Hello, everyone, we are going to start the year the way we ended it, strong and powerful. Today we’re going to talk about fresh starts and do overs and how powerful they can be in your marriage. This is one of the things my clients always get amazing results from practicing. So you’re going to want to listen closely, take notes and put this into practice immediately. Before we dive in, I do have some fun things to share. So as I’m recording this episode, I found out this week that my book, The Questions For Couples Journal is in the top 10 of all marriage books on Amazon. And I cannot tell you how proud and delighted I am for this book to be in so many homes helping so many couples get closer. Seriously, it’s one of my favorite projects I have ever worked on. And I am so proud of the results and how much fun people are having using the book as well. I love reading the Amazon reviews. It’s amazing. So The Questions For Couples Journal is in the top 10. I am so excited. And if you haven’t checked it out, you absolutely should. We always put a link in the show notes so you can check that out. And one of my longtime followers is a brilliant book coach. Her name is Dallas Woodburn, she’s also a fabulous writer has written several books, and is just an overall cool person. And over the years, she’s been in my communities since I started blogging, and we’ve had really lovely email correspondence over the years. And she’s the host of a podcast that is just for writers. It’s called Overflowing Bookshelves. So if you love reading and you love writing, this is a podcast you would for sure enjoy. She invited me over to her podcast to chat about the process of writing the book. And I was really delighted and said yes immediately. And we will link in the show notes to Overflowing Bookshelves, that is the name of the podcast, I think you’ll love it. By the way, if you host a podcast, and you would like to have me as a guest. Write to me at hello@maggiereyes.com, let me know what you’re all about what you would want to talk about on your show. And if you’re a writer or want to become one, you will definitely get a lot out of that episode. So you’ll definitely want to listen in. And if you just want to hear the behind the scenes of some of the things that I didn’t know when I was writing the book you’ll totally have a lot of fun listening in. So I definitely want you to check that out. And now I really want to share a fun story that I got permission from the hubby to share. I actually want to mention, I share a lot of stories about my husband on the podcast, I want you all to know I have his permission to share these stories. And when I’m in doubt, usually we talk about it over dinner or you know, as I’m preparing the notes or whatever. But today’s specifically, there’s a couple short stories I’m going to share in a little bit. We’re actually asked him over to my office and said hey, these are my notes. Is this okay? And he said yes, absolutely feel free to share. So I do want you to know that I think it’s really important when we’re sharing stories that involve other people to just check in and see how they feel about it. I always subscribe to the idea that it is my part of the story is my story to share. So that does happen as well. But in this case, you know, definitely my goal with the podcast is to help you have a stronger marriage. But my first goal is to help me have a stronger marriage, right? That’s really important marriage coach got a marriage. That’s what I tell my clients. So I want you to know, all the stories have his permission. And this one is a really fun one that I just told him when it was happening, this is going on the podcast. So literally, this morning, when we woke up, he said something really nice. He said How is the love of my life this morning? And I answered him, just like you would expect me to just like I would on the podcast in significant detail with lots of run on sentences. I said something like this, you know, I woke up next to the love of my life. And the night before we had watched a musical. So I said, you know, he asked me to watch a musical and then press pause on the TV to remind me that I’m married to a man who likes musicals and how wonderful that is. And we had a good laugh over that. And we have so much fun even in hard times and even on lockdown. And then I went on to mention three or four other things that I really love about him and so on. So by the way, we watched Prom on Netflix and loved it in case you’re wondering, I highly, highly recommend. So I gave him this really detailed answer. And then I asked him, How are you this morning, my love? And honest to God, the man said three words. He said, I am good. That’s what he said. He said, I am good. So I said, five paragraphs worth of things. He said, three words. And it sounded so much like I am Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy. If you’ve ever seen that movie, there’s a character whose only lines are, I am Groot. And he says this for the whole movie. So when he said I am good, they kind of do sound similar. I told him, You know, I kind of feel like I’m the Chris Pratt character in that movie. And in that movie, Chris Pratt can talk himself in and out of trouble like nobody’s business. So I thought, you know, I can talk myself into trouble, and I can talk myself out of trouble. Either way, I talk a lot, right. And then there’s Groot, you can count on him to build a tree fort that will save your life in case of a life threatening, earth shattering situation. Otherwise, it’s all, I am Groot. And that’s about it.
So for some reason, I felt like that was just, first of all, something I had to share with all of you. And he’s really a great example of what I see so often, in my own house, and with my coaching clients, where some person in the partnership, like one of the partners can just talk forever. And the other partner is like Groot, you might be the Groot partner, right? And it’s just important to just see that we have these different styles. And it doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t mean we love each other any less if we talk more, or if we talk less. So our partners, in my case, you know is the three word partner, and they’re there, they love us, and the three words that they have are for us, but they’re never gonna meet us in the talking world of a zillion details, right? And the difference between sunshine and buttercup, right, they’re just gonna call it yellow and move on. So I just wanted to point that out whether you are the three word partner or the five paragraph partner, that we have different styles, and we can see it in practice, we know which one we are, but sometimes it’s important to just say, and it doesn’t mean anything, one way or the other. It’s just our style. So I wanted to point that out. It brought me a great laugh, I thought it would bring you a great laugh too. So I hope it did. Okay, so now let’s dive into fresh starts and do overs.
Okay, it’s the beginning of a new year, I’m recording this for January of 2021. And as you listen to this, I know fresh starts are always on my mind, like starting mid December. And all through January, is just something I think about right, fresh starts. And I just want to say I think in general, sort of an overall sort of umbrella situation, we make fresh starts too complicated. And then we don’t do them, maybe I should just talk for myself, right? Sometimes I have been a person who has made fresh starts over complicated and then not really executed on them. Okay? So we want to wait for the perfect time, or the right conditions. And then we hesitate, or we overthink them, or make them have 54 steps and so many things to follow. And then we get frustrated and we give up. If you’ve ever done that, so have I, welcome. Welcome. Welcome to my world. So here’s the deal. I call do over on fresh starts. And I call do over on how to do do overs. Okay, one of the best things you will ever do for your marriage is create a culture of do overs.
Now, I often think of a marriage culture, like HR people think about corporate culture. Remember, I spent so many years of my life in HR before I became a life coach. So there’s a lot of parallels and I think about them often. So if you think about how we do what we do at work is what makes up a corporate culture. Wha’ts okay and what’s not okay at work is what we would overall call the corporate culture. In many corporate cultures, it’s all about covering your butt. Not getting caught being wrong, right, those kinds of things. And often that covering your butt overrides, actually doing quality work, like taking risks and trying new things. It’s just not encouraged, right? And healthy corporate cultures or healthier corporate cultures. Mistakes are okay. They’re recognized as the way we learn that we use mistakes to propel the whole team forward. We do you know, after action analysis and see what we could do better and we just move on, right? So so much of what they teach on the podcast is really designed to help you create a five star marriage culture, like the best marriage culture you could possibly have, where your relationship feels like your sanctuary.
So think about do overs as a thing that you do that makes all of your marriage better, it’s a thing that you add to your corporate culture. And some of the things I teach is when you remove, we have less of some of these things and more of some of these other things. And that makes our overall marriage culture stronger and better. Okay, so today is all about do overs. And the do over is exactly what it sounds like, it’s a request to do something over again, because it didn’t go quite the way you wanted it to go the first time. So here are the rules of do overs, as I sat down to, you know, write up my notes for this episode, I sort of thought about how I teach it to my coaching clients and how I use it in practice. And these are just my rules that I created, there may be other ways to do them, no problem, you may already do them. If you do keep it going. Okay, you can just add this to sort of how you think about doing do overs.
So first, we’re going to explain them, and then I’m going to give you some examples. So first, number one, you call it for yourself, always, which means you do over your own action, you never ask your partner, for them to do a do over unless here’s the exception. If you have a culture of do overs, that’s well established and you relationship, and you can make this request with love and humor. And not a molecule of resentment, not a molecule, you know, small molecules, think of a mustard seed, that small, okay, so if you have a culture of do overs already and if you say, Do you want to try that, again? If that ever comes out of your mouth, it’s coming out with total love, and clearly receivable that way by your partner, okay? Otherwise, the do overs for you, you own it is your action, you’re the one requesting one and you’re the one executing on it. Okay? Very, very important. Number two, there’s never a bad time or a wrong time for a do over, you can ask for one in the middle of an argument or three years after a disagreement. Number three is there’s no expiration date on do overs, there’s no statute of limitations on do overs. If you realize today, listening to this show right now, that something you did five years ago, does not reflect your highest and best self, and you want to make amends, then today, you own it. And today, you request the do over. There’s no expiration date, okay. And there’s never a bad time. I literally have a coaching client where in the middle of a fight she asked her to do over. And the best thing about it was that husband started laughing, and she started laughing. And then they were able to sort of restart. And it was just the element of adding, Hey, can I do that, again? That sort of softened the whole conversation and really help them move forward from that argument. So no wrong time. No statute of limitations, no expiration date.
Okay. The fourth rule of do overs is you say yes, when a partner asks for one always, right. It’s like improv where you always help your partner. So if you’re on the receiving end of a do over request, your answer is always Yes. Okay, so those are the rules, you call it for yourself. Always. If you’re calling for your partner, you need to re-listen to the episode on requests versus demands, we’ll link to it in the show notes, so that there’s not a molecule of resentment present. And if you can, like put your hand on your heart and do it with love and humor, and for that to be true, then you can ask your partner Hey, do you want to try that again? Okay. It’s like advanced ninja level do overs. Okay. There is never a bad time, or wrong time for one. And there’s no expiration date. And you always say yes, when your partner requests one. What often happens, what I’ve seen in my coaching practice, remember, this is an unscientific sample of a group of people who work with me, but I’ve seen it happen over and over again, the people who work with me is when you start requesting do overs and making amends and asking, Hey, can I try that again, I think I could do it better. What often happens is if you do that enough times, it really does become part of your partnership and your marriage culture. And then your partner one day, all of a sudden, when you think your partner hasn’t been paying attention the whole time. They’ll come out and they’ll say, Hey, can we do that thing? Can we can we try that thing where we do it over? Can you do that redo thing that you do? So that has happened multiple times, just so you know, okay, now, I hereby reserve the right to amend the rules of do overs at any given time and do over my own do over rules that just made me chuckle. But for now, follow those four rules and you are golden.
So if I know my people, and I do, at least one of you listening right now is wanting an example. And thinking that sounds great, Maggie, I love it. I’m all in how the heck do I do that? So if that’s you, here you go. Here are two examples. And these are the ones that I asked my husband for very explicit permission to share. And he said, Absolutely. So here’s the first one. One night, once upon a time, many years ago, my hubby and I were traveling, we were staying in a hotel. And I was attending a conference and he was sightseeing. And I got to the hotel room, like in the evening, late in the evening, after a long conference day. And he was really beside himself with excitement, about sharing the pictures that he took from all the things he saw and just sharing his day and telling me about what he did and where he went and all those things. And I was really tired, and not my best loving self in that moment. And I kind of dismissed him. Like I wasn’t paying close attention to how important this was to him. I said something like how about later, but not in the nicest way, like not in a thoughtful and mindful way. And really not in an honoring his request to share kind of way. So being the lovely man that he is. He just said so, he told me very clearly and powerfully, that was not cool. And I heard what he said, like my heart, heard with his heart was saying, and I didn’t just apologize in that moment, I really asked for a do over. And this was like so many years ago, but when I asked him if it was okay to share, he’s like, Oh, I remember that day, which was kind of cool.
So here’s what happened. I said, This isn’t who I want to be in our relationship. I want to pay close attention to the things that matter to you. I would really love to see those pictures. Right now I’m exhausted. Can we look at a few of them tonight. And then the rest tomorrow when I’m fresh. And I can focus and they can enjoy them with you. And they can ask questions and really hear anything you want to share about your adventures. So that was the the format that my do over request took and he said yes. And that was that it wasn’t a huge fight. We weren’t angry for days, we didn’t have to recover from the fight that we never had. Because it wasn’t one I called a do over and we just did it over. And we both felt better, which was awesome. Okay, so that’s one example. Here’s the other example. More recently, this is sometime I think this year. I got inspired to ask my hubby three things he loves about me, as one does from time to time, ask such questions it might have been after I read the book. Like I had so many questions like that, anyway. My hubby is someone who likes to be thoughtful and think things through and he gave me this very sort of rushed answer. That was fine. But it didn’t really reflect what he really thinks. So the next day, he came to me and he said, You know, I think I have a better answer for those three things. And I would like to share it with you. And of course, when he said that I was beaming with delight, and I said I would love to hear it. And it was a really beautiful moment. And it meant so much to me. Because I love words. And my husband’s words are my favorite words.
So that’s another example of a do over where he just felt like he didn’t get it right the first time. He didn’t do his best the first time and he just wanted to do it over. And I of course the recipient of the do over request. I was delighted. It was awesome. Now that was possible because we have over 10 years of do over practice. As I record this, we’ve been married for 13 years. So we’ve been experimenting with a lot of things for a very long time. Okay, it has become part of our marriage culture. So remember that if you are new to the idea of do overs or the concept of do overs, when you start, just start and let it be messy and imperfect, and let that be okay. I think it’s super important that we need to let ourselves be learners, you may have an advanced degree in your profession, or be super experienced and so many things in your life. I can totally relate to that. That feeling or sometimes we just think oh, you know, I should know better. I should have done better by now. We kind of let ourselves judge ourselves a little too harshly, like in do overs, imagine that you’re in kindergarten, and you’re just learning. And if you’ve had a child in front of you that was in kindergarten right now, and they were learning something new, and they messed up, you know, you would not necessarily berate them, hopefully you, with compassion and love, you know, show them a better way to approach the thing and help them and comfort them and guide them. So that’s what we want to do with ourselves. So I really invite you to let yourself be a beginner. I find that is one of the hardest mindsets to shift, but once you do so much of life becomes available to you.
Now, here are a couple of ways to ask for a do overs, very simple sentences, anything in the family of any of these is good. Whatever’s in your heart is also good, including things like I don’t know how to ask this, but here’s what I want, right? Just be authentic with wherever you are. And your partner, hopefully will be able to receive that if they’re not able to receive it, you will know your conscience is clear you did your best. Either way. It’s good. Okay, so here’s one. Hey, that was not my intention. I would like to try that again. Okay, here’s another one. You know, I would like to do that over because I think I could do better. Let’s rewind and start fresh. And then you rewind and start fresh. Okay, there you have it. The next time you aren’t being your five star loving self. I invite you to call a do over and see what happens.