If you’re like me you are juggling more balls than you are likely capable of, but somehow you are doing it anyway. More balls keep getting thrown at you but it’s like you don’t have a chance to toss one to someone next to you to accommodate the new ones. And it’s not just the volume of balls that’s increasing, some of the balls feel like cement. Sometimes it feels like if you drop just one of them, the whole house comes crumbling down.
I want to share an analogy with you from best selling author Nora Roberts. She shared this in a Q & A session at a book signing a couple of years ago when she was being asked about juggling her successful writing career and raising children. She said:
“the key to juggling is to know that some of the balls you have in the air are made of plastic, and some are made of glass. If you drop a plastic ball, it bounces. No harm done. If you drop a glass ball, it shatters. Much harm done. You have to know which ones are glass, and which ones are plastic.”
Which Balls to Drop
I keep this analogy tucked in my pocket and when I have my calendars out on Sunday night preparing for the week ahead I look for the plastic balls and I look for the glass balls. For me glass balls always include my children, my husband, my sleep, my morning exercise routine, and my clients. I WILL NOT and cannot drop those. Plastic balls for me look like extra projects I’ve taken on for work (this newsletter is a perfect example!), cooking a homemade meal, volunteer commitments, housework, time with friends (this pains me), reading for pleasure etc.
These things change every week and the key to being able to “juggle it all” is being flexible and accepting that there is no one right or perfect way.
Women disproportionately carry the invisible load in our society and it feels like we are the project managers of the lives of everyone around us. Without giving our consent we end up with significantly more responsibility for the remembering, conceptualizing, and planning tasks of domestic and work life. The effect this is having on our mental health is nearly catastrophic and something has to change.
Join Me!
I spend a lot of my time helping women navigate the mental load they carry; minimizing and managing it so their mental health doesn’t suffer as much. I’ve generalized some of these strategies (that I use in my life every day!) and I’m bringing them to you in a virtual workshop.
Join me on 3/23 at Minimizing the Mental Load: a virtual workshop for women who want to learn practical strategies to reduce the exhaustion and manage the mental load of being a woman and mother.
You will learn how to make fewer decisions, how to systemize and automate parts of your life, how to change your mindset and how to have conversations around divisions around mental & emotional labor.
Grab your ticket & details HERE.