Do you ever feel like you’re being pulled in too many directions at once? …Or like you want to do all the things but don’t have time to do any of them? …Or that you have so many balls in the air you’re afraid you might drop them all?
These things can all lead to a sense of overwhelm — a feeling with which I admit I am very familiar.
I was speaking with a friend the other day who was feeling stretched too thin, and I shared with her something that I’ve found to be really helpful when I feel similarly stressed.
I asked her what her top 5 priorities are. And then I asked her if the way she is spending her time is in alignment with those priorities.
These simple questions can really help us to zero in and bring clarity to our decisions and intentionality to our management of our time and energy resources.
As we’re talking about managing our time and priorities, I’ll throw out here another reminder that “balance is about recovery.”
Both physical balance and life balance are measured by our ability to recover from leaning or being pushed in one direction or another, not by our ability to maintain a perfectly poised, unmoving position.
Life is flowing — it never holds still, so we can’t ever hold perfectly still — that’s not what balance is about.
It’s about leaning too far in one direction and overcorrecting and then leaning too far in another one — spending more time on one thing and then on another, and working towards spending time on the things the matter most to us.
So try writing down your top 5 priorities in life, and examine whether how you’re allocating your time and energy is in alignment with those priorities. And give yourself grace in this process and balancing.
You’ve got this.