Are you gearing up for the shift into your fall schedule or are you lingering in the final days of summer chill out mode?
The fall often buzzes along faster than you think! You find yourself caught up in the whirlwind of activities, obligations and commitments.
If you’re not mindful of what you’ve packed into the season, you may wake up midway and find yourself desperately in need of that holiday break at the end of the year.
Does this sound familiar? Is this an annual cycle in which you find yourself?
Maybe you’re a time optimist. I know I can be!
You think you can pack all sorts of great stuff into just a few months – courses, getaways, socials, creative ventures, new goals…it all sounds very exciting when you’re planning in advance and you totally figure you can get into a nice routine and squeeze it all in. Right?
And then reality sets in as the weeks come and go, and what ends up happening is definitely not 100% of the activities and goals you’d hoped to get to.
I’ve got some ideas about how to make this fall different.
1. The power of saying no
Let’s start by considering your commitments and obligations. Are you involved in too many time and energy-consuming groups or organizations?
While these may be totally worthwhile and important causes, if you’re always feeling squeezed for time or aren’t getting enough quality time with your family or friends, you may want to reconsider these kinds of commitments. Even if it’s a temporary hiatus to see if it makes a difference in your quality of life.
Another area where you could think about saying no is in requests from others for your time. If you have a habit of saying yes when others ask you to do things for them, to show up for all the things, try strengthening that no muscle!
This can affect both your work and personal life. If you have a habit of always saying yes, you may find that people sometimes take advantage of that. This might be fine with you, but if you notice that it happens frequently and then you get bogged down by extra requests and work, you may end up with an upsurge of resentment or anger and not know where it’s coming from.
If you know you really don’t have time for it or that something else in your life will suffer for it, what if saying no is actually in your highest good? If you have the time and energy and it feels right to you to say yes, by all means. But the knee-jerk yes is something to bring your awareness to for your own well-being!
2. Simplify to create space
There’s so much on everyone’s plates these days. Some of these things are unavoidable, like caring for an ailing parent or taking care of your children and all of their development needs.
We all need space. Space to breathe, to grow, to love, to explore, to reflect, to slow down, and to just feel.
There’s your physical space. I haven’t yet read Marie Kondo’s book or watched her show, but the idea of decluttering just makes practical sense. There’s something more to it, and often clearing out the excess stuff does something positive for us on lots of levels. I’m in the midst of a big declutter and redo of our space and am writing this from an almost-empty living room at the moment as we await some new furniture!
There’s also the space that happens when you have more time. I’m going to call that time space. This involves clearing more of your schedule to allow breathing room and even some empty time spaces to just be. Time to relax and spend time with yourself and/or with loved ones.
Setting aside that time space may not seem possible, but if it’s set as a priority, you can find a way to make it so.
Finally, there’s your mental space. When your mind gets filled with stuff, that space seems unavailable. That valuable real estate may be filled with all the mundane to-do lists, goals, emotional states, and all the worries and thinking about what happened yesterday and what might happen tomorrow. It can be a junkyard of stuff.
The key here is to remember that even if your mental space feels cluttered, you have options. For all the to-do items, you can get them out of your head and onto paper or your phone or computer. Schedule all that into your calendar and you don’t need to keep juggling it in your mind.
For the worries and thoughts of past and future and all the other mental noise, it might help to notice that you don’t have to actually pay attention to it, act on it, or even believe it. You could just let it come and go and then get on with whatever you need to do. This is the essence of ULTRA tapping if you haven’t yet tried it!
3. Be realistic about your time and energy
There’s being a time optimist and then there’s being a time fantasizer. You probably know what your energy is like and how much you can handle in any given week or month.
See if you can begin to honour your needs and recognize what is doable for you. Set your priorities and let go of some of the rest if it’s at all possible. You may need to reassess your goals and expectations around this, but your future self will thank you when you actually have space to be and to flourish.
Part of being realistic includes scheduling in or ensuring flexible blocks of time for unexpected events. Flu season, unanticipated demands at work…you know the kinds of things that can and often do come up out of the blue. Making sure that you have built in breaks so you don’t burn out and catch up time for projects can make all the difference.
4. Set a clear intention for your fall
The final suggestion is to pause and consider what you want your fall to feel like. What do you actually want to experience? There’s a simple exercise that my friend Tanis Frame posted last year around this time that can really help with gaining clarity around this.
- Take an index card or big sticky note and write your name in the middle.
- Choose a time period. It could be a week, a month, or in this case, the time between now and the winter holidays.
- Ask yourself what matters most to you during this time period? Jot the items down around your name. Keep it simple and don’t put too many things.
- Post this somewhere that you’ll see it and keep that in mind over the upcoming months.
This is not what matters most to others, or what you think should matter most. It’s also not a to-do list or a set of goals. It might be things like:
- Creating a home haven (e.g. tidying, decluttering, organizing or beautifying your home environment)
- Connecting with family
- Spending time with friends
- Feeling physically strong and healthy
- Feeling grounded and centered
According to Tanis, these should be the kind of high level things that matter most to you.
I loved this exercise and found it surprisingly useful. I’m guessing you might too.
Well, that’s all for now on this and I hope you are able to create the kind of season that you would love to experience!
Stephanie
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