When all this social distancing thing came to be I knew how I was going to use this time. It was like someone had just given me the answer I had been waiting for in terms of how to some things done finally. I mean yes it was a unfortunate situation we were all facing but I think I had just found the silver lining of free time! With work travel stopped and family calendar activities cleared there was now a clear slate in which to replan, plan new and just generally clean up. I hate to sound excited about this but in a way I was. It was also a little intimidating though to think about how much time there would now be available.
As weeks turned into months, I found myself letting loose of things in our routine. It was summer after all so there wasn’t a need for anyone but me to get up early so I had a couple hours of quiet in the mornings. Since there wasn’t a reason to get up early there also was less of a reason to go to bed early too which meant more family games and movies. Life was still busy for work but it was also slower overall and just felt less stressful and demanding. I felt like I could breathe and focus on things that are just as important as the paycheck. I was feeling better and better despite how badly things were going in our world.
What I did with all this time ran the gamut of personal development, health focus, outdoor fun and just relaxing. There were house projects, yard projects, normal house and yard work and books I finally got to read. Yet there was also time to focus on goals I wanted to do, wished I had time for and never really was able to devote myself into. Now, that was possible. It was manageable. For instance, I was able to write blog posts and get way ahead to allow me time to actually focus on strategy, growth and other activities for Dragonspit. I was able to work out with a virtual personal trainer and start actually having time to focus on what I needed for my physical health. I was able to just relax and enjoy a nap without guilt that my to-do list was suffering.
More than anything I found I had time to plan. During the storm of a pandemic and worry going on in our world I was finding this perfect little peaceful place to lay out what was next for me. Here was that ideal time we all dream about having when we want to set new goals. So many of us set resolutions for a new year or goals throughout the year but most of us don’t have the time to actually figure out how we can accomplish those things. We wish for them, hope they happen and can really struggle finding time to work on them. This year though a lot of those reasons faded in the background. It was a silver lining in a dark storm.
The organized person in me loves to plan. I love lists, logistics, strategy and operations where I see the pieces line up for how they will interact and build on one another. I like to see the path to the win and map of the route as it builds my confidence in what I’m doing and helps when I think I’m lost. While life isn’t always great at supporting plans and maps it does at least give me a sense of direction on where to start and where I’d like to end. Having a general idea of how to make those two ends meet is where I feel my super power kick in for figuring it out. It is normally here though that I don’t feel like I have the time to figure that out and it turns into a fly by the seat of my pants experience. Sometimes that is ok but I’d rather not do it that way if I can.
Living naturally and being a planner seems like they would be at odds with one another yet they actually co-exist well. I mean really how can you let life flow if you’re just sticking to the map route? Yet that is not quite how it works or what I have learned in this experience. I think it’s great to have a plan, general approach and preferred route to a goal but we need to be able to change when needed. That is the learning experience that nature is teaching us and where flow of life occurs. When we can be nimble in our ability to let changes happen where they need to, change directions or entire goals is the very essence of living naturally. It is knowing when we are over-thinking and being alright beginning. It is feeling the confidence to know that regardless of it we follow perfectly mapped route to a goal we will be just as perfect if we lose map on the way.
What I find beautiful in this year is having that time to plan what all this means. Instead of focusing on the doom and gloom of what has been a horrific year we can decide how we actually want to live going forward. We can decide what to do about our sucky jobs, overwhelming calendars, unhealthy lifestyles and more! We can make plans to change just about everything in our life in our life to go a completely new direction if we want. Invent, build and create something that has been held in the smallest corner of our hearts for way too long. Some of these things we can even act on right now while others we begin to see the emergence of new goals and dreams that inspire us.
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