Is It Really Your Priority?

Who is ready for Spring? I mean…truly Spring. I know that Spring means the weather is all over the place, and there is generally more rain than we want to have because after Winter, we just want some sun and warmer temps! After that second week of March when we were in the 60’s and even had a day or two in the 70’s, this back-to-reality gloomy, rainy, cloudy 40’s feels depressing again. If you live in the Midwest, we know that those really nice early March days were just False Spring. It’s when Mother Nature gives you a taste of what is to come and gets your hopes up and then says, “Just Kidding!” That was False Spring, and back we go to Third Winter. What we are in right now is actually Spring. We need the rain to soak deep into the soil and prepare it for growing crops and grass and all of the things that we love about summer. We need that rain to go deep so that it is available for when the summer sun is baking the Earth, and it hasn’t rained for a while, and the crops can sink those roots down to find the moisture to keep growing.

So why am I going on and on about rain and weather and talking about grass and crops and roots? Because this is starting over. Spring is when it all starts over. Spring is when life seems to get back on track. Yes, this is the part when I compare the weather and the seasons to our lives, and you’re all thinking, “Blah blah blah, Julia! We’ve heard this before! Move on with something else!” I want you to hear me out. The last year, as we all know, has likely been one of the most ridiculous years of our lives. At least it has been for me. I don’t know if you could make this stuff up for a movie. In our lives, not only did we deal with the pandemic, but we dealt with the deaths of two of my kids’ friends 4.5 months apart and a COVID Senior year of high school. There are so many words that I could use to describe it from life-changing, depressing, adjusting, tragic, traumatic to resiliency-building, eye-opening, re-focusing, and realistic. My preferred way to describe it is ridiculous. It makes no sense. Everything is stupid and weird and not particularly helpful. In spite of that, I have had some positive take-aways and all of these events have pushed me to take some action. That is what I want for you, too.

I feel that I, like may of you, am in this Spring period of my life. It’s time to start over and refocus. I am refocusing on starting a business and all of the things that I need to do for it. I am refocusing on my running and having to sort of start over since I took so much time off over the winter. I am trying to focus on what is important right now, and I don’t mean stopping to smell the roses or spending time with my family. When it comes to my family in my house, I think we’ve had A LOT of togetherness over the past year! Those things are important, but what I mean is if I say that I want to have my own business or train to run 100 miles, why am I not making it a #1 priority? This is a question I ask my coaching patients all the time. If you say that it is important to you, and yet you aren’t doing everything in your power to make it happen, then it must not be a priority. I think I really needed to learn that for myself over the past year. How can I say my business is my priority when weeks and months would go by, and I wouldn’t do anything about it? I kept setting goals for myself around it, but other things took precedence over it. Laundry, dishes, groceries…all of those things are critical to making our household run, but are they my priorities? No, those are just daily tasks. Maybe the laundry doesn’t get done today because I took an hour to write a blog post. We will live. We will be fine. Maybe we have sandwiches for dinner because I took that hour to run. No one is dying.

I decided to call myself out on my own bullshit. I decided to answer the hard question that I ask my patients-Is it really your priority? And I had to tell myself that it obviously wasn’t. I asked myself what it would look like to make this dream business a priority. What would it look like to make running and training a priority? The answer was clear. Stop scrolling social media endlessly (still working on that), ignore the laundry and the dishes even if they are eating at your OCD, and do the work that needs to be done! I can’t wait for the perfect time when the house is clean and the laundry is done and the dogs aren’t barking at each other and the sun is shining to write a blog post or work on a coaching outline. If I want it, I have to make it happen no matter how it gets done. I can write and read sitting in my car waiting to pick up a kid. Five minutes at work after I finish a project and need to think about something else for a minute, I can sneak in a few strength moves.

Those little moments of taking the time to work on my priorities are like the sun peaking through the clouds even for 5 minutes during the day. That rain that is soaking deep into the ground is the work that I am putting in now so I have posts for later when I am having a busy week and don’t have time to write. The squats and lunges that I am doing at work are helpful for the days when I can’t get that strength routine or that run in because I have meetings all evening. I am banking that work for later. I am starting over again and getting back on track. Soon the sun will come out more and more. Soon this business will take off. Soon I will get that 100 miler in.

My challenge today to you is this: What do you want to change, have been saying that you are going to work on, that you haven’t? Do you want to start walking the dog? Get your family to eat more vegetables? Write in a journal daily? Just load the dishwasher once a day? Ask yourself the hard question-Is this really a priority? And then figure out a way to make that happen. We’ll check back in in a few weeks to see how that is going and find some ways to help you, and me, make those goals happen.

Love from The Edge,

Julia