My family is in what some might call a small season of change. We just moved into our first home (great job, Warren’s Moving), I’m a few weeks out before giving birth, we just got a new office, our companies are in major development phases and busier than ever, and we have our oldest daughter about to start high school. Just a smidget of change.
Our life feels a bit out of sorts, and I feel like we’re on cruise control just hoping not to fall asleep at the wheel. Personally I’m usually thoroughly on top of things, but lately I’ve been finding myself dropping the ball. Which is fair, life happens. But what happens when you’re a business owner or a key stakeholder in your company and you can’t afford to let life happen?
Let go.
That’s right. In these seasons of massive flux you have to decide how you can lighten your load. If you immediate response is you’re not sure what you can let go of, let me help with some strategies we’ve implemented:
- Identify what you NEED: Instead of trying to do it all at 100 percent, you have to focus on the base of your pyramid first and make sure it’s stable. Take our house for example, it’s got all these endless projects we want to tackle RIGHT NOW. But we can’t do that because we haven’t built out the support for them yet. That is, having a livable house. So we’ve decided to “MAKE IT LIVABLE” for us. We have high standards so it’s still a considerable amount of work, but the time, energy, and money is drastically reduced by prioritizing those standards, which alleviates a lot of pressure on us. Essentially, it’s a compromise to buy time, and headspace to make sure our foundation is solid.
- Delegate: As a Type A person, I don’t love the D word, even though I know from my years in business it essential to your growth. When things are chaotic, it’s hard to delegate with confidence and it’s also usually the time you feel the most need to stay in control. Learn what you can delegate to clear your headspace. Example? Right now my focus needs to be on work especially with this baby almost here, so delegating there isn’t as big of an option as I’d like. But, the other night after 10 hours of moving and laying in bed feeling totally defeated I checked out an app my friend told me about – Instacart. I had a starving family with no food in the house and a husband breaking his back trying to make sure all of our rooms were livable. Instacart is a grocery delivery service. In 2 hours I had three different stores delivered to my from door without leaving my bed! There are always opportunities like this, you just have to be willing to get outside of your comfort zone.
- Say no: this seems obvious but it’s not always easy. We love entertaining and being with friends but it’s also a drain in certain seasons. I instituted a NO MORE PLANS TIL BABY COMES rule because it was becoming too much to keep up with and find time to do all of the house stuff. This was the ultimate act of family self-care because it’s giving us time to recover when we don’t even realize we need to. This brings me to my last point….
- Rest: it seems counterintuitive but you need to rest. Find time to listen to your body and just know when to sit and relax. Take a nap, go to bed early, or even rest could mean waking up early and getting some much needed alone time with your coffee and enjoying sitting in your backyard. Without adequate rest, you will eventually shut down.
Lightening your load will dramatically decrease the weight of the world you’re feeling on your shoulders. Know what you need, and find out how to properly filter, queue, and sort the things you don’t.
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