A Confession
I have a confession to make. I've been a bit absent recently. Not just with my blogging here on my website, but in my life as well. To help you understand what I mean a little better, I'm an entrepreneur and business owner, a wife, and a mostly stay-at-home-mom to an active toddler. These three main roles in my life play tug-of-war with me constantly. Recently, I have been feeling this pull more frequently. I have felt more and more stretched thin by playing this game within myself. And I realized that I have been trying to perform these three roles at the same time sometimes.
What I've fully come to understand in these past few weeks is that I suck at multitasking. When I attempt to fulfill all of the roles I play all at once, I feel run down, broken, and more easily irritated with everything around me. I end up taking my frustrations out on the people I care about most. Worst of all, I find myself becoming a person I don't even recognize.
It is really difficult for me to confess this publicly, because I feel I am capable of doing many things. Typically, I excel at what I put my mind to. However, just because I can do something does not mean that I am able to do it with the excellence that I expect from myself. Especially when I have set myself up from the beginning in a way that will not allow me to achieve that excellence.
Therefore, my message to you today is this: stop and take an inventory of every role you play in your life. Once you understand all of the directions that you may be pulled in, determine if your current role management is affecting how you feel about yourself. Then, examine how it affects the relationships you have with others - especially your loved ones. If things seem out of balance, figure out where you can make some small changes and adjust accordingly.
My first plan of action is to be more intentional about self-care and planning it into my schedule, not just when I get the time. I tell my clients to do this all the time and I need to also do it for myself. Once I implement a regular self-care routine, my next plan is to strategize how I can more effectively separate each role in my life so I can have healthy boundaries and adequate attention for each. Along the way, I'll be seeking support from family, friends, my own therapist, and childcare workers.
My hope in confessing this to you all is to let you know that you are not alone if you are having this struggle as well. Sometimes we all fall into a challenging time of life. The trick is to recognize it for what it is, not beat yourself up for what you might have been doing poorly, and decide do it differently. That's the beauty of this life: you are not stuck in the way you think you are. There is a different way. You just have to search for it and choose it.
If you need some guidance in managing the roles you play in your life, let me help. You can call me at 720-381-2755 or email me at tradewindstherapy at gmail dot com. I'd be honored to be on your support team.
