As we continue on our journey to “Escape the Overwhelm,” today we are spending time reflecting on what is really important to us. This is particularly timely because today is our first daughter Clara’s 5th heavenly birthday. During the days and weeks that followed her death, I was able to be more clear than ever about what was most important – and what was not. There were so many little things that used to bother me that seemed completely inconsequential and meaningless. I also valued my relationships more than ever and leaned heavily on the love of family, friends (several were also part of our coalition) and Jesus. As I reflect on this day, I want to challenge you to join me in considering three questions related to how you want to spend your time and energy.
- What do you want more of during your daily or weekly routine? This could include being more thankful, exercising, leaving the office in time to spend quality time with those closest to you, sleeping, scheduling time with close friends or family, reading, praying, writing, giving, listening, focusing on priorities, believing the best in those closest to you, and many other things. Start out by thinking of one area that you want to emphasize and then start practicing it for the next month.
- What do you want less of during your daily or weekly routine? This could include complaining less, working fewer hours, saying “yes” too quickly, scheduling meetings without a clear purpose and agenda, talking too much, avoiding conflict, participating in extracurricular activities, eating unhealthy food, eating out, shopping, spending time on social media, comparing ourselves to others and the list could continue. Try choosing one area to emphasize and start also practicing this for the next month.
- What do you want to be about the same during your daily or weekly routine? It’s easy to think that everything has to be “more” or “less”. However, we don’t have to make changes in every area of our lives. You may have had some great breakthroughs in one of your most important relationships and you want to continue that progress. You may have found a rhythm in your day and your week that you want to continue. You may be exercising consistently or have successfully created some margin in your life. I encourage you to keep up the things in your life that are working well and not to get burdened by having to move forward to new things in every area of life.
I know there may be several areas where you want to do “more” or “less” over the next few days or weeks, but I encourage you to only choose one “more” and one “less” or maybe your “more” automatically impacts your “less.” 🙂 By keeping things simple and narrowing your focus, you will be able to see progress and not enter a new state of “overwhelmed!”
So what kind of things make your list? What do you want to do more of, less of or stay the same over the next month?
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Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash
