Lighten up your backpack (part 1)
Hello ….how are you today?
Sometimes we carry so much on our shoulders that we feel like they’re going to break. The challenge is to have the discernment to know what we can take out of our backpack in order to live our vision and mission feeling lighter.
You can listen to the podcast with this player, or if you prefer reading you have a written version below. Enjoy it!
One of my clients is very tired, she can't sleep well, and she feels somewhat stressed. She told me that working hard and taking control of everything is part of her DNA. It's hard not to feel identified with her when we have our long to-do-lists for each day – the laundry, cooking, cleaning, e-mails, favors, shopping, exercising, working, children (if you have them), pets (if you have them), and hobbies.
“So what?”
I always share the anecdote of a therapist I had many years ago who kept asking me, “So what?” It seems simple but I had a hard time implementing it. Nowadays, I ask myself this question all the time when I feel under pressure. For example, I have many unanswered messages, night comes, and I only answered 70% of them. So what? If they are important, I’ll answer them the next morning and if they are not, they will wait for their turn. I have to teach a class at university but I couldn't plan for it the way I wanted. So what? I'm going to go, deliver my topic, and do my best at that moment, that's it. Four words that come to mind when I think about the stress and the exhaustion that come up as a byproduct of having so much on our plate are: priorities, boundaries, beliefs, and identity. In this first part, we are going to explore priorities and boundaries. Next week, I’m going to expand on beliefs and the identity that we take, which are fundamental pillars in our quality of life.
Priorities and boundaries
Priorities and boundaries are connected. I’ve told you many times that I lived a big part of my adolescence and young adulthood pleasing others. The problem was that since I wasn't able to set boundaries to external demands, I ended up feeling resentful because I ended coming last and I didn't get to do what was really important to me. Studying topics such as flow states and time management, I came to many conclusions. The first is that time is not managed or controlled. What is in our power is the ability to choose where we are going to invest our energy and how we are going to organize our tasks in the time we have. What helped me the most, and I confess that I don't always put it into practice, is Eisenhower's principle of urgent and important tasks. What qualifies as urgent and what as important?
Important: activities that have an outcome related to achieving our goals, professional or personal. Consider starting a course that will help you master a subject you're passionate about, or starting regular exercise or therapy.
Urgent: activities that demand our immediate attention, usually related to another person’s objectives. These are the activities that we prioritize the most because the consequences of not doing them are immediate. Think about answering emails, talking on the phone, attending many meetings, or doing favors for friends or colleagues.
Tip! ✍️
Make a list of everything you have to do. Then classify each activity as:
Important and Urgent
Important but not Urgent
Not Important but Urgent
Neither Important nor Urgent.
Once you classify your tasks, organize them in the order that I shared with you above from 1 to 4. Give priority to (1) and (2).
Examples:
Important and Urgent: a presentation at work, studying for an exam, or paying the rent or the mortgage.
Important but not urgent: are all the activities that contribute to the realization of your aspirations and/or professional or personal goals in the mid or long term. Starting a course to reinforce your knowledge or to unlock a passion, are good examples.
& 4. Everything else can be delegated, rescheduled, or just done away with by setting healthy boundaries.
If you want to learn to set boundaries, you can read this post I wrote on the subject
saying no
Key to this is to learn to differentiate between saying no to a task or action and not to the person who asks for it. Being able to say “no” to something that will strain our peace, time, and needs is an act of self-respect and it’s the opposite of the story we were told that to be loved and accepted we have to say yes to everything. Let me give you an example, since I’m bilingual, I’m often asked to translate long and important texts. At first, it was hard for me to say “I can’t” because I felt guilty or because I was afraid of the other person's reaction. Then I understood that saying “it’s impossible for me to do this with this deadline, look for a translator please” or “I cannot commit to this much” was the best way to respect the bond I had with the other person and with myself. I know this is a big challenge, but start respecting yourself because it's a liberating act.
I hope you liked the first part of this blog, if you know someone who could benefit from it, forward it to them and invite them to subscribe. In this way, we can build bridges to help one another. Pay attention to the second part because our beliefs and the identity we take greatly influence this topic. We appreciate your recommendation on any of the platforms you listen to us. This makes us more visible and motivates us to continue.
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A big hug ❤