Abigail Denton

Welcome to the Refresh Podcast! This podcast is a place for us to discover freedom in Christ and to engage in our unique role in the Kingdom work God has called us to. Today we’re doing something a little different. I want to share an exercise that I used to help my mind pivot. I was really discouraged recently about not making my financial goals with my coaching business. I was trying to change my perspective and find wins that weren’t financial, because I was just so discouraged about that part. I wanted to focus on what God has done this past year, in 2023, areas that don’t have anything to do with making money. So today I’m sharing my top ten wins from 2023, and you’ll notice that none of them are financial.

I do want to mention a small caveat before we start though. I do have financial goals for 2024. I feel pretty strongly about them as well and I feel very confident and at peace to even have them. I have invested a lot of money in this career and calling and I know that my work is worth charging for. It feels tricky sometimes, and it’s something that I personally struggle with but I really feel so strongly that it’s ok for me to do that. It’s ok for me to charge for my work and for me to bring income into our family. It’s a way for me to use my calling and gifts for God’s glory, it’s a way for me to provide for my family, it’s a way for me to be financially generous and give to God’s kingdom work. So this episode is focusing on non-financial wins, but I just want to be clear that it’s not because I have a negative relationship with finances. It’s just where God is asking me to speak. 

With that being said, let’s get into it! These top ten are not in any particular order, they are just in the order that came to mind.

1. My number one win for 2023 is getting my daughter the help she needs. We have spent the last several years knowing that we needed help with our daughter’s mental health challenges but we weren’t brave enough to step out and ask for help. We didn’t feel safe or secure enough in our parenting or our job security or our community to admit that it was more than we could handle and we didn’t know how to ask for help. This summer though we really took a turn as a family and our home was just not functioning well. We decided to ask for help and have slowly been getting what we need. We have come into contact with so many professionals that can give us all kinds of help. Help for our daughter, coping skills and tools for all of us, new vocabulary and even wording so that we are asking for the right kind of help, resources for us as parents for the siblings and for her. This is a huge win for our family because we are speaking life and hope over challenges that don’t always feel hopeful. It has put us in a new category of family but we are doing so much better. This might actually be my top win for 2023 because I have just seen a shift in our family and in my own life that we aren’t hopeless. We aren’t stuck. We are carrying this heavy challenge well and we’re not doing it alone anymore.
2. My number two win for 2023 is having a coaching client that decided to become a coach herself. We worked together twice this summer and then she joined the coaching network that I’m a part of this fall. I was so thrilled when I got her email and I got to meet her in real life at the retreat and oh my gosh what a treat! I can see the real fruit as she steps into her new calling and it was just a huge win for my business. Here’s what she said in her email to me: “I don’t know that without our sessions that I would begin to question different ways I could live out my life that were actually stepping into God’s abundance” friends there is literally nothing better in life than seeing someone step in God’s abundance and knowing that God used me to get here there. Ok, this might be tied for my actual top win of 2023.
3. Number three on my top ten wins for 2023, is finding freedom in fashion. I have been really enjoying leaning into my personal style. This year I was able to break ties with a worldy and shame-filled definition of modest and appropriate and it changed a lot for me. I have stopped putting so much emotional baggage into what I’m wearing and have been able to just have fun. I get to be creative and live in freedom with my clothes and I can see a lot of mental changes for me. I have more confidence, I have more freedom, and I have a lot of peace about the whole thing. As a very girly girl this has just brought me so much joy to live in freedom and I’m just so grateful that I get to bring my girls along with me. What a privilege to raise two girls that can have confidence and abundance in their style and live without shame about their bodies.
4. I officially launched my coaching business! On January 1 I launched my coaching business into the world and buckled up for what God was going to do. It was scary to put something publicly out into the world but I decided I was going to be brave and I was going to say yes to everything that came along. It’s kind of crazy even just to look back at who I was a year ago and who I am now. Because this girl is a lot more confident and free. Not because I know what I’m doing now or because I have it figured out. But because I know I don’t have to. I know what God is asking me to do and I am confident and free to move forward in step with God.
5. I taught my first original bible study! I created a 5 session bible study through the book of Ephesians and taught it live. Speaking in front of people does not come easily for me and I’ve really worked hard this year to grow those skills, to steward that part of my calling. The first session I literally thought I was going to pass out or throw up or both, but I didn’t. The women were so gracious and it was such a treat. It got easier and easier and it was a win for my business too because I created a workbook and realized I loved that part too. It was pretty and had a lot of content and really by the end I enjoyed every part. The speaking, the connecting with women, saying the things on my heart, coaching women one on one after the sessions. It really was such a treat.
6. I spoke on an actual stage for the first time! I’ve given a few talks over the years and have taught a handful of workshops but I’ve never actually stood on a stage and given a talk. It was wild and scary! My husband and I gave a talk at a youth event and teens are intimidating, honestly it really sent me for a spin. But it ended up being so sweet and allowed me to again steward that part of my calling. It allowed our church to get to know Isaac and I more personally. It was a win for my kids to see their parents serving together and in the ways God has called us to. It was a win to be able to share parts of my testimony and publicly testify to how good God has been, even in the hard moments. And to top it off, my son who is in the youth group didn’t mind that his mom was there haha. That was also a big win am I right?!
7. I hosted my first workshop! It was on boundaries and it was so fun and again, scary. Are you sensing a theme about doing scary things? I spent hours preparing and then started reaching out and spreading the word. I texted friends and asked them to come and posted about it online. I saw so much fruit in my own life, I love talking about boundaries now, especially as a ministry wife. At first it felt weird that my friends were my clients and attended the workshop but honestly it was so beautiful to have my first paying clients be my friends! They were so sweet and gracious and I was actually so encouraged that my friends see value in paying for my work so I can too. Little plug, pay your friends! Show your support and buy their stuff and hire them to do work and share about them. Let’s be women who lift other up right?
8. I ran with the girls in their first 5k. We trained and then did it together and it was hard and so sweet. One of my daughters had a lot of anxiety about all the people and so many unknown factors and she just didn’t want to do it on the day of. It was scary for her and it was hard for us. The weather was awful with rain and cool weather. This particular race is really special for me because it’s a race celebrating women and it happens to be on a painful anniversary for me personally. This year I was so blessed to redeem that date and create a new memory. We also got to celebrate womanhood in our home! We got to do that race as girls in our family and celebrate each other. We had training standards and we spoke life. Our rules were: 1. We’re doing this together, so nobody is going to get left behind. 2. We are celebrating our bodies and taking care of them, we aren’t working to change them. 3. We speak life and hope, we can replace negative thoughts with truth and light. 4. We are having fun! We are doing this for fun and when it’s not fun, we can ask for help and work together. It really was such a treat.
9. We had a goal for the month of August to have fun and love life. It was a full and wild month and we packed a lot in. But we really worked so hard at being intentional with our family time and it was amazing and so fun! First family concert, we saw Pentatonix. 
10. Number ten on my top 10 is my monthly membership for ministry wives called Refresh. It is a membership program guiding ministry wives to discover freedom and identity in Christ and to engage in their role in the kingdom. Each month we highlight a specific topic and everything in the membership will be centered around that topic. It is such a privilege to coach ministry wives and as I prepare I coach myself. This project is just so much fun and I’m praying for big things in 2024. This month, December was my first month and it was exciting to launch something in the world and see it be a real thing. It’s like an actual thing that people pay money to access and I get to do all my favorite things in one project. I get to create workbooks and pretty PDF’s and I get to talk about tricky things in ministry for wives. It’s just so good.

As always, I want to end with some coaching. I have two coaching prompts that I’d like to challenge you with as we end this episode.

The first is, how can we fight discouragement in one area by paying attention to the wins in other areas? What I mean by this is how can I acknowledge my discouragement in one area and fight against it, defeating me by seeing wins in other areas. For me, I’m fighting my discouragement about a lack of financial wins this year by seeing all the other wins I have. When I took the time to look back and see all the different areas that I have done so well in, it really puts that discouragement in a different light. It’s ok for me to want to have financial goals come to fruition in 2024 but I’m not going to count 2023 as a loss just because I don’t have any financial goal wins. Let me say this prompt again now that I’ve explained it a little: How can I fight discouragement in one area by paying attention to wins in other areas?

The second is, what would your top 10 wins for 2023 look like? I’d like to challenge you to make your own list! Spend some time going back over your journal, or your social media page, or review with a friend. Let’s fight discouragement with gratitude and let’s spend time paying attention to all the beautiful and meaningful and small and big and intentional things that God has done for us this year. To help you out, I created a PDF! You can download the PDF in the show notes and it’s a couple pages of reflection to help you get started. I’m going to give you areas to walk back through and see what God has done. You can download the PDF and if you do, I’d love to hear your top ten! Would you share it with me? You can email me or DM me or share on social media and tag me. I would be so blessed to see what God has done in your life and I want to hear your wins! Let’s celebrate together.

I hope this episode has been encouraging to you. I hope you have enjoyed listening to my little family wins and personal wins and I hope you feel inspired to see the wins in your own life. In some ways this year has looked so much different than I thought. I didn’t hit any of the financial goals I wanted to. My daughter was given an official diagnosis and it’s not something she’ll likely grow out of, it’ll be something we steward together for the rest of her life. I struggled with discouragement privately a lot of the year about my calling and my coaching business and my family and marriage. I hope you don’t think my life is all sunshine and cupcakes, because nobody’s life is. But I so desperately hope that you can look back and see light even in the deepest darkest moments of your year. There is hope and there is life and there is Jesus, let’s pay attention and let’s cling onto the hope together.