Feel the Rain

 It has been such a long time since I have put fingers to keyboard for My Art of Motherhood. So much has happened. Lock down, recovery, reflecting, re-prioritising, surviving. Uncertainty, so much uncertainty. Like for so many others my sense of balance, my ability to just 'be' is something that has not only come to the fore, but is now an active priority in my life.

I have always been exceptionally driven, always looking at the next venture, which has pushed me to always go higher. But what am I missing out on in the meantime? I think most of us have done some reflecting of this sort through the unprecedented experience of going into a whole country lock-down. Realising what matters to us. What doesn't. What is truly important.

Striving for a remarkable life for me reflects my passion and desire to help people, I am always so purpose driven no matter what pursuit I am engaged in which also creates an intensity that can feed stress. We never know what is around the corner and one day it will be the end. What do I need to do differently? Life is now.

Supporting a growing business through an experience like lock-down whilst having children at home, a house to run and no reprieve created a massive strain on my nervous system. It became all about surviving the days, surviving as a business, surviving as a family.

Yet building resilience through this experience and some further challenges of late have enabled me to find contentment again, to feel settled and happy.

One realisation I have had however, is that I have lost the sense of fun in my life. I don't know if the cause was the survival focus triggered by lockdown, or the focus required in recent years in building a new business, the focus on learning and growing, the sleepless nights juggling young children and a teenager over this time. Most likely a compound affect, regardless it has resulted in my inability to experience that true light hearted laughter. I am  finally content and happy again but so different, so serious. Strange as it seems, I feel like I almost need to 'relearn' how to have fun, to find what fills me with that sense of light, carefree laughter.  

Live, love, laugh. It is such a cliche, yet it is so simple. Living, loving and laughing to me means feeling the rain on my skin. Breathing in  deeply the fresh air of these pre spring mornings. Soaking in the smiles and laughter of my little treasures (growing up far too quickly).

Striving to live everyday is now the most desired challenge to date and specifically to find the sense of fun in the unremarkable of the every day. This new challenge requires a reset in focus and reflection on priorities everyday, thankfulness for the little things, soaking in the 'everyday' moments that I will treasure for my lifetime. 

The unremarkable, may just be the most remarkable of all. 

Recognising the Sweet Spot

I chose this photo of my youngest from her newborn photo shoot as the image for this piece for a very specific reason - it symbolises the 'perfect' example of what it takes to achieve perfection. To capture the beautiful images of our newborn through the shoot, took hours of gentle maneuvering of our seven day old bub. The photographer was exceptional, to get this particular shot took patient, gentle stroking of her fingers, to eventually have them uncurl for the perfect resting pose to support her head whilst she snoozed. I may be a little biased, but I definitely feel like we achieved perfection! Here is the thing though: In this case I very much feel that the time and effort was worth it. If I am honest with myself however, there are definitely many areas in my life where I am pushing for that 100% and just maybe, it is not worth the effort...

In the constant pursuit of my development through learning (listening to audio books and podcasts being my favorite way) I came across a simple but life changing concept - the 80/20 rule. In terms of personal and professional development, I find that the topics and concepts that I am drawn to tent to often fit into both categories. The 80/20 rule is very much that, a universal, life changing rule. I discovered it in a book 'The untethered soul at work' by Micheal Singer, who spoke about it in relation to his work as the CEO of his company with over 2000 staff, referencing it as a business rule. The essence of it is this: 80% of the result comes from 20% effort, the last 20% of the result comes from the remaining 80% effort. Micheal describes the 20% input with 80% return as the 'sweet spot'. Now as a self proclaimed perfectionist the 'aha' moment that came from hearing about this concept has been life changing. It makes so much sense! I think back to the development of our first brochure for Growth Development, the essence of which came so quickly,and then we worked to refine it for 2 months, a frustrating and time consuming process.  80/20 isn't just about work, it is such an amazing concept to apply to all of life, especially for us perfectionists who are vulnerable to drive ourselves into oblivion. As raised in some of my other writing, combating the stiff notion of perfectionism is very much what my journey through My Art of Motherhood is about, and 80/20 is such a simple, yet powerful concept to support this personal growth.

Think about the last time you drove yourself to that exhausting, frustrating place, in the pursuit of getting 'it' perfect. Was there a point that you came to easily, that perhaps was 80% of the final perfect result? Yet to get it to meet your perceived standard of 100% it took so much more time and effort over and above that 80%(that came so easily)? According to 80/20, if we stop at 80% of the perfect result, we save ourselves 80% of our time and effort... to put that into perspective, that is the difference between spending 2 hours on something vs 10 hours!!! Now there are definitely thing in life that are worth 5 times the effort but something to think about is this: What is it that is worth 5 times the effort? If you are like me, you may find that there are a tonne of priorities that an 80% result is just  fine!

Here is to recognising the sweet spot. 

Imagine If You Really Tried

 

Imagine what your life would look like if you really tried, without fear of failure holding you back. A recent discovery regarding the relationship between expectations and fear of failure has been life changing for me. 

Nothing good comes from expectations, those that we place on others and those that we place on ourselves. Expectations are concrete, stiff notions of how things should be that ultimately set us up to fail. Even if we meet them for some time (for example the expectation that we are calm and present with our children or the expectation of how much exercise we should do), eventually we do not meet our expectation and then we fail. With failure comes negativity towards ourselves and towards others if our expectation is of others. Feelings that they are not enough, that we are not enough.

The other thing about expectations is that they instill fear. They stop us from pursuing what we really want, they stop us from really trying to do our best, to smash through our own limitations.

What if we got rid of expectations? What if we instead of  expectations we decide to have standards? Standards of how we want out life to be...

A standard in this context is an inspiring goal, the bar that we set for what we want our life to be like. In my relationship with my husband, I have come to recently think and talk about the standard that we want for our relationship. This is about defining the connection, the backing each other and being on the same team rather than at war. Does this platform mean we are always on the same team? Not always! But we both are committed to the same goals, the same standards. What this means is that rather than having individual expectations of each other which eventually we will not sustain, we have set a bar which guides us to reset the course if we are off track. For example 'to be considerate of each other' is an expectation that eventually both of us will fail to meet. That is so because consideration looks different to different people, and what 'we expect' is inside of our heads. So even if we were constantly on form, without a crystal ball we can never meet such an expectation! This failure will lead to feelings of frustration, hurt, lacking respect for each other.  If instead we re-frame this expectation into a standard of 'supporting each other and being committed to understanding each other's point of view'. It is presented to us as the bar to aspire too as appose to something to fail at. Then we can talk about and recognise what works well for both of us and what we want to continue to build on.

Now if I were to grade my ability to apply this new way of  thinking, I would say I am about to advance from toddler to kindergarten level! However practice is something I can continue to do and I know that with practice I get better at things. The thing is, this realisation can be life changing and it has been for me.

True practice in growing a new skill requires some stumbles too! Which leads to the other thing about replacing expectations with standards. In being dedicated to growth rather than perfection, we all of a sudden open the door on being able to test and push through our limits. Imagine that...  Imagine removing the fear of failure to allow yourself to really go for it and live your life to the fullest. 

The Thing is, Life Changes

I spent some time recently reflecting on my writing in relation to expectations… I see some regression here. As I read the words I have written, I think to myself 'who is this wise person, or more importantly where has she gone?'

I realise that this life I have means continual change, whether that is in my outer or inner space. Things are changing constantly, thoughts, ideas, plans.  The changes keep coming, requiring adaption, insight and growth. So much return comes from this time in my life, yet with such rapid change comes a level of vulnerability, a vulnerability to abandon what I know, a vulnerability to neglect what is important. Competing priorities. I see I was writing about this at the beginning of this crazy journey and here I am, continuing the motherhood vs. career battle so many of us know too well. The things is, I struggle to know what it is a I truly want, which feeds this sense of competing priorities. Here I am, in this fortunate position to be flexible in my work, my life being able to adjust as needed and for this I am truly grateful… and yet, it is tough. The pressure, the constant competing demands.

Recently my youngest was beginning (for the first time ever) not wanting to go to preschool. She would cry every morning and cling to me. This is my adventurer, the one that has such a zest for life, activity and people, she has always loved preschool and I even struggled to give her enough stimulation when home! That’s right she is the one that I could guilt free hand over to care – What happened?! So I go there. Of course I go there, the full blown mama guilt driven dissection of my actions, thoughts, my perceived failures.. What am I doing wrong? Have I misread her? Maybe she really needs to be home with her mum full time? What am I doing? I can’t bear to force my child to stay somewhere, where she clearly doesn’t want to be? Clinging to me screaming as her teachers try to pry her off me;  you know the scene, if not your own someone else’s you have witnessed at drop off time. She has always had such a strong mind and knows herself, she will let me know when things aren’t right, she is letting me know things aren’t right… and on and on.

A bit of the back story, one of the drivers behind my enterprise Growth Development is understanding the tension that modern day working parents, and especially mothers, hold everyday. The 'do I send my child to care when they are not 100%' is one of the most guilt ridden decisions a mum as to navigate over and over throughout the work and parenthood balancing act. So in my work mission to unleashing the potential of people at work, mastery of the ‘flow’ between motherhood and career seems like such a great piece to focus on, starting with me.

Here is the thing... the concepts of ‘mastery’ and ‘right’ have a lot in common with ‘perfect’... ahhh my lens is set in that black and white absolute place again! Focussed on unsustainable stiff expectations of right or wrong, success or failure. As I step back and reflect, I realise that all that is important right now, is that we are not on track in relation to the standard set for our child. The rest doesn’t matter. The next question is how do we get back track? And it is as simple as that. Applying this thought process not only sorted the preschool situation (we actually made some major improvements for both of the children) but it also reminded me it is the same for everything else that had been slipping in my life.

So in relation to next big challenge... what is the standard? What are we working towards? I realise all of a sudden 'the standard' is unclear...  gaining clarity of that standard, that is the place to begin.

Everything for Everyone

I am so grateful to be in a position of pursuing my purpose through my work.  However the more passion I hold for what I do the harder it seems to make the juggle of motherhood, career & life work. 

Maybe we are not meant to juggle. Maybe there is a better way. What if the answer lies in NOT being everything to everyone. What if this  expectation, is just an expectation that we place on ourselves. That would mean we have the ability to change it from one moment to the next.

 

“Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

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