I need to give myself a break, figuretively and literally. Ever since I've realized having children is not a likely future for us I have been a little obsessed with re-shaping my life and my purpose, and for some reason I have felt I needed to impliment every idea I ever had to fill the 'empty' life this would leave me with. I've created one list after another of things I feel I need/want to accomplish with this different future, a list of attributes/skills/characteristics I can shape in myself now that I won't have a life focused on raising children.
And I needed to act on it all NOW. Maybe so I wouldn't feel a void, maybe because I never was good at being idle, resting, relaxing.
I, being a natural born planner and scheduler, planned and scheduled all these new goals of mine with next to no wiggle room. I even put just about every goal in my Outlook calendar, reminders and all. I thought I accounted for the freedom to follow a God-led purpose, I realize now that embracing gifts he gave me didn't mean I had to use them all and so frequently. And I totally didn't account for 'life happens'.
And it did.
Life happened. What did I think I would do when work got crazy? How did I not see I had far too many priorities? Why didn't I slow down when people close to me started struggling? Or when I started struggling? My calendar reminders didn't stop appearing when those started. But amidst it all, I've continued to feel obligated to keep up with my schedule, after all, I have this person I'm trying to become, it was my choice to make these priorities, these goals. I would guiltally press 'Snooze' on all those reminders with good intentions of getting back to them all later, but they just piled up, overwhelming me even more.
I forgot to schedule time to.just.be.
So that's what I'm doing now. No more lists, no more goals, no more 'how am I doing' type blog entries. This is going to be a little weird for me because this is just part of who I am, my 'regularly scheduled programming' is self-improving, planning, preparing, purpose-driven, etc. I'm finally giving myself a break.
Don't know how long I'll need, but until I stop feeling so overwhelmed and unaccomplished, I'm on hiatus from all things goal-oriented.
2 comments:
Good for you Lori!
Ah, there's so much I want to say here on this topic, but I'll leave it at this; been there, done that, it's hard and so very worth it.
My advice, from one planner to another; schedule some spontaneity.
(we have so much in common)
Great goal...pun intended. We all need to give ourselves a break (let me know how to do it once you figure it out!) I know that I am a "black and white" kind of person and so I'm either all in or all out and that sounds like what you are going through. You are trying to be "all in" and I think taking a step back is a great one. You continue to be in my thoughts and prayers.
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