Ziv: Hey, I’m Ziv, and this is “On The Journey”. Every week “On The Journey” explores the intersection of women’s spirituality, inquiry, mental health, first time growth and purposeful living through the eyes of the people we interview. And today, I am happy to host Debra. And we’re going to talk about the joy and the deep method.

Debra: I’m really excited to be here. Thank you.

Ziv: Me as well, and I think jo is like. I really want more joy in my life and it’s such a big word and this sounds so challenging. How do we do it? What is Joy? How do we get more of it?

Debra: What is joy? Joy is the happy, the elation. I made up a word for my book. I call it gold topia. And when you’re in gold topia, you’re living the life that you want achieving your goals. I think it is so

I mean, it work, obviously, that’s the first thing you want to do. You want to be doing a job or have a career that you love. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t.

Let’s say you need to make a career change. Well, do you want to keep doing the thing that makes you miserable? or do you want to go explore something else, something that may bring you joy? Or if you can’t, and maybe you’re stuck in your work situation or you have you have different responsibilities and it feels like life is so heavy.

Well, then that’s even more important to look inside yourself and say, “OK, what do I love and what is something that I could be doing? Maybe it’s not for my job. Maybe it’s on the side, but that will bring me joy.”

And then that happiness can leak out over the rest of your life and maybe make those things that are challenging a little or a lot more bearable.

Ziv: I think it’s super simple, right?What we just need to do more of the things that that we want, that we actually really want. And it’s so simple that. I don’t think I know anyone that if we look at it the day that most of the day is constructed from the things that we really want.

It’s so simple, yet how do we do it? How do we like there’s so many things that we have to do. And so little time to do the things that we really want to do. What’s the first step? How do we start?

Debra: I think the first step, is to look inside yourself and think about the things that bring you joy.

I’m all about the goals. You start by figuring out what you want. Then you can come up with a plan to get it.

And it can be a big goal, like changing your life, your career, or it could be a little goal, like starting a side hustle or exploring a hobby.

Let’s say you’re miserable. Well, just start with your miserable and you can’t. And it’s you have way too many responsibilities. Don’t like your job, your life somewhere else. I know. Real uplifting topic here, but it’s something a lot of people go through.

But what do you do? And I always think of the best first step is to start with journaling.

I have this technique. I created what I call it directed journaling. There are a lot of people who journal they have different styles. But this is how my style of journaling works, is you want to set three, four or five, 15 minute appointments with yourself and you’re just brainstorming the answer to one question. And it can be what brings me joy or what will bring you joy or what are my goals or what do I want to do or what is going to be.

The focus is one particular question or aspect. I mean, it’ll grow from there. But you start with one something I’m all about goal setting simplified. We go simple in. The idea is over these three, four or five sessions, just jump out everything in your head that you can think of. And then afterwards.

Then you can read, I don’t want you reading any of your brainstorms while it’s coming out of your head. Don’t worry about repeating yourself. Just go and then you can look back and see what you mentioned a lot, what you mentioned a little. And that’s really going to help you find direction when you find the themes within your brainstorm of what brings me joy, what are my goals, what I want to do.

That’s really the first step with anything. And you can use it for finding joy or redirecting your life path or making a decision. Let’s say, you’re a job opportunity comes in front of you. You’re like, I don’t know if I should take it. You can do this directed brainstorming on that question and see what you come up with, because it’s so hard to figure out things out in our head.

But when you lay it all out on paper and you can look, then you can look at the patterns and the themes and you can come up with your direction and then you can make a plan.

Ziv: I would try to recap to make sure I understood. First of all, I need to make an appointment with me for 15 minutes, which I’m not sure I have time for me, but I need to find it.

Let’s say I managed to find the schedule of time with me for 15 minutes, and then I just try to write what is really important for me. Right?

Debra: Yeah

Ziv: I find one question about what is important for me in a certain aspect of my life, and I try just to dump it and write it down. And afterwards, after I have it written, I try to reflect on it and to understand what really matters to me. What’s the next step?

Debra: Ok, Everything that you said, except if you only have 5 minutes do it for five minutes. If you only have 10 minutes do it for 10 minutes, maybe you’re driving and you’re like early too, and this is silly. Are people going to appointments now? If you have five minutes before you’re about to get on an appointment or ten minutes before I zoom you can take those 10 minutes.

Find those little pockets of time and you want to do it a couple times. You don’t want to do it just once. You want to find the patterns in in order to find the balance you need to give yourself. It’s like it’s like a gift to yourself. Actually, the whole exploration of finding joy, figuring out your goals, these are all gifts to yourself because you can’t you can’t get you can’t reach your goals if you don’t know what your goals are.

You can’t find joy. If you don’t take the time and say, OK, what does this mean to me? Now I find joy in this, what I’m talking about. I love nothing more than talking to people and helping them see through the clutter and figure out where their path is. It really starts with that, that journaling, the visualization, when you close your eyes and think about the life you want, what is that look like? And if you don’t know, then you can journal and get some answers.

Then once you have that, think about where you are now and then where you want to go. So I’m here. This is my life. I would like my life to be more like that. OK, simple, right. And from there, you want to create some sort of mission statement.

Ziv: Just a random example.

Debra: Exactly. When you’re looking at your mission. You don’t just want something for you. You want something that’s going to help others. Maybe you find joy in volunteering or maybe you find joy in helping people figure out their goals, whatever that is. Think about what that mission is.

And the next step is to shorten it to a motto. So, I’ve said this before.

That is my motto.

Through my book or my workshops or whenever I talk, I like simple as possible, because changing and fixing your life is hard enough. The instruction should be easy. So, I left instructions. That’s how you really the deal on the debt method is determine your mission. It’s visualize current by a future by a mission statement.

In the motto is probably I mean you need to do all the legwork to get to the motto, but once you have it, you have your guiding point. Then as you explore your options, that’s when you look into what would bring you joy. So bringing you joy is a new job. Then you need to start back with the director journaling.

OK, what do I want to do? What kind of job do I want to pursue? What’s that going to entail? And then when you get a few different options, say, OK, well, I could try and work in this. I could get new education.

Maybe if I just do a side hustle that’ll make me happy, then you look into what doing any of these things entail. Let’s say you just want, work life balance, that is where you’re going to find your joy, think about, OK, what does that mean? Does it mean stopping work at a certain time at the end of the day?

Does it mean taking a lunch break or actually like stepping away from the computer during lunch and like reading the paper or having a conversation or even like a zoom copy or zoom launched a couple times a week? What is going to feed your soul? What’s going to make you happy? Maybe it’s exercise, doesn’t matter.

Think of the different things that might bring you joy and then for the ones that are a little more detailed, you need to do some research, maybe I need to exercise more. If I’m healthier, I will be happier, I will have more joy. And then that’s what you’re exploring. OK, who’s teaching what kind of exercise?

There are questions that you have to take the time to answer for yourself, but once you do and you make a plan and then you actually fulfill it, oh, my goodness, life’s just going to be better by now. Very, very simple.

Ziv: Let’s test it if it’s really simple. OK, if I understood, it’s very simple. It maybe just simple without the super. First of all, what we need to do is to understand what we really want. And for that, journaling is a very effective tool, to just dump what we really want.

And if we don’t have the time, five minutes, then it would be five minutes if we have more and more. And after we dumped it, we can reflect on it and understand maybe what we really want and what is our mission. And then we can figure out where we are now and what are the steps that we need to take to achieve those goals, to become what we want it to be or to do more for what we want to be.

Basic of everything, Joy, I think it sounds like a stupid question at the beginning, but now when I heard you say it for me now, I understand better, what is Joy?

Reflecting, understanding what we really want, understanding what’s our mission, where we are and what others, what the steps we need to take to get there. More or less.

Debra: Yes!

That was like a simple goal setting simplified, you just like, upped by simple factor because it really boils down to this. What do you want and how do I get it? I don’t know what you want. Figure that out and then you can make that plan. And that’s really it.

You said, do I have 15 minutes to journal? You can find the 15 minutes, you can find the five, do you have 15 minutes to bring joy into your life? I think if you don’t, then you have to look at your entire life, think of maybe it’s one appointment of a week where you have two hours where you’re just doing something that you love and the rest of your week is normal.

Or maybe it’s a half an hour, twice a week. You do the thing that you love is exercise. You have those two appointments and you keep them. And that’s going to make you happier.

Things will get done faster. Maybe you’ll have time for three appointments after you’ve done this or else. So just to find ways to look at your schedule and see where and when you can introduce these things that are going to make you happy and do them.

Ziv: Definitely, the thought of actually writing on my schedule an appointment with myself, I think that act on its own is very therapeutic. It’s very powerful to say to myself out loud and to write it.

And when a clear time for myself, to be with myself, to do something good for me. That’s a very powerful start. I’m only when I’m OK.

Debra: Excellent! Because when you choose Joy, you choose yourself and you’re better for yourself and you’re better for the people around you.

Ziv: Definitely. I want to say I’m so happy, but I’m so grateful for the opportunity to talk with you and to learn from you, and I’m really grateful for this opportunity and for your knowledge and experience and time.

Thank you very much for coming to this interview.

Debra: Well, thank you for having me. It was great to meet you. And I just so appreciate the invitation. Thank you. And please keep me posted. I want to know how you put what I talked about today.

Ziv: Definitely.