As I sit down to write this, it’s the start of my first of three days of vacation. My birthday is tomorrow and I always make a point of taking a few days off around my birthday to relax and unwind. But this year, I feel that this little break is needed much more than ever before. I’m in a storm right now, where I need to use vacation days just to get caught up and tackle several other areas of my life (which, let’s be honest, is not the way I’d prefer to use vacation days). There are about a thousand things swirling through my head and I feel as though I’m balancing several glass balls and at any moment, one could drop and shatter on the ground. So to have an extra few days when I don’t have to think about the work glass ball, is welcomed.
If you do a google search on how to balance being a working mom, or how can I be less busy, the tips that I always find are all about trying to reduce the amount of stuff that you need to do, either by deleting some of them or by outsourcing that responsibility. And that might work for some things that a working mother is responsible for, but the tricky part about this glass ball storm that I’m in, is that each and every one of these glass balls is important for me to handle. I can’t delete or outsource any of them. It is absolutely the perfect time for me to be doing all of these things – they are all things that are moving me toward a life that is right for me and my family – one that I love waking up to every day.
Now you might be wondering, what are all of these things? Well here it is – this is what is making my life so crazy busy right now:
- Developing and launching a new business (which I’ve never done before)
- Balancing two job roles in my full-time job
- Building a new house
- Planning to move to a new town
- Getting our current house ready to put up to sell
- Planning for the unknown as to what will happen between leaving our current house and the new house being ready
- My kids having a hard time adjusting to going back to school after all of the switching back and forth between online and in person
- Getting the kids registered for school and after school care in the new town
- Trying to find time to connect with the kiddos and spend quality family time
- Trying to implement lifestyle changes to better manage my stress and overall health
- And then the big one that everyone has been experiencing – everything being complicated by a pandemic that has lasted now for 2 years
Woah. When I look at it listed out like that – no wonder I feel overwhelmed and constantly questioning whether I’ve made the right choices or if I’m managing any of these things well enough. Even so, somehow I am surviving and I recognize that I’m making progress on each and every one of these things. While I do have moments of pure panic, when it seems like multiple glass balls are teetering on the edge, I have found ways to bring myself back to refocus on my goals and move toward the life that I want.
Here are my suggestions for how to keep working on goals when overwhelm and self-doubt start to get in the way:
1. Remind yourself of your values.
This is a big one for me and probably the most important. If you haven’t really thought much about your values, now is the time to do that. What is important to you? How do you want to live your life? What takes or should take priority? Then, when things start to feel like way too much, it’s helpful to look at each one of your glass balls and ask yourself – Does this align with my values? Is doing this helping me to work toward a goal that is important to me? Will this bring me closer to a meaningful career or life that I’ll love? If you answer yes to these questions, then that glass ball is worth keeping. Just by going through this process can make it easier to keep working through the chaos when you know that each one of the things you are balancing has a clear purpose and is part of the pathway to what you want your life to be like.
There have been many times over the course of the last year that I have questioned whether I want to keep some of these glass balls. It would be soooooo much easier in the moment to just work my less-fulfilling, full-time job and give up on the whole owning a business idea. Or to just cancel the house build and settle for just staying where we are now. Sometimes I even imagine taking one of the glass balls and deliberately chucking it across the room to see it explode to a million pieces when it hits the wall. But then when I do that, I realize that I would be devastated if that happened. Each one is a step toward the person I want to be and the life I want to live.
2. Identify what is most important to do, in this specific moment.
If any of you have seen Frozen 2 (which is one of my favourite movies and I could write an entire blog about that), then this is like the moment when Ana is in the cave and sings “The Next Right Thing”. When overwhelm is consuming you and you just don’t know which glass ball to focus on or what to do next, take a step back, take a deep breath, and logically think, what is most important for me to do right now. What is the next right thing? I find that focusing on just one simple step or one small task on the giant To Do list, can help to dig yourself out and to move on. Progress is progress no matter how tiny.
3. Envision the future you want.
Similar to evaluating how each ball aligns with your values, envisioning the future you want can help to put a focus back on moving forward. When Ashley and I were brainstorming ideas for this business, we did a lot of imagining and envisioning what life could be like if we built the business of our dreams. We even talked about what our office might look like and who we’d like to hire, and then how it would fit into our daily lives as mothers and wives. Envisioning your future down to the tiny details makes it seem so much more possible to create. That picture of what my life could be like is imprinted on my mind. I can’t not see it anymore. And so when I feel overwhelmed and want to give up, I bring that picture back to my mind as a reminder of what I am working toward. Envision the future life you want, down to the smallest detail so that you have that picture in your mind to come back to when things get hard.
4. Ask yourself: Is this the person I want to be today?
Now I have to admit, this is a tough one for me, but it does help when I can actually identify when I need to step back and evaluate my actions. As James Clear writes in his amazing book Atomic Habits, “Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become”. When I can remind myself that my day is full of choices – choices that either lead me toward or away from what’s important to me – then the path through the overwhelm is a little clearer. Try to take action or make a choice that is going to move you closer to who you want to be. It can definitely be hard to step back and evaluate this every time you go to act or make a choice but even if you can say that, at least some of the time, you acted in a way that brought you closer to who you want to be, then I’d call that a success.
5. Remember, no matter what, you are enough.
This again is a challenge for me as I regularly get caught up in the “my productivity is a reflection of my worth” trap, but I am trying to remind myself every day that I am enough. When things seem to be out of control or the balls are spinning furiously, some calm deep breaths and a quiet moment to repeat to myself, “I am enough” can slow things down and help me to refocus. Find some words or a phrase that works for you to remind yourself that you are enough and you are doing the best you can. Come back to these words when things get hard, or even just daily as a reminder.
In our crazy, busy world, balancing all the parts of life can be challenging, and overwhelm and self-doubt can easily get in the way of working toward goals. I’ve learned ways that I can manage this overwhelm and balance the glass balls since they are all helping me to move toward the life I want. I know that it will not always be like this but that I’ll get through this glass ball storm, one way or another, and knowing that I am doing it all for the right reasons helps to keep me motivated. I hope these strategies can also help you to move forward.
If my experience or these tips have inspired you to take action and move forward through your glass ball storm, check out our free downloads to get started.
You are in charge of where you go from here.
~Larissa
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