Meet Tiny (also known as Case). He's my youngest and #1 at owning his mess!
I've tried it many times...get healthy, lose weight, eat better, be a more involved parent, be a more attentive wife, work out! And friends, none of it worked out. Sure, I lost a few pounds here and there, made some awesome Valentines that made me look like pinterest mom of the year and even walked around the block a few times. But there was no lifestyle change and no magic new life.
It's truth time. I tried a lot of great programs and strategies but I wasn't ready. I hadn't identified what was really important and what I currently did in my life that stood in the way of my grand dreams. It was time to own my mess. Are you looking to do the same? Do you want to lose a little weight or read a little more? Try these three steps to get headed in the right direction:
1. Priorities: I heard someone say the other day that you can have it all but you might not be able to have it all at once. Marketing, social media and blogs often tell us that you can have it all and that makes me angry. It's silly and unreasonable. Lifestyle gurus get paid a lot of money to tell us that life is a balance beam or a seesaw and trying to keep it all stable means we can have it all. I have to tell you....I just don't buy it. I read A Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes recently and I have added it to my list of must reads! She argues that really life is more like a swing. Sometimes we're up and great at one thing but the other side will probably not be getting equal attention until we swing up to the other side. She contends that life is always in motion and we can't always be in the air or on the ground. We may be making awesome projects for our kids but that means we may not be answering 100 emails at work within the hour. We might get a promotion in our career based on our hard work on a project but our children might be taking store bought Teenage Mutant Ninja Cards to this year's party. So.....what are your top five priorities? Not what they are today but what do you consider the five most important areas of your life? Write them down.....
2. What is your mess? Now that you have the top 5, go through a day, a week or a month and pick which one of those five categories each of the things that occupy your time, head space and heart space go in. If they don't fit in one...shove it over to the "other" pile. Often times, we spend a lot more time in areas that we didn't realize. Of those 5 places where do you spend the most time? Where do you spend least? Do you need to reorganize your time? All of those items in the other category are reserved for careful consideration. DON'T BE FOOLED, you can't just get rid of them but if they don't contribute to the top five most important things in your life it is probably time to prayerfully consider if they are part of the mess in your life! There is freedom in really naming your mess. Then if you choose to let it creep up in your top 5, you can't sit back and say that is just the way it is. It is the way it is because you made the choice to let it have that much space in your life. And that's ok but its time to own it!
3. Name your mess! Once you've put it out in the world it's time to write it down. What's your mess? We can't ever start making healthy lifestyle changes until we own up to all of the stuff standing in the way. And let me be clear...just because you are owning it does not mean that its suddenly gone or you can do a clean sweep of life in 24 hours and be ready to start all anew again. That's not sustainable and its not real life. Instead of concentrating solely on eliminating the mess in the way, start by identifying ways that you can slowly edge in the things that support your five important areas and let them take the place of the mess. Want to be more active? Give up a TV show (even though I know you've DVR'd it and its far less time because you fast forward to avoid the commercials) and walk during that hour of the week.
Now, I'm not telling you to do all of this and then bow out. Coming up on the blog later this week I'll be sharing my 5 most important areas, owning my mess and telling you the little steps I'm taking each day to get to a healthier me.
