Oh don’t I love when this happens? The answer is yes, yes, yes!
This is yesterday, when a coaching client (super fab super smart doctor-writer-coach-farmer, what an amazing hyphenate that is!) discovered she was actually working 20-30 hours more a month than she realized.
She did that thing called keeping a time diary and it revealed such gold.
She vaguely knew she was working longer since changes at the hospital but without clear facts, she took not being able to do what she had previously been able to do personally. As in “I must be losing my edge, getting old, missing something, not working hard enough.”
What does taking it personally lead to? Only big heart bruises, no creative energy, less compassion for yourself and others, and perhaps a pint or five of your favorite frozen dessert.
This is what happens – but only every time- we forget to pay attention to what actually is. As in the facts, ma’am.
On a call today with the amazing Molly Gordon talking about getting just right clients among many other important self-employed creative thing, several people talked about the difficulty of choosing what to work on. My dear friend Camille Maurine chimed in about how she is passionate about all her projects so she doesn’t want to choose.
Passion without reality means little or no action on what we care about. Little or no income. Little or no impact.
The world needs us to get out of our way.
It’s why I wrote the Satisfaction Finder, it’s why I declare the most important thing I need to do each day the night before, it’s why I have a Brain Trust… and it’s still hard to be human and face how much time I actually have in a day.
If we are unwilling to be human, and actually admit we are living in space and time, we have very little chance of getting much done.
Or of enjoying doing it.
So keep a time diary for a week, plan your day the night before and include only what you really can do on your list (rather than what you wish you could do), let yourself grieve all the things you want to do but can’t right now, get help choosing, but for golly’s gosh sake, let yourself be human.
Love you!
Links: Molly’s call (you can still get a recording), time diary, Camille Maurine, The Satisfaction Finder.
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2 Shann Jul 22, 2010
I love this: “If we are unwilling to be human, and actually admit we are living in space and time, we have very little chance of getting much done.”
What a gorgeous reality check!
We can create and follow ALL of our passions. We just can’t experience them all at the same time!
3 jamie Jul 22, 2010
“Only every time” – I love that. That’s how often the truth sets us free.
I’m really sitting with this, Jen, and thinking about how this came up in my group coaching today too. We even took a moment to shake our fists at the time-space continuum! (Yes, I grew up on Star Trek) .
I’m feeling the soft sigh, open heart and release of just letting myself be human and I’m have a little giggle at my hubris.
Thank you for the reminder and for the tools to find satisfaction. You’ve got some wisdom going on there
PS I can’t wait to listen to the recording with Molly!