BREAK Time
I am back!
Well, I am hoping you missed me while I was gone from my regular blogging for a couple of months 🙂
While I was “off the radar,” I spent a lot of time investing in the growth of both my agency and my family.
Now, my season of events, proposals, and trips is over. Whew! What a ride!
I am excited to share with you more about what I have learned over the past 2 decades about overcoming challenges, learning to dream again, and making dreams come true.
I hope you are ready to move into a new season in your life—one full of confidence, courage, and consistency.
You have dreams. We have the tools you need to make them come true.
A couple of months ago, I realized that I was saying “yes” to everything, and it was putting me in a huge time crunch every day. Everything was on a timetable.
If you have ever done that, you know how NOT fun it is to live that way.
Family activities were squeezed in between work projects, and work projects were completed over many late nights.
Ugh! Something had to give. Sound familiar?
Time for a BREAK
I looked at everything on my plate, and I called a BREAK!
BREAK is what I do when I need to realign my daily schedule with reaching my goals.
I came up with this system of getting back on track years ago.
At the time, I found myself bouncing back and forth between doing way too much and not doing anything at all.
It is a self-assessment and action plan that helps keep life a little more manageable. And BREAK always works for getting back on track.
BREAK is an acronym for Balance, Refine, Expedite, Abandon, and Keep. I know, acronyms are soooo nineties, but I promise they will help you remember the key actions you need to take to get your life back on track.
If you are sprinting through your days, weeks and months feeling like life is getting out of control, you need to take a BREAK.
#1 Balance
The first thing you must do is take an honest look at where you are with Balance.
Are you spending so much time helping others that you are neglecting yourself or your own family?
Or maybe you are so busy with your own activities and events that you don’t have any time to invest in anyone else.
Keep track of how you are spending your hours. Do this for 2 weeks and then take a hard look at where your time is being spent.
The hardest part of this is recognizing that you really cannot do it all. At least not all at the same time! In order to fix the craziness, you have to acknowledge you are out of balance AND that you have the power to bring your life back into Balance.
#2 Refine
Once you know what is causing the imbalance, Refine your process for determining what you can commit to doing.
During this refining, you will want to make sure your top goals and priorities are reflected in your process of deciding how to spend your time.
There may be things you enjoy doing that are stopping you from doing what you LOVE to do. Perhaps there is a situation that is causing a temporary higher demand on your time (which was my case over the past two months).
It could also be a life-changing circumstance that will impact your time commitments for an extended period (like the birth of a baby, a new job, a family member going to prison, etc.)
Now that you know what is causing the chaos, you can refine your decision-making to take that into consideration.
A “yes” in the past may have to become a “not now” or a “no” based upon your new process for deciding how you will spend your time.
Your process should always reflect what your dreams are, so you can invest in the things that are most important.
Sometimes, we have already committed to things that we have started, but not finished. I am talking about things you HAVE to finish – like a bathroom project, a term paper, things that no one else can do.
These things keep us from moving forward and suck up a lot of emotional energy as we procrastinate on finishing them.
#3 Expedite
This is where Expedite comes in.
The things you need to get done, get them done.
Make a list of things you started that need to be completed.
Then you can move onto the things you REALLY want to do and commit as much time and energy as possible to completing those tasks.
Just do it, and do it quickly to get it off your plate.
The sense of relief you will feel when those things are finished will lighten your load a ton!
#4 Abandon
Now, if you don’t HAVE to do it, it is time to Abandon.
As you look at everything through your new, refined process, you will find out there are things you are doing that can wait or be eliminated.
The hardest part of this is the guilt we feel as we are making the decision to abandon something we have been doing.
You may only be abandoning it for a few weeks until your schedule is more manageable, or you may have to abandon it completely.
You will come to that decision when you look at what is most important, all the things you must do, and how long you will be doing what you are doing now.
Simple, right?
Abandon what isn’t absolutely necessary at the moment you are in.
Don’t feel guilty!
These are your dreams (and your sanity!) that we are talking about.
If it doesn’t fit as one of the most important things you do, get rid of it for good.
If you just don’t have time for it right now, abandon it and come back to it later.
#5 Keep
Lastly, and most importantly, Keep.
Keep doing it!
Keep using the BREAK to align your life with your goals.
When you do this consistently, you will also be keeping your dreams in front of you.
AND you will be able to keep your promises.
The best way to break a promise is to get sidetracked by all the little stuff for a long time.
Be sure you are investing in achieving what you dream of—a strong family, a home you own, a vacation.
Whatever your dreams are, keep them in front of you and weigh everything else against those dreams.
In order to keep your promises, you have to have some wiggle room built into your schedule.
You cannot be everywhere and do everything for everybody.
Keeping your promises means you are using your process to make decisions that fit into your lifestyle.
This simple process will help you get back on track and keep you moving on your journey to make your dreams come true.
You can do it. I am rooting for you!
Cathy