How many other people push on through life when really what’s needed is to take a break?!

Last week I had a lightbulb moment whilst listening to a self-care zoom session for parents of bereaved Forces children organised by the amazing charity that is Scotty’s Little Soldiers. The lightening bolt that struck me was when the speaker said… (drum roll please)...

YOU CANNOT DO IT ALL!

Trying to do everything and please everyone is a coping strategy for a lot of workaholic perfectionists and, as I’ve learnt the hard way, it is a quick route to over-filling your days. Plus, it can lead to stress, anxiety and burnout.

Sadly, as becoming a widow proved, we only have one chance at this thing called life... and, it's vital we do things that make our heart sing! As part of the Growing Life around Grief course, I’ve been talking about Taking Action... which to me is about creating a life where we make space to do things to rediscover who we are and what makes us Happy. Yet, this can be a huge task for busy people who suddenly find themselves in a world of traumatic shock… as I discovered… learning living without a loved one who used to be a rock of stability can seem really scary and overwhelming.

But, it is possible to work out who we are without our loved ones and make the changes that we need so that we are not constantly busy. One of the things that has hugely helped me work out how I live in a busy world without doing it all has been returning to a world of planning and prioritising… at home as well as at home.

I have a bit of a method of how I do this which is as follows:

First is a brain dump of all the stuff in our heads into a to-do list
Next, it’s important to hit pause and take a step back… go outside and get some fresh air and a change in your environment
Then return to that to-do list and reflect with the following questions in mind:
What do I actually NEED to get done? (the vital stuff eg: work, meals, shopping, paying bills etc)
What do I desperately WANT to do? (remember a bit of self care for you… walks, exercise, reading, music etc)?
What can I DELETE, SCHEDULE & DELEGATE off my list to free up space in my world?
Pick just ONE work priority and ONE home priority for each day… and plan around that!

Another top tip that’s helping me work with my quirky ADHD brain (as well as finding more self-compassion for the forgetfulness and disorganisation) is to habit stack...

A few examples of habit stacking are:

Whilst I'm doing my teeth in the morning, I do a sweep of both of my daughters’ bedrooms… straightening the bed sheets, picking up things off the floor and removing dirty dishes
As I do my teeth in the evening, I do some knee physio exercises to stretch and strengthen my legs
As I wait for the kids to leave the house for school, I empty the washing machine and/or dishwasher… I find I have more patience for the kids and, as for being late, I figure they will be told off at school, so they don’t need me shouting up the stairs!

In addition to these little life hacks, one thing I often remind myself of when I’m doing jobs is that... MY FUTURE SELF will be SO pleased with me to have little jobs done immediately rather than piling them up… so anything that takes less than 5 minutes usually gets done straight away.

This is all great in theory, but…

Every now and then something happens that turns my world upside down. Last week I accidentally did a silly thing that’s added a huge amount to my to-do list! In order to free up space on my laptop, I deleted the "recent" folder (I stupidly presumed that everything in there was duplicates)... But, as I started to open recent documents and get warning signs that they were no longer there, it dawned on me that I had accidentally deleted about 3,000 recent documents (yes, I had also emptied the “bin” on the MacBook Air too!).

You would have thought my initial response was S***!!

But, my elder daughter summed up my response when she said...

“Mum you're scaring me, because you are so calm"!

Although the mental load of worrying about the importance of what I’ve deleted has at times over the past few days made me a bit anxious... I had a bizarre sense of peace... Instead of hyper focusing on spending every spare moment retrieving documents… I have spent my half-term days and one lush movie-night evening with the children as planned. But, most of the remaining evenings have been spent using some clever software to see what I can recover off the computer (huge thanks Instagramily for the top tip for Disk Drill!). Next on the list is some damage limitation finding the permanently deleted documents from emails, Canva, Facebook and other places... but, it's taught me one massive lesson...

We need to back things up!

It has definitely highlighted that I cannot do it all…

I almost feel as though it was meant to be... and it's one of the reasons I'm SO passionate about both my Sadmin course (which I will be running again in the new year) and my Growing Life around Grief course during which we’ve been chatting about what does and doesn’t need to get done in a post-bereavement world.

As some clever person once said…

“Balance means doing enough,
not doing it all”

If you are interested in any of my courses or would like to book a discovery call with me, please email me and I’ll ensure you’re the first to hear when the next dates are announced: emma@rainbowhunting.co.uk