How to juggle multiple roles without going nuts

I’m of that generation that so many of us baby boomers find ourselves in – sandwiched between our roles as spouses, parents, grandparents and increasingly, caretakers for our own elderly parents, all while still actively pursuing our careers.

On some days, it can be crazy making. Not that my adult kids, thank goodness, need any parenting at this stage, as I am blessed that they are all self sufficient and independent, though unfortunately that is not the case for many of us, and wasn’t always that way for me.

It seems to me that the crazy making is not so much born of others’ demands on my time and attention, but rather on my own relationship to it all.  It’s about my own rather unrealistic and demanding desire to be there 100% for everyone in my life 100% of the time, and the reality is that there is more to attend to than there are available hours to do it in.

What to do then? I’m thinking back to Rory Vaden’s decision-making options – ignore, prioritize, delegate, postpone…. When you are a first-born and suffer from the Responsibility syndrome, (you know the one I mean?) it’s easy to get caught up in the compelling feeling that you have to do everything for everyone, perfectly, all the time. So it’s been really helpful to put these strategies that I usually apply to business decisions, to my personal life.

Ahh, just stepping back enough to realize I have choices brings relief. Asking myself these questions helps me to feel a sense of control over my life.

–      What can I scratch off my list?

–      What are my priorities?

–      What can I delegate to someone else? 

–      What can I postpone to a better time?

And let’s certainly not forget self-care. It’s all so easy to neglect when you are feeling pressured to take care of so many things, but it is so vital to make your own well-being a priority. Taking that hike. Having dinner with a girlfriend. Going to bed early. Meditating.

Are you in the sandwich generation dear reader? I’d love to hear your tricks for staying sane!

What if we just did the thing we didn’t feel like doing?

Ok world – ready or not, here I come. I’m embarking on a 7-week journey to implement Rory Vaden’s seven strategies for self-discipline from his book Taking the Stairs– would you like to join me?

When I found his book in my mailbox on the heels of my epiphany about my recent lack of self-discipline, I took it as an invitation to explore this topic and implement some needed changes.

His first step, Sacrifice: The Paradox Principle sounds about as appealing as the notion of self-discipline. Because let’s be real – we all prefer the easy way out, and the notion of sacrifice is well, daunting, right? And we all are naturally good at ignoring our problems until they come crashing down on our heads.

But let’s look a little deeper. When it comes to making choices, there’s usually two parts of us that are in direct conflict, explains Rory.  There’s the emotional part of our brain that drives us to make choices based on wanting to feel good now, and there’s the logical part of our brain that is evaluating what makes sense analytically.

It’s a tug of war, and all too often, the emotional side of us wins out. So what do successful people do that sets them apart?  As Rory goes on to explain, they embrace the Pain Paradox, and understand that “the short term easy leads to the long term difficult, while the short-term difficult leads to the long-term easy.

The paradox lies in the fact that what seems easy in the short term (choosing the couch over the hike or the gym, choosing the chips over the carrots, zoning out in front of the TV instead of taking that webinar, you know the ones), ends up creating a life that is all but easy as our health deteriorates, and our dreams fade into the distance.

The good news? Often the seemingly harder choices are only necessary for a short period of time. I’m not talking about a lifetime of abnegation and sacrifice here. Just some short term choices to put in the time, make the not so easy choices, so we can live the life we want tomorrow. 

So here is Rory’s call to action for this week:  “Create a clear picture of what you want in the long run and you will find that your endurance for pain and strife, discipline and hard work will naturally increase to levels you never thought you had. A new world will open up for you – a world where you can have anything you want… as long as you commit.”

Ready?  Here’s a little inspiration from Rory. https://youtu.be/dq4WsSiOAR4

Can we really change our life experience?

“How you look at it is pretty much how you'll see it”

― Rasheed Ogunlaru

You are probably familiar with the expression that hindsight is 20/20, meaning it’s a lot easier to make sense of things after they have happened.

I had the pleasure of listening to businessman, author and speaker Joel Fotinos on Sunday, and he had an interesting take on hindsight, and its corollary, foresight.

Turns out hindsight is actually a useful spiritual tool to look back at significant life events with fresh eyes, and hopefully see the benefit of something that seemed not so good, or even terrible, at the time. It’s not exactly reinventing history, but rather taking the time to reflect on your life’s circumstances and events, and find new meaning, or opportunities for growth, in those events, once time has passed and the emotions associated with them have cooled down. 

Self-discipline: An old fashioned virtue for modern times

I was driving around yesterday, trying to get a handle on this annoying experience of irritability that has been plaguing me for the last few weeks.

Ever have that?  Just feeling plain ol’ cranky for no apparent good reason?

And then it dawned on me what was going on behind the scenes. I heard myself say to myself – “Julie, you’re slipping on the self-discipline front.”

Yes, it’s true. I admit it. The thing is, it’s all those small, seemingly insignificant moments, those decision points, where I realized I have been taking the easy way out. Missing a blog post or 2 a week. Not getting around to my daily hikes. Not eating my veggies. I know – by themselves, they don’t seem like that big of a deal. However, they add up. Not only to the success of my long-term goals, my long-term health and well being, but just as importantly, to my self esteem.

Don’t get me wrong; I had lot of good reasons. I wasn’t feeling well. I needed a break. I’d do it tomorrow.

So, was that telemarketer even more obnoxious than usual?  Was my mum being particularly annoying? Was that doctor I was interpreting for being especially passive-aggressive?

Probably not. All along, it was me I was ticked off with. Imagine that! Because I haven’t been being true to what I know I should be doing. I know, should is a bad word these days.  I don’t really like it most of the time, especially if it is directed at one person by another –as in  “You should….”.  Who likes that?

But in terms of its original meaning of ‘obligation’ – a self-imposed commitment, undertaken because we recognize that doing X will lead to desired outcome Y, then should is good in my book.

So, as always, life works in magical ways. Humbled by my roadside epiphany as to the source of my recent irritability, I arrive home to find Rory Vaden’s book, Taking the Stairs, in my mailbox.  

I open it up randomly and read this definition of self-discipline: “The ability to take action regardless of your emotional state, financial state, or physical state.”

OK universe, I get the message. Stay tuned as I implement Vaden’s seven strategies for self-discipline – want to join me?

Musings on the creative process: How to get out of your own way

“One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche

Well, there is no lack of internal chaos here.  Reassuring words, as I’ve been grappling with the creative process these days.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far about the process of creating – in this case a public TED style talk, but it could be anything - an article, a blog post, a lecture, a poem, even a painting I imagine, although I am not an artist.

You have an idea. Or rather, an idea comes to you. Inspiration is a fascinating phenomenon. It can come from anywhere. A dream, a conversation, a street sign, a line in a book, the shape of a cloud, a picture.

Something that wasn’t present before suddenly is. Sometimes its’ a trickle, a whisper, a faint notion. Other times, it’s a veritable high speed download of ideas stacked one on top of each other, neatly arranged like a deck of cards. Other times, it’s a chaotic influx of impressions, thoughts, and half formed notions.

So then, the question becomes… what to do with all that. How and where to start?

This first step can be rather daunting. You are not quite sure where to put your foot down, what is solid ground. Or where you might sink into quicksand. You never know.

The best way to find out?

Simply start. Anywhere. It’s not until I actually put words to paper that any sense starts to emerge. So I just go with it and see what comes.

What was a jumble in my head, start to makes sense on paper. Or maybe not. Then I delete and start all over again.

It’s about being willing to just go with it and trust that the creative flow itself will lead me to that dancing star.  The temptation is to control the flow, to dictate its meanderings and course, to take the straight and narrow path to some perceived destination. But the truth is, the creative process seems to have a life of its own, and my job seems to be as much to get out of its way, or rather to let it flow though me, than to try and control its nuances.

So dear reader, don’t be afraid of your internal chaos, it might just led you to that dancing star if you allow it to lead you!

How to go forward when you’re not sure how

I seem to be doing that a lot these days – saying Yes to something and then having my moments of doubt and uncertainty, wondering if I really have what it takes, thinking it’s so much safer in my cozy cave and why the heck did I agree to this anyway?

Well, I know the answer. I agreed because it’s something I actually really wanted to do, felt inspired to do…. However. It’s one thing to say Yes when it’s somewhere out there in the future, it’s another when the future is suddenly creeping unnervingly close to the present.

So…. Here’s how I get through this.

My Memorial Day Clean Up

Whenever I am going through a period of change and transformation, and I feel that things are re-arranging themselves internally and I am not sure which way is up and which way is down, my go to solution is to embark on a de-cluttering project.

So yesterday I tackled the bathroom and ended up chucking out two large shopping bags full of outdated lotions and potions and supplements.  As I was gleefully discarding 10 years worth of obsolete stuff, it dawned on me that this was the perfect backdrop for also getting rid of outdated mindsets, beliefs and worldviews.

You know the ones I mean. “I can’t do that.” “I’m too old/too young/too you name it.” “I’m not qualified.” “I’ll never be able to learn that.” “What if….”