I got to get out there and make sure I do and I want to make sure my high. I have high blood pressure and I want to make sure I want to keep my blood pressure down. That's one of the goals, that's another goal.
Speaker 2:How could I help you with that?
Speaker 1:I guess it takes a little stress.
Speaker 2:I stress you out.
Speaker 1:No, I'm just saying with everything.
Speaker 2:How can I help you? When you say stress, I'm like I don't want to stress you.
Speaker 1:Don't stress me out, baby, but you know, cook healthy foods. Did y'all hear that? Did y'all hear that I'm talking about cook? I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I won't do that.
Speaker 1:See, See, there you go See.
Speaker 2:Lucy will say Jordy, you need to go to the gym with your son. Can we get a clap for that?
Speaker 1:No, we ain't getting a clap for that. Let's, jordan, be like that. Hey, if you have something, you want to call in 754-222-2219. 754-222-2219. If you want to do that, you can call in. We maybe share some of your goals. We got a couple more minutes that we want to do and Lucille said lose what Tiny man. Yeah, you can call in 754-222-2219. And you can. If you want to share some of your goals, you can do that as well. We'd love to hear where you go. So what are some of your goals that I can help you with me?
Speaker 1:you were talking about me, so I want to find out what some of the goals that that I can help you out with too well, I'm taking these class.
Speaker 2:Well I I'm a procrastinator when it comes down to taking to school and doing assignments and getting things done. I like to wait till the deadline, till two days before the deadline. So if you could really help me to stay on task, and finish this certification and this renewal for my directors. If I can get you to say, come on, babe, because you know me, I'll come home from work and get in the bed and stay in the bed. Stay in the bed. I'm actually at a February. My certification is February. My credentials expire.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:But I've registered for the class in September.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. Okay, when do you want this done? When do you have that?
Speaker 2:Well, I was going to do it for Thanksgiving, but your wonderful self and your children decided that I needed to cook. So that took that week for me going to the grocery store, getting everything together. So I couldn't do it then and I was thinking about doing it for Christmas. But I got to go see my mom.
Speaker 1:But can't you, while we're driving, that you do some of that?
Speaker 2:But who's going to talk to you while you're driving? Don't worry about that.
Speaker 1:I got my music going, can't you? I mean, do you need to have? I mean, even if you have internet, you can, I can hotspot it. That's right, you can hotspot it.
Speaker 2:So so you can do that while you well, I didn't tell you to start giving me a plan making my vision plain. I said I need you to encourage me. You want me to be traveling on the highway doing homework.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean doing the schoolwork. That's cool, I'm fine with that. You said you're gonna be reading anyway, you were reading a book, so why not just read your school work?
Speaker 2:yeah, so again. I procrastinate when it comes down to that. But you know what? I was an A B student. I just waited to the last minute to get stuff done. But when I got it done, I got it done because I prayed and I asked the Lord to help me out.
Speaker 1:Alright, alright, alright. I got it done. I got it done because I prayed and I asked the Lord to help you out. Help Jesus, all right, all right, all right, yeah. All right, so yeah, so yeah, we can do that, we can do that, we can do that.
Speaker 2:What Lucille say Jesus is going to talk to him while he's driving. Get to work, dog.
Speaker 1:That's it, that's it. That's it, that's it all. Right, we're just waiting for somebody to call. I mean, if nobody calls in for the goals, we just want to thank you for joining us tonight. We pray that throughout our talk tonight, that it helps you and your spouse to plan for 2020s on five and to set goals, set your vision Right, and I want to just make sure I want to encourage all of the husbands you lead on that let's have this meeting, let's do what we need to do and let's accomplish that and just be the leader on that as well. I just want to encourage all of the guys to do that. If you haven't said, remember, december 31st is right around the corner too yeah, it is Right. And you don't want to go into January one and say, well, we're going to have the meeting in January. No, you want to hit the ground running in January one. Right, you want to hit the ground running. This is our goal. This is what we doing?
Speaker 2:this is what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is what we're doing for 2025, and if you do that, I guarantee you you have a better year. You have a better year in 2025. If you know you all those other years you've been flopping and flopping at least you have something to try to attain, and then, if you can't attain it, you just hey, next year we're gonna do it, we're gonna, we're gonna knock this out. All right, you was getting ready to say something baby, yeah, I was getting ready to say it.
Speaker 2:Even if something that's on your goal list falls short, don't look at it like man. I failed and I'm just going to throw in the towel on it. You know what, go to the next goal and come back to that, because sometimes you have to put things aside and kind of regroup.
Speaker 1:Right, right right.
Speaker 2:To accomplish it, so it's okay if it don't work out the first time.
Speaker 1:Go back again.
Speaker 2:Nothing in life is easy. Right, the things that's going to benefit you the most are going to be the things that you work the hardest to get. Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:In two weeks it'll be the 30th. I know we're going to be a little tired coming back from South Carolina, Are? I know we're going to be a little tired coming back from South Carolina. Are we going to be back on? We're coming back that Sunday. So I'm thinking, man, we should have our family on for our last podcast of the year.
Speaker 1:Get them kids on and we just trip out a little bit, We'll see. Well, I mean we got to say that. I mean, are we going to have 30th or are we not going to have the 30th?
Speaker 2:I don't know. We'll just be coming back in town, right, all right.
Speaker 1:Cool, so we'll send it out if we do. Okay, all right, but again, we want you to like and share. Make comments, please. Once we're off, you can make the comments put in comments and maybe you can make some comments about what you'd like to hear next. Right, you can also go to Apple Podcasts, iheartradio, spotify, amazon Music, go back to YouTube Music we're everywhere and support. All we're asking for is support to support us, and the more you listen to it, the better you can go out and I had fun tonight.
Speaker 2:What about you? I love our audience. We love our audience.
Speaker 1:What about you? Always, I love our audience, you love our audience, I love our audience. Well, we want to just thank you again for joining us and we want to say goodnight.
Speaker 2:Goodnight, thank you.
