Ever feel like you're stuck in a relationship rut, hustling through tasks without any joy or clarity? Trust me, you're not alone! In today's episode, I had an amazing chat with Candy Motzek a coach’s coach about how to shake off that drudgery and take inspired action in your life and relationships. Candy and I dive into the four types of action that affect our lives: passive, inaction, forced, and inspired. While passive action might leave you feeling busy but stuck, and forced action feels like you’re hustling without joy, inspired action is where the magic happens! We explore how these ideas can help spark curiosity and joy in relationships, focusing on the small, meaningful actions that make a big difference.

We also talked about the power of journaling, Candy's go-to tool for slowing down and shifting your emotions to a positive state. I share my technique for having couples jot down their thoughts and read them aloud to help clear up those tricky miscommunications. By the end of our chat, we agreed that taking inspired action, even in the smallest moments like grocery shopping, can lead to lasting, joyful change. Plus, Candy has some amazing prompts to keep you motivated think, "Wouldn’t it be amazing if..."Trust me, you're going to want to start planting those seeds of inspired action right after this episode!

About Candy Motzek:

Renowned business coach for aspiring coaches. She specializes in empowering intelligent professionals to launch and grow successful coaching businesses. With a unique blend of practical strategy and mindset mastery, Candy helps her clients achieve greater clarity. Her calming & personalized approach enables coaches to play bigger, sign more clients, & create meaningful & profitable success. As a 'recovering' corporate executive & engineer, she combines her extensive business acumen with a deep understanding of personal development to guide her clients towards their fullest potential.

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About the Host:

Meet Crystal, your relationship and social health coach. Crystal is the founder of Sparked Forever Relationship & Singles coaching. She started her journey supporting the neurodiverse community in navigating this, sometimes frustrating, neurotypical social world. Lessons and inspiration from her earlier work drives Crystal’s passion for bringing couples and singles together through acceptance, understanding and big picture thinking to grow vibrant relationships. Crystal understands that the foundation for our social health and well-being starts with making connections to others. When Crystal is not working with couples, she loves to be out on adventures with her partner and bonus kids or spending time connecting with friends over good food and fun music.

Links:

https://sparkedforever.com/

https://www.instagram.com/sparkedforever/

https://www.instagram.com/sparkitsocial/

https://www.tiktok.com/@sparked_forever

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Welcome to our love space. Today I am so excited to give this episode a little bit of an introduction. Today's episode Candy Motzek joined me, and it was just such a lovely chat. We talk about the four types of action that you can take in life and in your relationships. And the amazing part about what happens when we take inspired action in life and our relationships, when we ask ourselves, wouldn't it be wonderful if and that allows us to create a seed of inspired action, to create our emotions of possibility and curiosity when you're working on your relationship from a place of curiosity and visualizing the relationship you can absolutely have, rather than from a place of forced action and drudgery and oh no, someone's did something wrong. When we come from that place of inspired action, that place of curiosity and possibility that's going to give us the momentum to keep coming back to our relationship, because it's going to be the base of love and excitement and energy in Our life. Enjoy this episode and enjoy being sparked you.

Welcome to our love space today, and today, I'm so lucky to have Candy Motzek on with me. She is an amazing business coach who coaches coaches. And if you're listening and you happen to be a coach or an inspiring coach, I really encourage you to have a listen to her podcast. She coaches coaches, and get a little inspiration and a little guidance on how to move forward in that journey. So welcome Candy.

Thanks Crystal. And just as you're doing that intro, that introduction, I'm thinking to myself, My gosh, I've got to change the name of my show. I think you had to say the word coach or coaches like 25 times in that first two seconds, right?

Awesome, yeah. But I love, I love that she coaches coaches, because it's like, so true, and I feel everyone you know can benefit from different kinds of coaches in their life at different times, right? Yeah, very much. Yeah. I think you've touched on that on your podcast previously too. That like you kind of envision a future where we all have coaches just like we do for working out and things like that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So listening to candy, I was so she coaches coaches, and you're like, Huh? What's that probably doing on, on love quirks today's episode, but she had a fantastic podcast where she talked about the four kinds of action, and I know we've talked about on here before, different kinds of action we can take, and that we're really about the forward movement in our relationships here to get our connection going. So again, you know, I don't do counseling here. We're not about doing that archeology and digging up things from the past. You know, a lot of my listeners sometimes need that, and me as well, but we're here to really think of how to move forward through the things we want to implement and do, like the strategies we want to use, the little details we want to use to fill in our relationships. And I was just so inspired by your episode on the four kinds of action that there were, and when you talked about one of them, I was just like, Oh my gosh. Well, this makes so much sense why it's so hard for sometimes to for people to implement these new strategies, right? Or these new things that they might learn they want to do?

Yeah, definitely. And just when I think about these four types of action. The piece that really stands out to me is the idea that it's how, how do you act effectively? Right? Like it's so easy for us to go, oh gosh, I don't know what to do. I don't know what the right thing is to do. And then we get so jammed up. And if we have a bit of framework about how to go about it. It can be really helpful,

right? So what would that framework look like from the action point of view?

Yeah, so maybe I'll just touch briefly on these four types of action. And I mean, they're they're nothing that's foreign, nothing that you've never thought of before. But the way that I call them is, I have something that I call passive action, and another word for that is just being busy, you know, like when we're spinning around like a top and we're pretending we're doing stuff, but we're not really, actually moving the needle forward. Then we've got inaction, often looks like procrastination or just sitting there frozen, and then we've got forced action. And that's my personal favorite. It's the nose to the grindstone. Work so hard and just keep push, push, pushing. And then there's the kind of action that I think is the most helpful for so many of us, and that's inspired action. And just we were talking about that just a little bit. Before you hit record. And the idea that taking inspired action is from a place of flow and alignment and a really a feeling of possibility, as opposed to trying to force something right.

So where do you find that people typically find that inspired action?

So I love the idea that we can use how we feel to prompt how we act. And if you can come to a place of an emotion that feels more like possibility, more open, more interested, curious, oftentimes, there will be something that occurs to you, something that sounds easy and fun and inspiring, like I could just do this one cool thing, and that one thing is the inspired action. It's not about a lot, it's about the right thing,

right? And so from that one little thing, then people can get more growth or more maybe possibilities out of it. Do you find that happens in your experience very

much, and it changes the sort of the tenor of everything that they're doing in that moment? And I guess that's the place where it comes in a relationship, instead of trying to force yourself to improve your relationship. You know, you might think, gosh, wouldn't it be wonderful if, you know, if we had just a wonderful afternoon together, and to feel the possibility for that and then do the thing that sparks in your imagination,

right? Yeah. So we talk a lot here about big picture idea. So I think this piece of, sort of inspired action would be a big picture idea, right? And then how you're going to fill it in, what your detail is, is, that's what I like my listeners to fill in. So we talk a lot about, you know, kind of looking at relationships being in four big chunks, right? So communication is a big, kind of a big picture chunk, and then how you're going to fill in your communication style, that's the details that are up to you as a person. And I think that kind of aligns with this idea of inspired action, like, that's really what we're doing, is, what are those details? What does that inspired action that's going to move you to try something different in communication, or different with an affection. And we also talk about kindfulness, which is like a word I made up, but, and how are you going to be? How are you going to be more kindful to each other in so that's like kind of being present and being kind at the same time, right? And being in the moment, right? So it's all those little details that we can fill in with that inspired action piece, that possibility, what are some way? So again, you coach coaches, but they're just people too. Just just like, just like people working on their relationships. Are people too, right? So how do you find that? You get them to hone in on what they want that detail to be, on what they want that inspired bit of action to be,

yeah. So I think you said the word present, you know, to become present. And one of the ways that I like to suggest people approach it is by journaling, you know, the minute that we sit down with the journal and with the pen, we slow down, you know, and we allow ourselves to kind of settle into that present moment and to really see where am I, how am I approaching this? So I might do some journaling on how am I actually feeling right now? And then I might decide, you know, how would I like to feel about this? And in that journaling, you'll find that your emotion shifts. That's the place that you're going to find the inspired action. Okay?

What do you think it is? Because I often will tell people on here that they need to write things down right. Like, I will get couples to brainstorm. Like, what are you gonna do for your date nights, which I like to call mega moments of love. What are you you know, break do a brainstorm. And I actually want people to write it out, right? Or like to write out their expectations for each other, their expectations for the relationship, and really put it in that black and white context. What do you think it is about putting it in that, you know, that written form?

Yeah, so that's a huge question, right? Yeah, right. And I know that there is a lot of science about it. I am not the scientist on this topic, but what I know from personal experience is in the slowing down and the getting it out of your head and onto paper, you sort of instead of having the same perspective that you're always used to having, where you're thinking about it, and then you think about your thinking when you can actually read it on paper, it looks different, and it gives you clarity in just being able to see it. So you've got that piece, and then the actual piece of slowing down. Instead of trying to zoom through a challenge, you know, like, I have to get this really fast, and I'm trying to do five things at once the minute that you're there. With that pen and the paper, it reduces a lot of those inputs, and I think that that is really helpful as well.

I yeah, I find, have you ever had anyone read out, like, I guess two you're on, like, more of a one on one, but I love to have couples read out the written things to each other. Oh, I love that, yeah, right, because you get that self like, kind of self reflection, or it sounds different when it comes out of someone else's mouth,

right? Yeah, yeah. I've

done that with that a lot, with people and their perspective, taking on expectations about what they expect in a relationship, and then they have to read out each other's expectations, and it's, it's really interesting. I think it does a big shift in like, wow, when someone else says it, and it's in someone else's voice, I'm not sure that I actually love that expectation, or that's actually what I meant with that expectation, or that thought or that idea. Do

you find that people get kind of a little bit hung up in, how do I get really exact with what my expectation is like? Is my languaging exactly what I mean like? Do you know how easy it is to use a word and then I have one definition of the word and you have a slightly different definition and that in that translation. Do you find that that happens? Yes,

I find a lot gets lost in that translation, especially. And so I think when you're just writing it out and reading it, because you know what the definition is, it it seems clearer, which is good. It's good for you to have that personal clarity on it. But I think when it comes out of someone else's voice, then I think some of those words can seem because they're just read different or with a different tone, right? Or you're Yeah, just that difference in hearing it rather than expressing it. I think people realize that maybe that's not exactly what they meant. Or like that sounds harsher than I thought, or that sounds more wishy washy, or that sounds really vague, right? Not that you have to be super, you know, some people are more vague and some people more wishy washy, and that's okay, because those are the details we're filling in our relationship with but I think it definitely yeah, it gives a different perspective on it, and it helps us clear up those kind of little miscommunications, those like blips that we might have for those kind of things. Yeah, for sure. Yeah,

that's so cool. Yeah, when you're doing that exercise, the I think there's a connection here. So to come to this place of inspired action, the place that you're trying to get to is this a particular emotion? So if you are coming to this emotion of possibility like that would be really amazing if that kind of thing, if I could create that, you know, create that connection piece, if both people in the relationship can come to that conversation with a similar emotion. I wonder what would happen in the communication,

right, right? Like, if they're both coming to the communication with like, Oh, this is drudgery, or like, Oh, this is going to be exciting and fun,

yeah, yeah, yeah. Or I'm really curious to see what happens. I'm really curious to see what my partner writes, right?

Yeah, and I think that's something that I often am prompting people on, is to have that curiosity, right? I think a lot of times too, when we're dealing with relationships, and they can be maybe they have been adversarial, or it's easy for them to put them in that light of, there's this person versus this person, right? And I think being able to come and being like, I'm not coming to get in trouble, or to have someone side with my partner, that I'm in the wrong, or all of these kind of things, that I'm actually here to be curious and find out how we make this relationship that's going to be so fulfilling and like, you know, I guess energizing to us, right, right? Yeah. And I think that's something I often have to, like, coach people on is just like showing up with maybe that curiosity, that emotion, to be open and ready and not to be on the defensive,

yeah. And that works for all relationships, really,

yes, right? Yeah, well, and that's, that's one of the things on love quirks, is I often my big thing is like social social health in general, right? And so our romantic relationships are just one part that social health. And all of our relationships are actually like the same. They're the other the same structure. They all need communication, they all need affection, they all need kindfulness, and they all need energy. And that's just different amounts, depending where they are, I guess, like on your you know, circles of closeness in relationships, right? So, you know, like, even just being polite to the like the cashier at the store, you're still using all those four things,

right? Yeah, yes, yes, for sure. Okay,

yeah, yes, yeah. So we often stretch out to that. Now I'll just rewind us back to kind of when you were talking about the first kind of action, which you said that's kind of like when we all get busy, and that's probably so inspired actions. What I would love that's, you know, the kind of action that I'm encouraging my clients and my peeps to get to, right? That's where we want to get to. But that busy part, and can you label that action again? Yeah, I call that passive action. Passive action, yes. Okay, so that's when we're all kind of just busy,

yeah, and it feels really virtuous. It's the idea of thinking about doing the thing or planning about doing the thing, but not actually ever moving forward, you know, maybe thinking about having that conversation, or thinking about going on that cool date, but never actually doing it, just planning it all the time, right,

right? So that's kind of like, I know the right answer. I know what I should do in my relationship, right? I know to go on that date night. I know to do this thing, but I'm not actually doing any of it,

that's right. And maybe I need to tweak it just a little bit, you know, like, maybe, maybe I need to figure that date out a little bit better,

right, right, okay. Like, so kind of also maybe a bit waiting for that perfect moment. Would that go in there as well, or the right time?

No, it's more that you're stuck in the planning and you think, and you think you're making progress, right, but you're thinking about it, not actually moving forward.

Yes, yes. I think that's what people, a lot of people, can find with more the counseling model, which, again, is great if we have traumas to heal and things to go through, but I think we can get stuck in thinking that that's also the way to move forward, right? So I'm doing kind of this planning, like, I know I'm processing, I'm doing this thing, but I but then I come home and we actually haven't done anything different,

exactly, exactly, yes, yes.

And then we have the drudgery action,

right? The drudgery, okay, so that's forced action, and that's just like hustle. That is just hustling,

okay? And so those are the kind of things that make you feel drained, very

much, yeah. And sometimes you don't even know that you're feeling drained because you're just being so busy. You're actually doing so much you're you've totally lost touch with yourself, right,

right? So I have like, a little quiz that kind of sees what, you know, people are sort of looking for out of my kick, Ma, of the communication, affection and kindfulness and energy, and actually, can do you turned me on to the quizzes. Yes. So thank you. Super fun. I've had lots of great feedback on it, but one of that those pieces is energy, and when I preliminarily sent it out to some friends, that was the book, the biggest response at all of the people, all of my acquaintances and everything, everyone you know kind of on my client list already that I sent it out to, that was all their big responses, that energy piece right, having that time to go on those date nights, or having, I guess, yeah, that just that time, just feeling that there is time to do extra things, or To add things in to your relationship or to your day to day. And you probably have a lot of people in coaching, coaches or people who are trying to start coaching. Do you feel that that's like a big theme as well? It is,

it? Is they? They people are sort of of two ways. They're either spending a lot of time thinking about doing the thing, or they're hustling so hard that they're actually working against themselves because they've squished the joy out of it. And so nobody wants to be part of that kind of a relationship, right? Nobody wants to be talking to a partner or a coach or anybody who's just like, got their they've got everything so tight and so rushed, yes. Oh, I

love that. I love that squishing the joy out of it. That is fantastic. That is great, because I feel like we can do that, especially as, like a couple. It's like we have all these, like, couple, I guess, like, what's the word I'm for? Not engagements, like these couple. Oh, commitments, that's the word I'm looking for, right? Like these things that we have to do during our week, like we week, like we have to go this dinner party, and we have to go do this thing and this thing and that thing, and all these expectations, but none of those are actually like bringing us joy as a couple, right? Exactly. Yes, yeah, that, and that's so hard. I think it's really hard for people to break that pattern and to get out of it, and to get back to a place where they're kind of cutting out some of those energy drainers, right? And getting back to the energy gainers, I think,

very much. And but then we've got this, we need to be responsible, right? And so so many of those things. Because that our energy drainers are part of the responsibility of being an adult, right? You know? So who doesn't need to go grocery shopping or clean the toilet or all of these things, and so often we put those things first and then you don't have the energy to go and enjoy your time together.

Yes, yes. I actually, I love to coach people on doing those things together, and like a kindful joyful way, like clean your toilet together, go for do grocery shopping together. I just, I think that especially when we do have so much responsibility and so many work commitments and everything going on, that we can find joy in those, those small things, right? Like, if we go shopping, if we go grocery shopping with our best friend, it's probably not like a eye roll, boring, right? Yeah, exactly, yeah. It's so interesting how people don't bring that fun into, I guess, like more aspects

agreed my son and his wife, this was a couple of months ago. They were like, We're going on a date. We're going to IKEA. And that was what their was. They were going to go and have fun, and they were going to look at some stuff, and it all, it all fitted to it, right? Yeah, perfect example. And we kind of chuckled, because we'd just been on a date to TNT supermarket.

I love it. I love it. Yeah, so fun. And I think, yeah, those everyday things. So do you think people can find inspired action in those tiny moments? Yes. Do you think that's enough of a shift? Yes,

definitely. Because if it's if you change one little seed, it changes everything right? And it feels so much better. So it kind of draws you in. If you can do one little piece and you can find that inspired feeling, then it's going to be attractive to find it again. Like, who wants to feel crap, right? We want to feel good. So it's just that learning that we

can right, so that planting the seed, that's actually fantastic, because I think people get so maybe bogged down, and this is probably also with your clients, too, and trying to start like a new business or a new life path, we could get so bogged down with we need to have all the answers, or we need to solve all of the things, right? And I think with that seed, you know, you can be in a place where maybe your communication is like, still a little rough. Maybe we aren't always taking things as kindfully, but if we can, you know, have a bit more affection, right? Like, go on a walk with a handhold, do as something that sparks a bit, that joy, that inspiration, like you're saying, that seed, then we'll want to go back for more

agreed, and we can, and it can be something as simple as being just grateful, you know, thinking of the thing about that person, just one thing about that person that you really appreciate And, you know? And the other thing, somebody else said this to me yesterday, to remember to assume positive intent, right? API, it can make such a difference in how we feel in that moment.

Yes, yes. And that's kind of where my kindfulness comes in, where it's like that idea, like, if someone's communicating, I'm going to try to receive that in my little kind basket, I can do, you know, like you were saying, I'm going to assume it has positive intention, right? And that is just a piece of communication. And then we can think about, you know, what that message is, or how we move forward, or how we're going to talk about it, or think about it, right? Rather than that person is saying this thing to me to be horrible,

yeah, definitely, yeah,

yes. Oh, I love that. I love that. So to help our inspired action, or to help get that inspired action, we can try our journaling, yep, and planting that little seed is really going to, you know, help us to want to come back for more inspired action, a little bit less hustle.

Yes, yeah. And you can choose a couple of thoughts that you prompt yourself with, and it doesn't have to be anything fancy. It can be just something as easy as, I don't know, I'm not feeling inspired at the moment, but we can just try this one thing, yeah, or wouldn't it be, wouldn't it be amazing if, or I am so grateful for and then just fill in the blank. But if you have a little prompt, it might help as well to come to that

place right? Wouldn't be amazing if? And then they could fill it in with something else wonderful. Yeah, perfect. So again, that black and white concrete, writing it down right, having some post it notes around, with that blank in there so that you can fill it out kind of during your day. I know I love to do that, but I don't know everyone's a post it note person. But, oh, I think

most of us are. Yeah. Yeah,

perfect. I love it. Thank you so much for coming on candy and sharing that bit about inspired action. I just again, I just want to reiterate to everyone who's listening about planting those seeds, right? Planting those seeds to be in your relationship, to want to come back for more, want to take more of those positive actions, right? And to kind of maybe think about how to get out of that passive action place, right? So that over planning place. And, oh, I slipped my mind again, the passive action. And then the second kind,

there's passive action, there is inaction, procrastination, yes, yeah, that's the one, yeah,

perfect, right? So we want to kind of pull ourselves out of those, right? We want to be listening into love quirks. We want to be thinking about our relationship, and we want to be thinking about how we're going to do just one tiny little thing, one tiny detail, one tiny little seed to spark that inspiration. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You've got it wonderful, perfect. Thank you so much for joining today, candy, it was great to talk to you. And again, candy, you can find her. She's wonderful. And again, because I'm a big picture thinker, all of these ideas, even though her ideas are maybe more about coaching, I'm sure they would fit in many places in your life, in your relationship, in your everyday and how to move forward in other parts of your life. She's very inspirational and great. So join her or find her on she coaches, coaches and yeah, thank you for joining today.

Thank you for having me

all the best Candy.