Create Balance

A few short weeks ago now, I was in Italy exploring, my first time to travel abroad. I heard about the slow-paced lifestyle and agree it is apparent, with the siesta’s and leisurely dining. Also, the directness — you want something? You ask for it. The people are nice but the coddle wasn’t there.

Here in the states we are so go, go, go all the time and overly empathetic to those around us. Rather than waiting to be asked, we over-ask, coddle each other in a way that tends to put the focus on others rather than on ourselves. We ask others about their needs out of obligation, rather than from a place of genuine concern. We say yes when we are really not feeling it. We then blame others and compare ourselves to others for a slew of reasons, such as for taking up our precious time, judging, and not returning the favor in a way that coordinates with our expectations of favor-returning. We then wonder why we’re so tired all the time, or angry, or burnt out.

Today, the focus is on creating balance.

This trip to Italy brought a few revelations, which I will write about more in the future, such as picking three things to do each day and thoughts on multitasking/overextending. Today, the focus is on creating balance.

To slow down, to lose the feeling, to worry less.

It took me a good 5 days out of a 10 day trip (and two of those days being travel days, so an 8 day trip?) to really breathe and relax- to slow down, to enjoy lack of pressure, to lose the feeling of needing to do everything at once, to worry less about how we were to get from point A to point B. Sure, it’s nice to get away from the normal day-to-day for a holiday, but this time away was different. Firstly, I didn’t want to come home! At some point my introverted self hits a wall and is ready to get back home to chill with my cat, but I never hit that wall. Second, the culture just felt different. Even if just for a few days, I was able to enmesh myself in a new experience, able to breathe, to slow down and relax. In coming home, I knew I needed to find balance.

In coming home, I knew I needed to find balance.

Back at home, I split my time working between three different retail stores, running my own business, and learning software development through a ten-month online course; this is all before family and friend duties, my own leisure time, and perhaps planning a few vacations. I enjoy the variety that comes with having multiple projects going simultaneously, but those variables can easily get out of whack if not intentionally thought about.

Pre-Italy I was trying to work the same amount of time as I needed to devote to school, which left me in a constant state of feeling like I didn’t know what I was doing while in class. At that point I was just thinking about starting my business. I felt guilty taking any leisure time. I’d also been through a slew of emotional traumas during Q2 2019- such as a job change, loss of a year-long relationship, and the passing of my 13 year old cat.

Coming home, I brainstormed. I brainstormed how I felt working retail, how I felt in school, how my own business factored in to this mix, and how I could factor in hobbies, socializing, and more vacations. What are my goals? How are all my activities factoring into my goals? Is there is time for all of my desires? The answer was yes, though I needed to iron out my boundaries and rituals a bit.

Is there is time for all of my desires? The answer was yes, though I needed to iron out my boundaries and rituals a bit.

Being a super introvert (biased observances), I generally function better with less social interaction. The mere sight of other people triggers all the codependent empath in me (what is this person thinking? feeling? how can I make this situation pleasant?), which makes it difficult to learn in a traditional school environment, or work in a traditional office setting, or spend time with those most dear to me if I haven’t recharged enough to be fully engaged. Sure, there are seasons where I desire to be around others more, but on average, it’s just not for me. That was really what sent me on the path of learning to develop software, maybe somewhere along the line I can get out of retail for good and manage to avoid the traditional office environment and hours? Putting all of this together, I could see more clearly where my goals, personality, and day-to-day life weren’t necessarily running parallel. From there I whipped out my calendar and started to focus on my goals and how to get there.

Admittedly, I am a proponent of calendaring. Being a visual person, it helps me to map out gaps in time and keep all my activities on track. However, seeing blank space on the calendar also is a trigger- in my mind it’s space to fill (“oh yes I have time to do that here” again and again until, “where did all my me time go?” and I’m burnt out). A calendar can easily become its own chaotic monster. So, to start, I plugged in some recurring self-care time slots and worked around that — sacred morning time for breakfast, writing in my journal, reading (and cuddling with my cat); sacred evening time for getting ready for bed, and reading (and.. cuddling with my cat). I also over time have learned that I learn and work better alone, in a quiet environment, and for a solid block of time (preferably on back-to-back days so I can just jam on something and really enmesh myself in it). In this dedicated space to create, the content I’m attempting to learn or work on comes a lot easier. So I set some designated days and hours for school. I still have to work though! My future goal is to work remote full-time, however I am not there yet. I am currently a retail queen and luckily the retail life (and awesome bosses) come with a somewhat flexible schedule. I can focus on school and my own personal endeavors at the beginning of the week, leaving weekends and days leading to for the retail life.

Setting my schedule with my self-care needs first, then school, then work, I was able to back into a pretty pleasant schedule from there that also allows room for socializing, working on my own business, rest, and other hobbies I want to get in to. It’s all blocked out on my calendar, so if I do, say, need to book over either of my morning/evening rest times, which I think is to be expected from time-to-time, I have a visual so if I should start booking over myself too frequently I can see it and proactively reduce the bookings, rather than stalling out on the back-end. If someone asks me to attend or help with an event, I have a clearer view of how that will impact my life, and be able to decide with intention whether to join or not.

As we complete projects in school, a presentation of the project is required. This triggers all my social anxiety and I am on edge for weeks leading to the presentation. This last presentation I had a revelation — a few years ago I used to lead a Zumba class, a whole hour of performing in front of others, multiple times a week. I recalled practicing a routine for HOURS before unveiling it to my class — the routine needed to be a part of my muscle memory so I didn’t overthink it. Taking that same approach, I realized that to make my presentations successful I need to not only do the work of creating a kick-ass project, but also need to spend the hours working behind the scenes preparing to speak about my project as well. It may take me longer for me to prepare for a presentation than most, but by being both aware and accepting of that fact, I can now allot more time to focus on the presentation.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and these revelations didn’t come overnight. This is years of trials and tribulations and awareness and a few wins scattered about. And in six months from now when I graduate from school and embark in a new career, I will have to refactor. This is not at all set in stone, though it works for now, and though change can be a beast, I welcome the opportunity to refactor, yet again.

As I mentioned before, I am passionate about my schedule and the birds-eye view it affords me. To really achieve that macro scope, I now have a giant wall calendar that I use to support my Google calendar. The wall calendar displays the full year, which gives me a snapshot of when big things are coming up (i.e. presentations, vacations) and my Google calendar syncs on all my devices and allows me to dive deeper into the day-to-day and week-to-week.

Of course, these tactics may or may not work for you. Maybe just a piece or two works for you.

If you’re an extrovert, you may not need to have such staunch boundaries on your time, as the socializing isn’t draining for you and just building out your daily rituals is all you need to keep things in order.

If you have children, there may not be time for all the hobbies as you migrate through this important season in life.

I do want to hear from you though- if you have a particular thing or two that works best for you in keeping balance, or even a story about how you came about creating balance, I’d love to hear about it.

That’s what we’re here for- to share and to learn from each other.

We show up, we learn, we appreciate our ignorance, we grow. There’s beauty in the process.

And hey, maybe this socially anxious person will be courageous enough to give a Ted Talk one day. Maybe it’ll be about overcoming social anxiety through calendaring, and the importance of scheduling time for oneself.

Because we can only do so much.

As my mom has always said, take care of #1.

Create balance, create space for you first, from there everything will fall into place.