I’ll start this out with the disclaimer that I’m usually not really big on New Years resolutions. I generally take the approach of just trying to do your best or whatever you feel is right throughout the year. I do, however, fully support taking time for reflection. It’s actually a big part of the type of coaching that I do with leaders at work – teaching them to take the time to stop and reflect so that they can learn and adjust. The end of one year and beginning of the next certainly seems like as good a time as any to take some time to reflect, learn and adjust…whether that’s in your professional or personal life. So in the spirit of practicing what I preach, I’ve done some reflecting on this year as it comes to a close, especially since this year included adding a major new role to my life – mother!
Overall, I feel really good about how I’ve added the most important, but also most demanding, role of mama to what was already a pretty busy life. Saying that being a mama is no easy task is probably the understatement of the century. All the mamas out there certainly know this. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had an incredibly unexpected sense of patience with my baby. This isn’t something I thought about or specifically tried to achieve, but I guess just one of the things that came along with motherhood for me. Anyone that knows me could tell you how shocking this is, since I basically possessed no patience (ever) previously.
Being a full-time working mama brings even more challenges. This is an area I would have guessed I would handle decently well. I’ve always seen juggling a lot of things one of my strengths, starting in high school when I was on several sports teams, involved in every activity, worked part time, and was always a straight A student. I had basically trained for this my whole life! The difference is, the way I’ve always been able to manage lots of things is by multi-tasking, which I’m starting to realize means never really fully attending to anything.
Now that I’ve been applying this approach to being a working mama for a few months, I’m finding that it somewhat works (i.e., meeting obligations/expectations with nothing major slipping through the cracks), but I’m feeling less than fulfilled in each aspect of my life because my mind is always somewhere else or thinking about the million things I need to get done. It feels like I’m never present in what is going on in the moment.
That’s not enjoyable, and it’s not sustainable.
So my focus for 2018 is presence over perfection.
It will be tough for me, as a type A perfectionist, to accept that not everything has to be perfect all the time. I don’t always have to say yes. Everything doesn’t always have to look perfect or be done just right. Not at the price of overextending and exhausting myself to the point that I’m missing the truly important stuff. I’d rather spend an hour playing on the floor with my baby and listening to those precious baby giggles that won’t be around forever than finding the perfect recipe to make and bring to a gathering this weekend.
I want to be present with my family, first and foremost. I also want to be present with my job. I love what I do, and although it may not be my #1 priority as it has at other times in my life, I still enjoy it and want to give it my all when I’m there. That’s tough to do with a constant list of everything else I have to take care of running through my head.
I know this won’t be an easy endeavor, but it’s worth it. As I start to think about how I’ll accomplish it, I find myself thinking back to when I lived in the Virgin Islands. I felt like I was truly present in the moment there, and it was one of the happiest and most stress-free times of my life. I’m sure part of that is the stress-free culture there, but I think there’s more to it. As I’ve tried to really nail down what that was over the years, I keep coming back to the simplicity of life there. I had way less stuff there, and never thought twice about it. We spent way less time inside, because we were generally outside enjoying nature and each other. So you just didn’t need as much stuff in your home. We spend a lot more of our free time at home now (especially with a baby), which I really love also, but I think it tends to make us feel like we need more things in our home than we really do. Keeping up with all the things we have to do and all the things we own (organizing them, cleaning them, etc.) really takes up a lot of the time you could be spending just enjoying each other! Also, I truly believe that having a cluttered space (whether it’s at home, work, etc.) creates a cluttered, uneasy mind. I don’t want to spend my mental energy worrying about putting things away or cleaning, which is exactly where my mind goes the second I walk in my home right now. That’s not relaxing or comforting at all! In fact, it makes me want to avoid it, which is not how I want to feel in my own home!
More stuff and more obligations also leads to more things that need to be done, more things that need to be remembered. Trying to keep up with all of that is generally the source of any disagreements Luke and I have. What a waste – to spend time, energy and emotion arguing with the one you love most over stuff you don’t even need to begin with!
As I started thinking about this and putting these reflections down on (electronic) paper, I came across the book A Simplified Life by Emily Ley. It really beautifully (and simply, of course) put into words what I was thinking, and made me even more motivated to start this journey. Along with that, I also found myself thinking about how similar this approach was to what I do for work as a Lean coach – helping healthcare leaders to develop their leadership and management style to improve processes and outcomes. That might seem like an odd comparison at first, but the concepts in Lean are very similar to those in this book – create standard processes and systems for how things are done in order to simplify them and sustain. In a Lean Management System this is done to create space to focus on the people (the foundation of any organization), and create time and space to nurture and develop them – sort of a business version of the purpose behind simplifying your life.
So we’re starting the journey to simplify our lives. Get rid of or eliminate the stuff we don’t really need or use (in our homes, on our calendars, in our minds) and put simple systems in place to manage the things we do need or use so that they don’t consume us and we can spend our time and energy on what’s really important – being present and enjoying the moments and memories with those we love.
I’m looking forward to sharing my journey and hope you’ll come along with me!
Best wishes for a fabulous start to the new year!
Shannon
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