- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 7
- 14
-
Sparkle (4)
There might be more published advice about how to find happiness than anything else. And it all seems to spin from the notion of balance. Work hard, play hard and rest often. Take deep breaths when you’re feeling stress. Leave the office at a reasonable hour. Walk barefoot through the grass. Avoid drinking wine after beer (or is it wine after liquor?). Stop and smell the roses.
I actually think a lot of that advice is completely misguided. (Except for not mixing alcohols. That’s not a lesson that needs to be repeated.)
That’s not to say that I don’t read a lot of advice articles. Because I do. Every day. I happen to love Harvard Business Review bloggers Tony Schwartz and Peter Bregman, who consistently intertwine business and emotion in their witty posts. I follow Suze Orman and Dave Ramsey who emphasize the spiritual deficit of being financially unstable while simultaneously educating you about building wealth. I think it’s important to examine and re-examine what’s really important in our lives so we can realign our actions and our priorities when they fall out of sync.
But how does all this help you in moments of stress and anxiety?
I know that my family is more important to me than the tedium of running a business, but does that help me shift my focus from those annoyances to my daughter? No. Does that knowledge do much for me when my eyes fly open at 4:30 AM with thoughts racing in an attempt to solve some active issue? Not so much. The awareness of how I’m supposed to BE in these moments of just watching my daughter play or waking up peacefully – and I’m so clearly NOT – adds to my stress!
Are you with me?
So I decided to do something totally bizarre and seemingly counter-intuitive. Instead of constantly battling my inner-Buddha (and losing), I did the opposite of taking deep breaths and frolicking through the daisies. I started running my life like a business. I made a list of my goals, my priorities, my grand vision for myself and my family. I scheduled every single thing and relationship in my life, from hanging out with friends to brushing my teeth. I micro-managed the pants right off my piled-high Post It notes.
It sounds crazy, but please don’t go. I promise this has a happy ending.
I decided to make peace with the fact that there really are only a finite number of hours in the day and no amount of me adding things to my ‘To Do’ list will ever change that. I also started wondering just how critical all of these items were. Did everything have to be done immediately or was I just so habituated to chasing my tail that I didn’t know what really needed to be done and when? I got tired of always feeling like whatever I was doing, I needed to be doing something else. Playing with Harper, thinking of work. Working, thinking of Harper. Lounging with Jimmy, wanting to exercise. Eating a salad, wanting a cheeseburger (wait, that hasn’t gone away). I was never really present where I was. (I think this is a mind-disease of women – moms, in particular.)
I made a list of what was most important to me and the order of importance: Hubby & Daughter tied for #1, and everything else (work, health, play, friends, extended family) came in #2.
Then I made a list of everything that needed to be done on a basis of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually. (Anything longer than that can be categorized as a goal or part of your vision.)
My monthly items are: Spreadsheet my business income & expenses, pay rent, pay our savings account, fun trip with Jimmy and Harper. (We rent a unit, so don’t have any monthly home maintenance. Yay for us!)
My weekly items are: Pay bills, reconcile debit receipts with our checking account, plan meals and snacks, place online grocery order (love Woolies!), read articles for professional development / research for my business, photography, read other blogs or fun books, clean the apartment, Skype calls back home, weekly meeting with Jimmy
My daily items are: Workout, eat 3X, write, laundry, cook / prepare meals, play with Harper & Jimmy, shower / groom
Quarterly items are: paying taxes (my favorite task of all), regular car maintenance
Annual items are: filing tax returns, dentist appointments, big vacation
Then I looked at my calendar and
