Ep. 289 How to Stop People from Stealing Your Joy

[00:00:13] Welcome to Hustle in Faith. This podcast is dedicated to helping women who want to analyze, apply, and amplify their God-given gifts.

[00:00:21] We accomplish this by discussing topics such as business, self-improvement, health and beauty, and my random thoughts about life from a Christian perspective.

[00:00:30] I'm your host, LaTosha Johnson.

[00:00:32] Have you ever felt like people are constantly stealing your joy?

[00:00:37] It's time to take back control.

[00:00:39] Let's talk about how to guard your peace, strengthen your mindset, and live with unshakable joy no matter what comes your way.

[00:00:49] So I don't know about you, but the past couple of years have been slightly challenging.

[00:00:54] And so at the beginning of every year, I choose a word that represents my overarching goals.

[00:01:03] And so my word for 2025 is joy.

[00:01:07] Joy.

[00:01:09] And I realize that me just saying the word joy is not going to automatically make joy just appear in my life.

[00:01:20] Because I know that life is full of fights.

[00:01:23] And if I want joy, I have got to be willing to put the work behind what I desire, which is joy.

[00:01:32] Okay.

[00:01:33] So some of the ways that I plan on doing that are I've identified five different attitudes and the activities that I need to do with those attitudes in order to make joy manifest in my life.

[00:01:51] So here we go.

[00:01:52] Here are five different attitudes and activities to help protect your joy in 2025.

[00:01:59] I want to make sure that I am cultivating a grateful heart.

[00:02:03] And so let's be honest.

[00:02:07] Life can be lifing, right?

[00:02:09] And so I've noticed, you know, when I encounter challenging situations, my first inkling is not necessarily to, you know, pray.

[00:02:22] And to have an attitude of gratefulness.

[00:02:30] I'm human.

[00:02:31] But my goal this year is to make sure that I focus on the blessings that I have in my life instead of dwelling on the frustrations.

[00:02:40] Because at the end of the day, it can always be worse.

[00:02:45] It can.

[00:02:46] It can always be worse.

[00:02:48] You know, we have so many, so many of us walk around with this first world mentality, right?

[00:02:55] There are so many things that could be much worse than what we're complaining about.

[00:03:00] And so my goal is to focus on making sure that I am cultivating a grateful heart by focusing on all the blessings that God's given me.

[00:03:09] And one of the activities that I want to actually do a better job in being consistent on is making sure that I have,

[00:03:19] that I continue to start my daily gratitude journal.

[00:03:24] Okay.

[00:03:25] So I actually have three journals in that maybe overkill for some people, but I just want to focus in particular on the daily gratitude journal.

[00:03:35] And I've been journaling ever since I was a kid.

[00:03:38] And to be quite honest, the past couple of years, I've kind of fallen off the wagon a little bit.

[00:03:44] You know, I've missed a lot.

[00:03:47] I've missed more days than what I normally would miss, if you will.

[00:03:50] And I definitely don't want that to be the case anymore.

[00:03:53] So I want to make sure that I do a better job in making sure that I'm writing down at least three things that went well with me that day in my daily gratitude journal.

[00:04:06] And I'm going to be honest, because I've been doing this for a while, but I want to be more consistent.

[00:04:12] And some days are tougher than others.

[00:04:14] Some days I have literally wrote, I woke up.

[00:04:17] Okay.

[00:04:18] Life can be lifing.

[00:04:20] All right.

[00:04:20] And when it does, some days are a little bit more difficult than others to really dig up that, you know, what went right with me today.

[00:04:29] Okay.

[00:04:30] So even if you find yourself in that situation, you better put down that you woke up.

[00:04:36] You better put down, you know, if you've got your health or, you know, just there is something that you can write down.

[00:04:44] There is never a day where there's something you, I just can't write down anything.

[00:04:49] Not true.

[00:04:50] Not going to happen.

[00:04:51] All right.

[00:04:52] Number two, and this is a big one.

[00:04:56] Set healthy boundaries.

[00:04:58] I repeat, set healthy boundaries.

[00:05:02] I have got to have the attitude this year because of all the different goals that I want to accomplish this year.

[00:05:09] I got to have the attitude and be quicker at recognizing that not every situation or person deserves my energy or attention.

[00:05:21] I am the type of person that if I see someone going down the wrong path, I will do everything in my power to warn that person.

[00:05:29] I don't want folks graduating from the school of hard knocks unnecessarily.

[00:05:33] Okay.

[00:05:34] Been there, done that.

[00:05:35] And so I want to try to save other people the headache in doing that.

[00:05:40] However, with some folks, I don't know what to say.

[00:05:45] You know, they run in, you know, wisdom is just faster, right?

[00:05:51] They're just running and wisdom outruns them every time.

[00:05:55] And I have gotten to the point.

[00:05:58] I realize that I cannot help everyone.

[00:06:02] So I need to focus on the folks that want to help themselves.

[00:06:05] So this year, I'm all about, here's the information.

[00:06:11] You know, if that person asks me for help, here's the information.

[00:06:15] If I see that that person is going down the wrong road and I think they may be receptive to my advice, I'm going to share it and let it go.

[00:06:24] Okay.

[00:06:25] Share it and let it go.

[00:06:27] Because I cannot be in a situation where I want to help someone more than they want to help themselves.

[00:06:34] That is draining.

[00:06:35] It is not.

[00:06:39] It's not an efficient use of my time, especially when there are so many other folks out there who could benefit from a lot of the projects that I'm getting ready to release in the upcoming year.

[00:06:54] However, I know those folks that want to help themselves are going to benefit from this.

[00:07:00] And so in order to make sure that I get those projects done, I got to let the other folks go.

[00:07:05] All right.

[00:07:06] So the way that I, so the activity that I plan on doing in order to ensure that this happens is saying the word no.

[00:07:14] Now I've gotten pretty good at saying the word no, but you are going to hear that word from me a lot more this year because I've got to say no when people are trying to take over unnecessarily my time when they're not willing to help themselves.

[00:07:33] I've got to say no, that if I'm in a toxic environment or conversations that drain my peace, I cannot engage.

[00:07:41] I will not engage in those types of activities anymore.

[00:07:46] I can't do it mainly because I know all the things that God has in my heart to accomplish and I got to have energy for that, which leads me to number three, practicing spiritual alignment.

[00:07:59] So I've got to have the attitude where I need to stay rooted in my faith.

[00:08:04] And I know that joy comes from God and not my circumstances.

[00:08:09] And so the way that I plan on acting this out, the activity that I make sure that I'm going to do is making sure that I dedicate time each day to Bible study, prayer and meditation to strengthen my connection with God.

[00:08:26] And so I've noticed, you know, I am not perfect.

[00:08:32] I'm human.

[00:08:33] But I have noticed in those instances where I did not do, you know, Bible study in the morning, which is what I typically try to do or set aside time for prayer.

[00:08:45] That sets the tone for the day.

[00:08:47] I have noticed each and every time where I failed to do that, that the day didn't go the way I had hoped it would have gone.

[00:08:56] And I really do believe that's because I didn't set the tone, right?

[00:09:01] I did not set the tone.

[00:09:03] I didn't include God in my conversation.

[00:09:05] I wasn't aligned.

[00:09:06] And so the day was pretty much left to chance.

[00:09:09] And I don't want to do that.

[00:09:11] I've got too much that I want to accomplish.

[00:09:13] And I want to make sure that I stay on track with my desire to have joy.

[00:09:19] And so that leads me to number four, pursue purpose with passion.

[00:09:24] You know, so many times God has given us so many gifts, right?

[00:09:29] But we still insist on living our lives with the should have, would have, could have mentality.

[00:09:37] And I don't want to look back on my life and realize that God gave me all these gifts and I didn't do a single thing with any of them.

[00:09:44] I'm going to be honest.

[00:09:45] One of those gifts has been writing.

[00:09:48] That is a gift that I had taken advantage of for a very long time because writing comes naturally to me.

[00:09:54] I've been journaling since I was a child.

[00:09:56] I've done a lot of content marketing for my clients.

[00:10:00] It's just ingrained in me.

[00:10:03] But I never thought that I could be an author.

[00:10:06] I thought that I had to, I just had this whole idea of what it took to write a book.

[00:10:14] And last year, I finally made it happen.

[00:10:17] I did.

[00:10:19] I'm a first time author.

[00:10:20] I released my first book, How to Live an Extraordinary Life with or Without Mr. Right.

[00:10:26] And that book has been inside my head for years.

[00:10:29] Years it's been inside my head because I kept talking myself out of it.

[00:10:33] I don't know if I could do that.

[00:10:35] You know, I'm not a writer.

[00:10:37] That's what would go in my head.

[00:10:39] But yet and still, God had put on my heart, you are a writer.

[00:10:43] I gave you that gift.

[00:10:44] You know, same thing with speaking.

[00:10:47] You know, I, a lot of you already know, I do voiceover work.

[00:10:51] I host a podcast.

[00:10:52] You know, I am focusing on all of the activities that I know are my God-given gifts because he

[00:11:01] has put so many different personal projects on my heart that I know once they come to fruition,

[00:11:07] it's going to help out a lot of people.

[00:11:09] And so I'm not listening to Satan anymore.

[00:11:11] Okay.

[00:11:12] And I hope you don't as well.

[00:11:13] I want you to focus on your God-given gifts and the goals that align with your calling.

[00:11:19] And the only way that you can go about doing that is making sure that you dedicate time in

[00:11:24] your schedule to work on those, those gifts that he's given you.

[00:11:29] Because if you don't use it, you will lose it.

[00:11:32] Okay.

[00:11:33] Which brings us to our last point.

[00:11:36] Embrace self-care.

[00:11:37] You have got to understand that taking care of yourself is essential for maintaining joy.

[00:11:43] Okay.

[00:11:44] You cannot pour from an empty cup.

[00:11:46] And if you continue to work yourself to death, you are going to burn out and you're not going

[00:11:53] to be good for anyone.

[00:11:54] And so there's several activities that I enjoy doing that bring me joy.

[00:12:03] And again, the way that I get that joy is by embracing self-care.

[00:12:07] So some of the activities that I thoroughly enjoy doing is exercising.

[00:12:11] I've said that so many times, but I will always say that.

[00:12:15] Okay.

[00:12:16] Because I enjoy exercising.

[00:12:17] It clears my head.

[00:12:18] It enables me to get a lot of the ideas for the podcast.

[00:12:22] I just, a lot of my ideas come from exercising because it calms me down.

[00:12:27] Another thing that I thoroughly enjoy is journaling.

[00:12:31] I love to journal.

[00:12:32] I love to write.

[00:12:33] Right?

[00:12:34] So it's kind of funny that I finally took the initiative last year to write my first book.

[00:12:40] I enjoy journaling.

[00:12:42] I've always enjoyed that.

[00:12:43] So that's an activity that I want to continue to do more of.

[00:12:49] Tea time with my mom.

[00:12:50] That's a big one.

[00:12:51] We have so many great conversations and I love that so much.

[00:12:56] And just focusing on people and activities that recharge my mind and my spirit.

[00:13:05] And so I truly hope that you realize that joy is a daily choice.

[00:13:10] And by nurturing these attitudes and activities, you're going to create a protective shield around

[00:13:18] your peace.

[00:13:24] Thanks so much for listening to this episode.

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[00:13:37] Remember, if you're everything to everyone, you risked being no one.

[00:13:41] You never know who you will inspire.

[00:13:43] See you in the next episode.