Talking with a client Friday. What she wanted from the session was how to not let herself get distracted. She shared how her brother came to visit for a week. She had cooked, taken him sight seeing. He went back home only a few days before her own planned self care rejuvenation vacation. She had not gotten done the work she intended and now wanted to “avoid being distracted.” Like most of us she was judging her choices in hindsight as wrong.
Wouldn’t it be beautiful if we could flawlessly navigate family, friends, laundry, and work. If we could always have the social connection, meaningful relationship time, a not so dirty house and be at the top of our game with work. It’s called perfectionism and it does not exist in the real world.
What we do have are our values and our choices. Instead of holding on to “I wish I had.” We can look at what values we were honoring with the choices we made. For my client family relationships is way up at the top of her values list. She did not regretted hosting her brother, although she did not know he intended to stay a week. (we talked about asking questions and setting boundaries) In the scheme of life things ebb and flow. Balance, if that is what you desire, comes over time. Days, weeks. There is a time and a season for every purpose. So the song goes.
We human beings have a knack for wanting pat how-to answers for changing our behaviors. It’s the ego or head looking for intellectual solutions. “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” Except we don’t. It is rarely a question of not knowing what to do that blocks our progress. It’s the internal Monday morning quarterback dictating that what we choose was wrong. It’s the fear of rocking the family (community, church, coffee klatsch) boat if we speak our voice or set boundaries. It’s feeling uncomfortable making different choices with new awarenesses.
When we can let go of the over critical perfectionist and laugh at her nonsense we make progress. Choosing to love on ourselves and trust we were doing the best we could at the time we stay in motion. As we appreciate living our values in all the faucets of life we win. It’s not about avoiding being distracted. It’s remembering you are whole and bobbing along with life.
For Your Best Possible Self,
Coach Christine Clark