Every morning after chores I spend a chunk of time on Kat-cultivation, as I like to call it. Right after I get out of bed I head out and feed the animals, which depending on the time of year it is, is a brisk 30-45 minute full-body workout. Feeding gets my carcass going.
After amping up the blood flow, I then move on to a bit of mind exercise. A few years ago I became aware of just how many bad behavioral habits I had. The inability to say no and trying to do it all being two of the worst offenders.
Part of my routine includes reflecting on wisdom from Stoics, then listening to a little (15 minutes or less) mindfulness podcast. Today, I listened to Marie Forleo's great show, she wrote a book that is titled with one of the greatest words ever, Everything is Figureoutable.
Anyway, part of the way through her talk she dropped this gem,
"Know what's important, ignore what's not."
Holy insight slap!
Cause you see, here's the thing. It's easy to think you know what's going on in your own life, it a bit harder to take some time and truly assess where you are, and even harder still to prune out the things that are overwhelming you.
My personal bandwidth's been clogged with too much traffic for quite awhile, and I was caught up in the cycle of always trying to get it all done. I was in an endless loop of organizing my to-dos and running myself ragged trying to get it all done.
But here's the thing, you can't do that. (Well you can, but the phrase spinning one's wheels comes to mind.)
Accomplishment comes from identifying that which brings you joy, pruning out the extra, and focusing on doing what you can do within the season of life that you are in.
You don't have to do it all. Some people need to hear this and be affirmed of that lovely sentiment. It's okay to say no. In fact, it's necessary for you to do so if you want to live your best life. No one's saying that you can't add more projects later as the situation of your life changes, only that sometimes you need to scale back and focus in order to thrive.
On the top of my laptop is a yellow sticky note that says:
Good and done is better than perfect and unfinished.
And in order to have the energy to get anything done, you better prune out the suckers in your life. I do this on tomato plants every season so the plant can put more energy into developing fruit rather than excess, unyielding branches.
So, if you are feeling overwhelmed, it's really a great thing to take a quiet, reflective moment to yourself and really ponder what matters to you, what you want to focus on, and what steps you can do to make it happen.
And on that note, it's chore time again for me. Hang in there ya'll, I'm rooting for ya😊!
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's due for a good internal pruning iPhone.