Get the Balance Right: PYL In-Flight: Oct 12, 2021
Welcome Back My Out of Balance Passengers:
There just doesn’t seem to be enough time in a day right now. It’s as if we are trying to make up for lost productivity during the pandemic and are completely ignoring the fact that it’s still going on. We are expected to be high-performers with limited capacity, both emotionally and energetically.
This is not going to end well.
During the pandemic, many of us were forced to slow down as so many things in our lives came to a screeching halt. We had to adjust to the uncertainty. And we had to redefine how we were operating in the world. We were given the opportunity to move at a slower pace and evaluate what we wanted our lives to look like.
After a time, as things opened up, we once again redefined our ‘normal’ still with a high degree of uncertainty. For those of us in the US, we were bombarded with bad news and craziness (he who must not be named created quite a bit of chaos). I look back on 2020 as if it was a surreal nightmare and while 2021 started off looking better, there’s still a lot going on.
And now we are in the 4th quarter of 2021 and everyone I’ve talked to is saying the same thing. It’s all too much. We are overwhelmed. There’s not enough time to do everything we need to do, let alone what we want to do.
Several times throughout the pandemic I talked about how we should use this strange time in our lives to be thoughtful about what we want to add back to our lives. I thought we could be more intentional and not go back to the way things were because for so many of us, it just wasn’t working.
And yet, here I am, as are so many people I know, back struggling to fit it all in with the added stress of Covid still a major factor in our lives, and limited capacity because many of us haven’t recovered from the trauma of the last 18 months (and, honestly, the previous presidency).
While I wanted to be intentional about what I added back in, I somehow managed to leave the door open to an avalanche of ‘shoulds’ and unexpected obligations that have left me with little room to maneuver.
My weekly reminder to set and keep boundaries has never been so necessary.
As Zeke approaches NYC after a nearly two week bike trip from Buffalo along the Empire State Trail, I’m reminded of my grand plans to rebalance my life while he was gone. I planned to really assess what I’ve agreed to, along with the timelines, and begin to create the space I so desperately need.
With him gone and just me and Finn in the house, I chose to use the extra time to work on a client project, working until nearly midnight every night last week.
What is the saying about the best laid plans? Ugh and sigh.
We put up the Halloween decorations last weekend which means it the beginning of the end of the year. I call it decoration season. We go from Halloween to Thanksgiving (in the US) to Christmas (in my household) to New Year’s and before you know it, we are going to be in 2022.
I’m tired just thinking about it and more than a little nervous.
It would be so easy to continue to be caught up in the wave (or avalanche) and completely miss out on so much, especially since it’s Finn’s last year of high school and our last year of parenting kids under the age of 18.
I missed out on a lot when my kids were younger and I refuse to repeat that mistake.
So it’s time to find the middle, as my executive coach Bev calls it. The sweet spot. The place of least resistance and greatest flow. It’s going to take some doing but it will be well worth the effort and short term discomfort.
Time to be like Maxine Waters and ‘reclaim my time.’
With much love and gratitude,
Terri
P.S. Take the controls and be the pilot in your own life. It’s a beautiful day to fly, and you are cleared for takeoff.
Song: Get the Balance Right by Depeche Mode
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