Embrace the imbalance in your life
This article is for those of you who feel a little out of balance right now.
For those of you who wake up every day and wish the day would go in one direction but instead your day goes in a totally unpredictable direction.
Or those of you who wake up and don’t feel like doing anything although you have things on your mind which you would like to do but you just cannot force yourself to act.
For me personally November is one of the most challenging months of the year.
You wake up, it’s dark and cold outside. Before you know it you finish work and it’s again dark and cold outside. Due to the less pleasant weather conditions we tend to spend more time at home and after a lively summer and colourful autumn, my life usually tends to get out of balance around November.
Work
At work it is usually crazy busy in November. Everyone is striving to achieve whatever goals they had in mind for the year before the Christmas holidays start. This puts a lot of pressure on project management with end user testing periods and go lives being planned in parallel in order to be able to satisfy our clients’ needs.
This month was no different than any other year and it was probably the most busy one I have had since I started my current role at Phenom. This resulted in me juggling multiple projects and prioritizing every single minute of my day and night.
Motherhood
During the past month our daughter was having some growth spurt or sleep regression or both (apparently common for 18 month olds). She resisted falling asleep before 10–11 pm and she also didn’t sleep well through the night.
This was causing even more frustration about having even less time for anything else besides work and taking care of her.
And when she finally managed to fall asleep on her own and to sleep through the night for three nights in a row, she got the chicken pox. Well, at least we had those three nights of sleep as preparation of what was about to happen next 🙂
Personal aspirations
On a daily basis I feel angry with myself for not being disciplined enough to exercise as much as I would like. I haven’t been in the gym since March and whatever I do at home comes nowhere close to what I wish I would be able to do outside of the house.
When it comes to housekeeping, I keep promising myself that one day I will bring order to every possible drawer of my house and the basement. Unfortunately, this day has not yet come.
In terms of writing I wish I could push myself to finish my next article on time (at least a week before the publishing date) so I would have time to translate it in Bulgarian as well which has been my target for a while. Yet I end up finalizing my article on the targeted publishing day.
As much as I am trying to plan and prioritize my goals in the most efficient way, there are just not enough hours in the day to accomplish everything I would like to accomplish. Not enough energy either…
On top of everything I have listed above, we have the whole corona virus pandemic situation that keeps on spreading across the globe.
It’s been more than ten months since the last time I went to the office and it was full of people. I start to forget about how my life looked before the pandemic.
I crave for human interactions. I miss my friends, some of whom got pregnant in the last few months and I haven’t had the chance to see in person yet (you know who you are).
I miss travelling. Exploring new places and broadening my perspective.
I miss visiting my clients in person. Walking around their offices and looking them in the eye instead of talking to a screen.
I miss my family. Even though I was in Bulgaria in the summer, I miss the broader family gatherings and the fun to be surrounded by people you have known and who have known you your whole life. And I know I will miss them even more on Christmas and New Year’s Eve which this year would be different than what we were used to.
I assume many of us are starting to lose our patience and maybe also some portion of our positive thinking around this time of the year when the dark cold days are not really helping the situation.
Some of us are asking questions like:
“How much longer is it going to take?”
“When are we going to be able to live our lives the way we used to?”
And whether that would even be possible.
What’s in it for you?
No, this article is not a pessimistic way of looking at life.
I have already written multiple articles where I share my lessons learned or tips and tricks for motivating ourselves and getting the best out of each situation (hopefully, you will find some useful links at the end of this article).
Although I have plenty of tips and ideas I can share with you right now, this month I am not going to give you a recipe for solving all your problems.
This article is a way for me to share how I feel this month and hopefully a way for you to relate to some of my feelings or experiences or a possibility to remind you that you are not the only one having similar thoughts and feelings.
This month I would like to pause and acknowledge our mixed feelings, the fatigue, the lack of security, the inability to plan ahead of time, the boredom or the lack of time or any other factors that are causing us to feel out of balance.
It is time to admit that we cannot have it all. Not all the time and certainly not right now.
There are periods in our lives when not everything is working out as we would have liked.
Since some aspects of our lives and what’s happening in the world is beyond our control, what we can do is to focus on a few things that are important and achievable right now and to keep all the nice to have’s for times when our priorities or circumstances shift in a more favorable direction.
Embrace the imbalance in our lives.
From my experience one of the ways to restore the balance in my life has been to first embrace the imbalance. To accept the situation and to focus on what’s feasible and realistic.
It’s ok if you don’t have the energy to get out of bed. It’s ok if you don’t feel quite motivated or optimistic about the future. It’s ok that you have not been able to do what you were planning to do this year.
As long as we are still here and breathing our lives are still ahead of us.
How we feel and what we miss in our lives is definitely something we should talk about more often and let the people around us support us and let us feel loved and appreciated.
Yes, I can keep on beating myself over the fact that I don’t have a six pack or I can turn it around and open up a six pack of beer instead 😉
It’s all up to us to determine how we are going to shape our reality.
Related articles
LESSONS LEARNED WHILE BEING “LOCKED” AT HOME
WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS, MAKE LEMONADE
IT’S OK TO ASK FOR HELP. FIND OUT WHY AND HOW TO DO IT MORE OFTEN.
A MEANINGFUL ACTIVITY A DAY KEEPS THE BURNOUT AWAY
LVRC quote photo available via: https://www.lasvegasrecovery.com/addiction-blog/chronic-pain-quotes/
Originally published at http://nelimesyova.com on November 26, 2020.
