This is something that I have realized full force just this past August. I have had little lessons of this sprinkled in my journey over the past year but in August it became glaringly obvious that I was still doing too much. Work is very busy, my life coaching business needs attention, my dogs need exercise, my house needs to stay clean, my chickens need a clean run and coop and food and water, my friends want to run with me, my brother wants to run with me, I need to run to train for an upcoming race, my bathroom is being torn apart and tons of decisions need to be made around that, and every weekend was full of commitments. And I lost it. I realized I was biting off more than I could chew and it was effecting my mental health, my physical health, the way that I could show up as a partner to my husband and as a decent human being to everyone else in my life. It is not okay to keep doing this and if someone else came to me with this struggle and their plate over flowing I would be giving them the same life balance advice I am writing here today.

In Christy’s book, she talks about seasons of life. This is not the traditional seasons like summer, fall, winter, spring (although life seasons could fall in line with some of them). This is about where you are in life right now. Perhaps you just had a baby or you have an elderly mother you are responsible for caring for. Maybe there is a big thing at work or its soccer season for the kids and you are running them everywhere all the time. Or maybe it’s just summer and you have getaways planned every weekend. You might even be in a season of a health crisis or grief due to the loss of a loved one. These are seasons of life. These seasons require us to adjust accordingly. But often what we do is just add. We add in all the things instead of focusing on just the priorities and being strong and brave enough to say no to anything that doesn’t fall in line with that.

I need to be clear, it is so freaking hard to say no to things. Sometimes it is even hard to recognize that you need to say no to things. I like to think of life like a plate of food. The healthy way to eat is a nice balanced plate. It will have enough food to sustain you and it will be beautifully presented. When you sit down to eat that plate of food, you will get to fully enjoy the taste of the few things on the plate. You will savor your favorite parts of the meal or wolf down your favorite part first if that’s your style. You will enjoy your surroundings while you eat that meal and feel at peace and joyful for getting to experience the deliciousness.

But when you go to that all you can eat buffet, you pile so much damn food on the plate that you cannot recognize what is on the plate. The mac and cheese isn’t as enjoyable when its covered in sauce from the lemon chicken. Then at some point you realize you’ve eaten so much you feel like fooey. This is what we do in life!! We say yes to everything to the point we can’t recognize ourselves. We are going so fast we don’t make ourselves a priority and/or we are forgetting things and not actually meeting the expectations of all the things we committed to. When we overload our life we don’t get to be fully present for all the pieces of it that are most important. When we are at one place we are focused on the next. This was showing up for me in the form of anger. I was irritated basically always and instead of enjoying the things that I was doing I was anxious because I was mentally trying to figure out how I would get my other priorities done.

If you are feeling like this at all - overwhelmed, anxious, angry, sad, tired, first allow yourself to feel your emotions! It is OKAY to feel however you feel. You might be lost and confused right now, but you can always take a step back to re-prioritize. Here is how I would do this.

First, examine your life right now. What are your top one or two priorities? Once you have identified that, look at the rest of your life and the added commitments you have made. What can you eliminate, delegate, or ask for help doing?

Next, if it’s not a HELL YES, it’s a HELL NO! I owe this one to Darren Hardy. If you get an invite or opportunity presented to you, ask yourself, is this a hell yes? If not, then it’s a hell no. Politely decline and move on.

Get yourself a calendar. Being organized and having things written down is beneficial for two reasons: It gets it out of your mind and onto paper and it is a good visual to see if you actually can do all the things you’ve committed to. I love the Commit 30 calendars. My friend gave me this recommendation last year and it has been great. I love it because it has a monthly view and weekly views. It also has goal setting pages for the year and for each month to break down your bigger goals into smaller ones with action steps. It also has life to-do’s and work to-do’s so you can easily make lists of the things you need to get done. And it has plenty of note pages for all your random thoughts. I have to admit, when I get into an overwhelmed state, I do not look at my calendar. This is usually a good sign to me that I am taking on too much because I don’t even want to or can’t find the time to look at my goals and priorities for the month.