48. My Top 5 Lessons from Navigating Big Change and Reinvention

As we step into 2025, my life has been swirling with change – not just with a new home, but with a shift in my career as well. Recently, my family and I embarked on a significant move that upended our surroundings and challenged us to settle into a new rhythm. Alongside the chaos of relocating, I’ve also closed a chapter as an accountability coach with the Farm Owners Academy, leaving me with a clean slate to explore new ventures. 

As I reflect on this journey of shifting landscapes, I want to share with you the top five lessons I’ve learned about navigating big change, the art of surrender and how reinvention has shaped me. Perhaps these will offer some guidance or comfort if you too find yourself swirling in the waves of life's transitions.

We'll explore:

1. Progress Over Perfection
2. Honour and Communicate Your Needs
3. Comparison is the Thief of Joy
4. A Shift in Energy is Growth
5. Honour What You Love

Navigating big changes in life can be daunting, but it’s within these shifts that we find opportunities for reinvention and self-discovery. My hope is that you too, will find the courage to step forward, surrender to the flow and embrace change with a reinvigorated spirit. 

Remember, the magic lies not in having everything perfectly aligned, but in the beautiful journey of becoming.

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Transcript

 [00:00:00] 

Benita: Hello, lovely one and welcome back to me plus motherhood. I'm your host, Benita Bensch, and I'm so grateful you've tuned in for this episode, which I'm recording on the 24th of January, not too far before it goes to air on the 29th of January. So this is the first episode I'm actually recording in 2025.

The others were recorded in 2024. So. Super, super excited for the podcast this year, though, right at this moment, I'm actually not feeling too ready to record this episode. I have a little bit of an interim podcast recording setup going on here at my desk because we've not long moved. I currently don't know where my podcast microphone is and [00:01:00] I am making do with a lapel microphone, but that's okay.

And. I almost didn't record this episode because I was feeling not ready. I'm sort of in this in between stage of still being school holidays. Kids aren't back at school yet. I kind of feel like I'm not fully focused yet. I'm still in this moving kind of holiday mode. And my mentor said to me. That is perfectionism coming out.

Go and record the episode. She wasn't quite that forthright actually, but her undertone was don't let perfectionism stop you if it's something you feel like you'd like to do, which it was, but all of the negative voices were getting in the way of, oh, you know, I'm not organized enough, I'm not quite clear on, on what I want to say, all of those things.

So, I guess before I even talk about what I'm going to talk about today, I just want to say. Progress over perfection. If there is something you're wanting to put out into the world, if there [00:02:00] is something you're wanting to create, to do, to take action on, it, something keeps getting in the way, and it is perfectionism, then this is your permission slip to just get on and get on with it, even if it's not perfect because you never know who it might help or just the shift in energy that it will create for you and the momentum it creates for you.

And really life is just a whole series of little bits of momentum put together. So the momentum, the small task or a small action, a small step laying a brick down in the direction that you want to go. It's incredible the momentum it can give you to take the next step. So with that in mind, today's episode is a little bit of a on the last two months, big change, surrender, and reinventing myself.

Before I get started on what I've learned, I wanted to share with you my top five right now. And I thought this might be a nice thing to do on [00:03:00] each of my podcast episodes. What I'm reading, what I'm listening to, what I'm watching, what I'm loving and what I'm not. It has been the school holidays. The boys have been home.

When this goes to air, I would have had the boys home on school days literally for eight. Two months since the 29th of November when they finished school. It has been a long period and only in the past few weeks have I started to feel like I'm kind of dedicating more space to me, my self care, my mindset, getting thinking more clearly about what I want to consume and where I'm going this year.

Um, before that, we were just focused on actually getting the move done, which we did, and also having a break. and it's taken quite a while to kind of get to a point of feeling like I'm ready to consume something again. And I'm hungry for knowledge and hungry for some good [00:04:00] content to help me feel in alignment.

So I'm reading at the moment, Start With Why by Simon Sinek.

I've had this book on my shelf for a couple of years now and just like with all of my books, I kind of wait until I get the feeling of being attracted to that book and wanting to read it. I'm really loving it. no surprise there. it's a very well renowned, reputable book. I thought it was perfect timing as I'm kind of starting afresh in life, really, in our new home, new location, new business, new everything.

my business is still going, but I am kind of reinventing it in a way or refining it. Before I start putting out into the world or start concentrating on the how and the what, what I first want to do is think about the why and be very clear on the why that underpins any next steps I'm going to take.

and this [00:05:00] book, Oh my gosh, the key messages from it just come thick and fast all around being clear on your why, starting with why and having that be the most important thing, not the what and the how, which is sometimes what we can jump to doing. it's very easy to think about, Oh, what's the next thing I'm going to put out there or launch or do, but understanding the why is what keeps you going and attracts the right people to you.

 What I'm listening to is an audio book, The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy. This book was a big talking point in our Farm Owners Academy community in 2024. And for good reason, it is an incredible book. And I'm only just past the introduction and boy has it got me thinking about the way I operate, the way our family operates, the way I'd like our children to operate in terms of being focused more on the [00:06:00] gain, as in looking at how far you've come, compared to the gap, which is how far you are from the ideal.

When we live in comparison to the ideal, we are living in comparison. The gap of where we, what we haven't achieved yet. or what we're comparing ourselves to, or the expectation or the picture we have in our minds. And I think it's great to have an ideal, but to put more of our energy and focus on how far we've come rather than how far we've got to go.

I think it's a nice reminder that if we do not train ourselves, we can live in the gap a lot of the time. So brilliant book, really excited to keep going through it and implement. what's in there for Adam and I and our children? I'm watching, well actually I just finished last night, too late last night.

Binge watching season six of Virgin River on Netflix. Uh, [00:07:00] we didn't have internet or a TV here at this new house for a couple of weeks, and we've only had internet for less than a week. and so. There were a few new things on Netflix that I hadn't seen since early December. So I was excited to watch season six of Virgin River, which is, is such a beautiful series.

Made me cry a fair bit this season actually. And speaking of ideals, I do think some of the relationships and things are a bit over the top in terms of thinking of the ideal, romance and love and things that are expressed in that show, it can make me compare it to my marriage and think, Oh my gosh, how come I don't have someone like Jack Sheridan?

Um, so I think, yeah, there's a good love story in it, but at times I think I have to be careful that it's maybe not quite reality. Well, maybe it is for you. Uh, what I'm loving morning walks. And happy boys. I have been walking [00:08:00] consistently nearly for two weeks in the morning now. And my gosh, it's making a difference to my days.

Um, it always has when I do get out for a morning walk, it always does make a huge difference to how I feel, how I think, how my day unfolds, the energy that I bring to my day. And I guess. There's can be a gap between what we know and what we do. And it's only in the past only two weeks that I've actually committed to doing it daily, that it has shown me what a difference it makes.

also our boys, have been coming with me some mornings on their bikes or scooting or walking, walking the dog. although I use it as my place for some space and I've needed to manage my attitude around that because I can. Um, at times feel like, you know, this is my only time that I'm getting away from you guys today.

and so please leave me alone. But at the same time, I see it as [00:09:00] an opportunity to be outdoors with them, to have conversations with them. obviously it's great for their wellbeing. It's great for their energy as well. So that has been really, really good for me. What I'm not loving is still a feeling of disorganization, not quite knowing where things are that haven't been unpacked yet.

And it's highlighted to me the importance of the boxes of essentials and packing those boxes that are kind of the essentials of life and having them easily accessible. Because in the flurry of a move where Boxes do end up getting put everywhere, some of them in the logical place, some of them not. and we still have many, many boxes that I haven't even touched yet because we were consolidating our townhouse, our farmhouse, and a farm cottage.

So there's lots for me to still go through and. a few weeks down the track, I mean, we've got the main essentials unpacked, but it's all those other things that you think, Oh, where did I put that thing? [00:10:00] I'm grateful that I labeled the boxes with a lot of detail. That's a good tip for you. If you come, if you're going to move to do that, but there is still those little bits of time of going, I just don't know where it is.

And I don't like that. also piles of things that I haven't quite found a home for still. You know, like towels, our linen cupboard will not fit all the towels in. So where do I put all of those? Do I donate them? Do I keep them? Do I keep them in case we have a farm cottage at the next farm? All of those decisions, the decision making of moving, I have found quite overwhelming the quantity of decisions to make on top of the everyday decision making that comes with motherhood and parenting, and a whole new.

Place of living, a whole new town, lots of decisions, decision fatigue. And so has been an overwhelming experience for me. That feeling is starting to settle down But if I was to think of what I'm not [00:11:00] loving, that would be it. So as I mentioned at beginning I'm still in the in between of life for this year so far In between holiday mode and getting back to school slash work mode.

It feels a bit funny at the moment to do that and to not be kind of in that really clear work headspace. typically. working in the past few years, I have gone back to work in early January and been running my coaching programs, doing my coaching with Farm Owners Academy. That's not the case this year.

I haven't started anything. I don't have anything acting or active running, and I have finished working with the Farm Owners Academy as a, as an accountability coach. So it really is a clean slate and It's a little bit of a message, and I guess theme of this episode is that feeling of surrendering and reinvention.

And that [00:12:00] feels like, I feel as though when we got back from New Zealand, we had three and a half weeks holiday over there in December, which was incredible. We got 1st of January, and, I have, on many occasions, Thought of ideas of things I can start, things I can launch, programs I can run, ideas, business ideas, businesses I could buy.

There's no shortage of inspiration and ideas of the next move. But I am challenging myself to Sit with all of it and not make a move. And I mentioned this in my goals for 2025 episode. So again, there's a difference between knowing something and doing it. And knowing that that is what I wanted to do just to sit for a little while is different to actually doing it.

So what I'm doing is just capturing ideas in the notes on my phone. Whenever I think of starting something, I just write it in there and I let it sit. so when we got home from New Zealand, I was actually feeling a little bit [00:13:00] down and after the adrenaline of the move and the highs of the holiday, there were lows during the holiday as well, but mostly highs.

It was an incredible time. the week after getting home, I have to say I did feel quite down and quite overwhelmed at setting up this home and, and the not knowing of what's next. Not quite in that first week when we got back, probably over the next two weeks, a sense of paralysis. I am a highly sensitive person.

I'm very sensitive to my environment and sensitive to a lot of stimulation and also have strong indicators of ADHD, which I believe I am neurodiverse and have ADHD. I haven't had it clinically diagnosed, but I did have one day where I literally couldn't make a decision. I couldn't move from the kitchen table because of overwhelmed paralysis.

[00:14:00] Um, just too many decisions to make. Like if I start unpacking that bag, that means I'm gonna have to clean out that cupboard and that means I'm gonna have to do that. And that means I'm gonna have to do that or that there's too many boxes. I don't know where to start. If I start doing that room, I'm going to have to do that bit first.

And like too many steps and the complexity feels too much. The way I overcame that was to simply just make one little decision like, okay, I'll go and unpack that suitcase. Just that one suitcase. And I was just Googling, you know, how to overcome overwhelm when moving, with ADHD. And then their tip was, don't think about all of what you need to unpack.

Think about the one box you need to unpack and just focus on that one box for today. It sounded way too simple. And I was like, Oh, one box isn't enough for the day. You know, I've got to do more than that. But that is literally what got me moving. And once I got one box done, it gives you momentum to go to the next box.

[00:15:00] And that strategy has gotten me through many times of overwhelm and paralysis just on a daily basis. perhaps for you as well, that helps. That strategy of just, just one, just one step, just one job, just one something to gain some momentum, to gain some confidence, to gain some clarity. So this surrendering feeling is a process of discovery, of sitting in exploration, capturing my ideas, of realigning with who I am and what I want, what's important to me, my values, because I do feel I was very attached in my former last few years to what I was doing.

And being a Queenslander, being in the cattle industry, being a coach with Farm Owners Academy, running my coaching programs, there is [00:16:00] probably ego attached, as well as an identity of a picture in my mind of who I was. Being part of a broader family business, running our business in conjunction with my parents and my siblings and that feeling of being a part of that broader family business, which was always very, very important to me and was a part of who I shouldn't say part of who I was a part of what I did, but a sense it was a part of myself image the way that I thought of myself kind of like motherhood right when we move from being a career woman, for example, or A woman to then being a woman and a mother, the picture of who we are changes.

The way we think of ourselves changes, the way we describe ourselves changes, how we spend our day. It is an identity shift and it's unsettling. It's like things feel wobbly at the foundation. Things feel a bit wobbly at the [00:17:00] knees and we need to redefine the picture for ourselves. Like I was getting to at the beginning, or getting at in the beginning, around expectations, the gap and the gain.

Freeing ourselves of expectations, freeing ourselves of the picture we once held, instead turning inward and reconnecting with ourselves. Who am I really? What's important to me? What legacy do I want to leave? What message do I want to share? What are the hundred things I want to do in this lifetime? If I could do anything, what would I do?

If anything was possible, if I had all the time and money, what would I do? Again, these things are not comfortable. It's so easy to want to rush out and take the next job or create the next thing in our business. or just get on with it to take time to [00:18:00] explore and surrender to that process is really uncomfortable at the moment.

I'm working with a human design coach doing a BG five career analysis, which is fascinating. I'm doing a six step series of calls with my mentor and, Because my human design has been quite pivotal for me in the past few years in understanding that I wanted to understand more deeply some elements of it, of my design and my body graph relating to my career and my business because I have been.

I've been running my own business since 2007 and I've tried lots of different methods and I have burnt myself out several times and this time I want to create my business more deliberately from the ground up. That's more in alignment with where I'm at and my energy type. So, what I've learned over the last two months, through moving, through surrendering, to this concept of reinvention, [00:19:00] is, well firstly, thinking about the New Zealand trip, going overseas for a couple of weeks with our kids, and it's, So being mindful of how much we took with us, I did try very hard to limit the amount of stuff we took.

And so this, we've got four children, so there was six of us and we ended up with three suitcases. So one large, one medium, one small. So I was pretty proud of that effort. And then everyone had their own backpack and I had a bag, a small carry on bag.

What I learned is that the little packs you can buy from Big W or from a travel store, the little zip up mesh kind of packs that you can put inside a suitcase to compartmentalize and organize your belongings are game changing. That was amazing because all our boys clothes were in one suitcase and each of them had their own little zip up little mesh pack and then we had a little mesh pack for their swimmers and their goggles and their socks and it was [00:20:00] Oh my gosh, instead of all their clothes getting mixed together in a suitcase every day, or them pulling them out, scrambling through each other's clothes, trying to find their own clothes, we'd just, everywhere we stopped, we'd just get out their little, little zip up pack, and sit them all out, and then they would have to put their clothes back into it and zip it up when we left that place, because we did check in and out of a lot of places.

It made a big difference. So that's a bit of a practical mum tip, that one. Um, number two of what I've learned through the moving process and this big change for our family, that honouring and communicating your needs is paramount. And I think that is just a theme of life really, particularly in relationships.

was quite a lot of strain on our marriage during the packing, moving, unpacking process. experienced a huge amount of anxiety. Particularly in those weeks leading up to the move and in the few weeks after the move. It was so deeply [00:21:00] uncomfortable for me, having so much clutter, not knowing where things were, things not feeling normal, piles of things.

For someone with my brain and energy profile and just the way I operate, it was actually living hell. And I don't think I communicated that well enough to Adam before the move. I probably didn't actually really know I would feel that way until we went into it. Because last time we did a significant move, we didn't have any kids.

So the amount of stuff and we didn't have a whole working farm set up with so much to move from farm machinery and workshop items and just so many things to work out so many decisions. It was, It was so much, it's so much for anyone, I think, but if you do have a highly sensitive nervous system, it's, it was just so big in my body and [00:22:00] I tried gently to communicate it to Adam, but I don't think I communicated well enough what I would need in order to help me get through this time, which would have been more buffers, more space in between, um, him understanding the way I process things different to him.

Adam is a generator, human design type. He's someone who's has a massive amount of stamina. He can just go, go, go all day, every day. Whereas I can't. I need time to process. I need time to think about where I'm going to unpack things. I've got to feel into it. I need to be in the space for a while. I also can't go flat out day after day after day on top of trying to take care of myself and the boys because parenting, mothering through a change like this, is enough in and of itself to manage myself and to help hold space for the boys and [00:23:00] their emotions and the changes they're going through and thinking through all of what they need as well as myself.

Number three is that comparison is the thief of joy. Theodore Roosevelt said this initially, and I know it gets used a lot, but gosh, it's true. I find in those not enough moments that I go to comparison. I had a social media break while in New Zealand and it was just wonderful. I've noticed since I've been on it a little bit more since we've been back that comparison is what comes up for me.

And in my moments when I'm not feeling enough. And this is my opportunity for self work, but still that feeling of, Oh my gosh, like that person's already doing this this year and I'm not doing anything. And you might be able to resonate with this like, Oh gosh, you know, she's already got the kids organized for school or, Oh gosh, she's already launching this new thing.

And in terms of a business from a business point of view, Or even with holidays, you know, like, Oh, they had that [00:24:00] holiday or they're going and doing this. Oh, maybe I should be doing this and it just leads nowhere good. It really never does. And we all need a little mantra or a strategy or a process that when you notice your thoughts and feelings start to run away, that you just nip it in the bud.

Because otherwise we can spend so much energy. Thinking about what other people are doing and what we are not doing, living in the gap compared to being deliberate and conscious of what it is we actually do want to create for ourselves and our families and the experiences we'd like to have and living in the gain and living in gratitude for what we do have and what we are capable of, what we are wanting and enjoying There's a big difference in how our time will play out depending on the way we approach that.

I've also learned number four is that a shift [00:25:00] in energy is growth. We have shifted to a new home and each of our homes has a different energy, a different community, which has a different energy, a different environment. And with all of that comes this real difference in vibration. of how I feel, how our family feels, how the dynamics feel.

And even though it would be easy to think we haven't got where we want to go yet, we're living in a rental house at the moment until we find what the farm we want to buy. as I have alluded to, my business is kind of a little bit dormant at the moment, and it would be easy to think that we are stuck, which is not the case because The energy shift for me is growth because I can feel the difference and I can feel how good that feels.

And that is growth. So that's good enough for me right [00:26:00] now. And number five, probably my favorite of these is that it's so easy to do what's expected of you and what's needed. It's easy to spend our days. as mothers, as women doing what is expected around the home or expected of us in all the elements of our life to just do what needs to be done.

The washing, the folding, keeping the house tidy, doing the unpacking. Whatever it is, whatever it is in your work, business, homes, community, whatever, whatever it is, whatever that looks like for you, whatever feels like a should or that is weighing down on you, we can just fill our days so easily doing all the things that are expected and that just need to be done.

And I have had this wrestle since moving of I need to be unpacking, I should be unpacking, I should be getting things sorted, I need to get the gardens looking better, I need to, I need to, I need to, I need to spend more time with the kids on the holidays, all [00:27:00] those shoulds and feelings. But in the past week I have been taking some time in the mornings, as well as the walk, coming home and having a cup of coffee and doing some things that I want to do.

Whether that's writing or working on this new course that I'm enrolled in, in regard to writing my next book. Whatever it is that I feel drawn to and I love and I want to do and I'm yearning to do it, or watching Netflix, whatever it is, honor yourself in some way each day so that you, the rest of the day just feels light and easy.

Once you've filled your cup and given yourself a sense of fulfillment and given yourself permission to do that, all the other stuff will still be there and it will wait. And it will be there once you've filled your cup, and once you've filled your cup, the rest of the day just flows so much more easily.

So, honour your unique gifts, your unique potential, by doing what it is that you love and really desire to do, even if it's in small portions for the day. [00:28:00] I've shared that message lots of times on this podcast, and I think it is my ultimate message is that is that you have gifts that the world needs.

You have skills, talents that are waiting to be expressed and wanting to be expressed. So follow those little nudges because that's what, that's what you're here to do. And all the stuff of life will happen around it. So that's my wrap up on Big Change, Surrender and Reinvention. I hope there's been some nuggets of wisdom or just something in there for you today.

Sending you so much love. And I look forward to chatting to you again in a fortnight. Best wishes. Bye bye. [00:29:00]