Find Joy in the Busy

CARI STEVENSON

Married 14 years, mother of 3 children, ages 6, 4, and 4 months, a
checklist
person, likes to get stuff done, had found freedom after the first two kids
and then had a new baby that has totally messed up her routine, fussy baby
needs a lot of attention and loves his mother.
Husband is super busy building his own business and he travels a lot so
she
has a lot to carry. There really is no down time. She feels bad that she’s so
quick to hand over the baby when her hubby gets home so she can have a
break and get others things done. They aren’t able to find time as a
couple.
She has a very big extended family that love to get together regularly. She
loves the extended family time but it puts a lot of pressure on her and
steals
time away from her own family.

Tips for Cari’s busy life:

• Plan Ahead & Focus on Important over Urgent
• One of the keys when you have a new baby is to reprioritize what’s
important.
• Nothing is more important than your new baby and you need to accept
that.
• Much of what stresses people out is consistent and predictable, like
family
parties and birthdays.
• New moms usually plan their life by the feeding, or naps which creates
way
too much reactivity and urgency, especially because those hallmarks are
constantly changing.
• Instead of organizing hourly or daily, try planning your life by the week or
month.
• Make sure all of your biggest, most important goals are on the calendar
and
get them in your planner.
• New moms should use a planner because their head may not always be in
the
game due to a lack of sleep and chemical changes.
• Spend time to look at your month and plan ahead for the known events
and
activities. Make lists for the month of what you know you’re going to need.
Buy all of your presents at once, and have some back up gifts you can give
just in case.
• Lower your standards of what is acceptable to give. To be realistic, maybe
a
gift card from a new mom is a perfectly fine gift to give instead of the
Martha
Stewart hand-made gifts.
• Get your most important events, that you know you want to have happen
like
Date Nights with your hubby on the calendar, a month at a time.
If someone then organizes a party on one of your date nights, you can
easily
say, “Sorry, I’m booked that night.”
• With a new baby, make sure you are prioritizing based on “importance”
and not urgency.
• Remember that there are seasons and times in our lives, so just sit back
and
enjoy the day you get to be out of balance for a while.

STEPHANIE BRYSON

Working mother, with 5 kids, she works a very stressful job that doesn’t
end
when the work day ends. As a TV producer she feels that she is only as
good
as her last show. She is very creative and uses her creativity every day, so
when she gets home is completely mentally spent. On the evenings and
weekends, she has a lot of catch up to do around the house and yard and is
dying for a break to just let her mind relax. She has an awesome life with a
little caboose girl and she sometimes feels guilty that she doesn’t have the
time to dedicate, or the attention to be “all” there. She loves being home,
she values being in her home when she can be. She’s very self-aware that
when she pushes too much, she can turn into a monster, and doesn’t want
that.

Tips for Stephanie’s busy life:

• Be Present!
• There is a big difference from being mentally or emotionally exhausted
and
being physically exhausted.
• Emotional exhaustion seems to cause more heartache for a mom that
wants
to connect, than physically exhaustion does.
• When we’re unable to turn our heads off, then the key is simply to turn
our
heads “on” even more.
• We must learn to “Be Present” in the moment.
• Most of us are exhausting ourselves, stressing ourselves out over the
details
of the past and future. We become so consumed about what happened in
the
past and what is coming up next that we never stay focused in the “now”!

• Peace is present when you are. Even if what you are doing is the most
stressful thing you’ve ever done, there is incredible peace when your head
is
in the game.
• Notice when you are feeling stressed and pay particularly close attention
to
what you’re thinking about. Usually it will be something from either the
past
that worried you or something that needs to be done for the future.
• There is no benefit to worrying about the future, for there is nothing you
can
do in the future.
• If you are worried about something, take a second and ask yourself,
“What
can I do about that problem right now?” Then begin to act on it in the
moment. Action now over worry now will foster more peace.
• Learn to take deep breaths, relax, and meditate in order to keep your
head
in
the space with others.
• Try to see the deeper, essence of the person you are interacting with.
See if you can feel their “Divine Spark” and that will usually remove the
stress and increase the peace.
• The more you practice being present, the more present you’ll be able to
feel,
and whenever there is presence, there is peace.

KRISTI ADAMS

Mother, loves running, working once a week at a home décor store,
magnifying her responsibilities at church, volunteers in her child’s class
room, serves on the PTA Board, manages the daily craziness of a big family,
loves to make lists, has 20 things a day that never get completed, is so
good
at organizing events that everyone calls her to put events together. Kristi
loves to be involved and busy until the business starts to take its toll on
what
matters most to her.

Tips for Kristi’s busy life:

• Learn To Say No!
• Remember Nietzche’s quote, “It’s easy to say no when you have a deeper
yes
burning inside.
• One of the most painful life management problems is our inability to say
“no”
to other people.
• Whenever you say “yes” to someone or something else, you are inevitably
saying no to something else.
• Saying “yes” to things at the expense of more important things causes
guilt
and frustration.
• Other people know who will always say yes, and that is who they turn to.

• It’s not between good and bad, many times our choices are between good
and great which makes our choices even more difficult.
• You know it’s time to start saying no when your health, sleep or
relationships
start to take the hit.
• Many times we say yes to people because we don’t know how to say no!
Spend some time putting together an “acceptable way” for you to say no to
others.
• Clearly establish what your yeses are! Once you have a clear objective,
you
can run every opportunity through it. For example, if your goal is to have
more connected, meaningful family time, then any opportunity that steals
or
distracts you from family time is a big no.
• Create a space to make the decision. Many “yes” people end up saying
yes
in
the pressure of the moment. Create a gap in your answer and go sit down
and really think out the opportunity. Find a phrase that will help you buy
some space to truly make a better decision. I use “let me check my calendar
and see if I’m available and I’ll get back to you.” You might say, “let me
check with my family to see how they all feel about it”.
• Involve other people in the decision and feel free to blame them for your
inability to accept the offer if that is easier for you.