On a recent client call, while waiting for everyone to join our meeting, my client casually asked: “So, how is work going over there?” to which I responded, “Oh, it’s so busy. We are keeping our heads down and working away.” I then recognized that I repeated this a few more times as others joined in the call.
Although this observation is true, we are busy, it made me think long after the comment was made that often, we assume that the world around us is creating this feeling of busyness in our lives. However, if we look more closely, it’s often the motion in our minds — our mindset — that is making us feel hectic.
The reality is that we are in a feedback loop of tension, and it isn’t serving us well. Our society has made it necessary for us to believe that “busy” is “successful” when the truth is, we can be working and busy but do not need to associate it with feeling stressed and tense. Further, it is this dialog we have with ourselves that reinforces this message — and we can miss being present in what is actually happening around us.
Recently, I’ve felt as though the world has swung back open its doors and flipped on the lights all at once. I’m not sure what I was expecting as we came out of a pandemic, but I think I believed it would happen more gradually over a period of time. In addition to workloads increasing (thankfully!), schools and sports, fundraisers and ceremonies, clubs, meeting and in-person social events are all back on suddenly. While I welcome and am excited to meet safely in-person and for my kids to be active and social, there is a part of me that hopes to rewrite the script — that I don’t have to go back to hectic life I was accustom to when I’ve seen what the reverse of that looks like.
When the world shut down, we were forced to stop and reflect; where I went was to consider what my family’s schedule and time together (and apart) looked like before, and that this was an opportunity for me to change my pace when things “return to normal.”
A large part of that changed pace is what I agree and commit to, but the other part is the mind shift I can make within myself. I can choose to consciously decide to let go of the storylines in my mind and acknowledge when I’m busy, and that doesn’t mean I can’t also be relaxed and present to what is happening around me. I also need to be aware when it’s important to take better care of me.
I saw a commercial last night that stated “Time is free, but it’s priceless. Time that’s lost cannot be found. Time is infinite, but it’s short …” and so on. Wow. That put the point on the pencil for me.
My son texted me this morning from school asking if I could drop off his sweatshirt for his tennis game later today. I texted him back that I would. He then texted “I love you, Mom. Can we eat dinner together tonight. I miss you.”
This week, I had a board meeting call last night, an in-person Garden Club meeting Tuesday night and worked late on Monday. My daughter had a dance clinic, and my son had tennis matches each night. But it took his text to remind me to not allow us to go all the way back to where we were.
Right now we have a rare opportunity to choose the life we want to live going forward. We can choose our pace and our mindset. Telling ourselves to always “be busy” pulls us away from one of the most valuable lessons we learned: We can go into any situation in life and it doesn’t matter what arises if, in our mind, we are able to step back and stay present. Take a moment each day to check-in with your mindset and the stories you are telling yourself; are they helping you, or are they hurting you?
If we can help you and your business find its new normal, give us a shout at 203-776-1323 or amy@elementsdesign.com
—Amy
