Procrastination - Why Do We Do It? And How Do We STOP!?

 

And haven't we all been Scarlet O'Hara at some point or another?

"I'll write that paper tomorrow." 

"I have three whole days before that report is due." 

"I'll just watch one episode of Orange is the New Black." 

"OK , OK right after I watch all my friends' Snapchat stories." 

"I'll just check my Facebook for a minute."

"After all, tomorrow is another day..."

The situation becomes dire when we put on the hoop skirt and take up residence at Tara permanently.

As a serial procrastinator, I embarked upon a journey to discover what makes people (me) procrastinate and how to kick the "I'll get to it later" demon to the proverbial curb.

Here's what I discovered at the shallow end of the pool:
According to Tuckman, Abry, and Smith, there are key reasons why people procrastinate:

1. Not knowing what needs to be done
2. Not knowing how to do something
3. Not caring if it gets done or not
4. Not caring when something gets done
5. Not feeling in the mood to do it
6. Being in the habit of waiting until the last minute
7. Believing that you work better under pressure
8. Thinking that you can finish it at the last minute
9. Lacking the initiative to get started
10. Blaming sickness or poor health
11. Waiting for the right moment
12. Needing time to think about the task
13. Delaying one task in favor of working on another   

Those are all plausible, if superficial reasons for procrastination, the symptoms, if you will.
I was after the causes, the root beliefs that would make someone engage in a behavior that is nothing but destructive. I found a zillion explanations. Once I'd weeded out the BS excuses, and the over simplified, overly judgemental answers, here are the top three causes of chronic procrastination, in my opinion:

1.  Family -Procrastinators are made not born. Procrastination is learned in the family milieu, but not directly. It is one response to an authoritarian parenting style. Having a harsh, controlling parent keeps children from developing the ability to regulate themselves, from internalizing their own intentions and then learning to act on them. Procrastination can even be a form of rebellion, one of the few forms available under such circumstances. What's more, under those household conditions, procrastinators turn more to friends than to parents for support, and their friends may reinforce procrastination because they tend to be tolerant of their excuses.
2.  Fear - This tends to fall into two categories.
   • The avoiders, who may be avoiding fear of failure or even fear of success, but in either case are very concerned with what others think of them; they would rather have others think they lack effort than ability.
   •  The decisional procrastinators, who cannot make a decision. Not making a decision absolves procrastinators of responsibility for the outcome of events 
3. Medical/Clinical diagnosis - Some very real conditions are co-indicated with chronic procrastination, ADHD, OCD, anxiety and clinical depression included. In addition to medical treatment for these conditions, more and better time management tools and repetition are absolutely crucial to overcoming procrastination based on chemical imbalance.

 BONUS:

 

 The apostrophe...um, I mean EPIPHANY is this:
Very often when we are procrastinating, our subconscious is telling us that we are engaged in a task, a job, a relationship, that we actually DO NOT WANT. On any level. We tell ourselves lies like, "Oh well, everyone has to do things they don't want to do.", while our soul screams out for us to change.

Chronic procrastination is a result of being in one of two states: Fear or rebellion. (whether conscious or unconscious). We are either afraid, be it of success or failure, or we are in rebellion against something our subconscious is rejecting. People who are engaging in this behavior are not lazy, crazy, stupid or uncaring.

So How Do We STOP?

First - beating yourself up is not useful. That can bring on fear paralysis which only exacerbates the problem. Not to mention, other people are probably already beating  you up enough. "You're so smart, if only you applied  yourself!" 
(Every kid who grew up with undiagnosed ADHD recognizes that old chestnut.)

Some suggestions for breaking the habit:

• Recognize that change is a process and understanding your own MO is crucial. Why are you uncomfortable about digging into a project or changing your behavior? Write down the reasons.
• You know yourself. What diversions or Scarlet O'Hara behaviors do you usually adopt?
• Then question those. If you say "later is better," ask yourself why. And why do you need to be better to do this? Save the better state for a better task. You need to recognize the BS story you tell yourself!
• When you feel actual physical resistance, when every bone in your body is resisting the task, force yourself to put one foot in front of the other. This is similar to overcoming irrational fears.
• Break up the task into chunks. Do one a day. If it's your taxes, call the accountant one day. Then find all the income statements the next. Then divide the receipts into categories the next. And so on. I always feel I can do anything for five minutes. So maybe set a timer. Once you start, you'll find that you go over five minutes and may finish the job.
• Gain support and accountability.  Set up a buddy system. This increases your chances of doing the task. Just be sure to choose someone supportive and positive for your accountability buddy.
• If you feel the physical sensations of resistance- make it a "must do now" priority.
• Set a reward for yourself once the job is done.

If every bone in your body is still screaming NO? 
Ask yourself if, in the end, this is something you need to do.
Sometimes you need to delegate.

 

Repost: 3 Radical Steps to Managing Radical Change

Repost- I first wrote this three years ago -
I thought it needed a revisit.


So, you've had a radical change in your life.
You lost your job.
Your relationship ended.
You've relocated and have no new support system.
(Insert your big change here)
 And you feel ...unwell... scared... lost....just wrecked.
Now what?

As easy as it would be to make a permanent date with Ben and Jerry and hole yourself up literally and figuratively from all of humanity forever... I think we both know that isn't a viable option, long term. So enjoy your Chunky Monkey, mourn what it is that you have lost, and when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired...Get Radical!

 

 

 

3 Radical Steps to Managing Radical Change

 

1. Radical Self Care

You have to start with the basics. You've been dealt a big blow by life and you are allowed to care for yourself.  More than that, it is imperative that you care for yourself. You are in the process of refilling the well and it happens on no one's timetable but yours.

The very first thing that can help is to set healthy boundaries. Because you lost your job does NOT mean that you are now available to babysit everyone's children, walk their dogs, house sit or clean their closets. Because you are now single does not mean that you are to be set up with everyone's cousin/brother/best friend. Because you are going through a change does not mean you have to listen to, or take on others' opinions or judgements of you and your situation.  "No" is not a four letter word. Keep close those unconditional supporters in your life and let everyone else know you are in a rebuilding phase.

Radical care of the body is key. As much as we are all lovers of Ben and Jerry, sooner or later one must break up with them and start to feed yourself. Well. You are fueling the vehicle you use to move through life, and there is no trade-in option. Get a tune up with your doctor. Exercise for health AND sanity. Multiple studies have shown regular exercise to be as good or better than antidepressants in relieving mild to moderate depression. Take care of you in the most basic way first.

Radical emotional care means you have to change your self-talk. If you are not nice to you, who will be? This does not mean caving in and affirming every little emotion that comes along. Remember, your habitual self talk probably isn't very kind to you right now. Specifically, "I've failed. I'm not good enough. I'll never find love. I'm never going to make new friends.Things like this always happen to me." and the like. Catch yourself in this self talk and ask yourself - "Is this really true?" Then flip the script. You haven't failed unless you've stopped trying for anything. You gained valuable lessons from this experience. If nothing else, you know what doesn't work. You won't find love or new friends? Honey, there are seven billion people here on Planet Earth. Surely some of them will have an affinity for you and vice versa. Perhaps widening your scope would be a good idea. Things like this always happen to you? Do you lose a job every single day? Do you leave a relationship every day? Are you relocating daily? Hardly. So these things don't always happen to you, do they? Start talking to yourself like you would talk to your best friend. "Beloved, this is just a set back, a minor glitch in the grand scheme of your life. Your loss was only to make way for something bigger, better and more fulfilling that the Universe has in store for you! Get excited!" (At least, that's what I would say to my best friend.) Give yourself a break.

 

2. Radical Action

Once you have replenished your resources a bit, it's time for radical action. You will know when that time comes by a relentless restlessness, by ideas waking you up in the middle of the night, by a need for movement.

Radical action is different for each of us. For some it is going out there and getting another, better job. For others it is signing up for a dating sight. For me it was restructuring my life so as not to work 9-5, to pursue my art while finding ways to make ends meet using my art. For some it's leaving absolutely everything behind and starting from scratch. It really doesn't matter what the radical action is, as long as it breaks the habitual pattern. Remember the old saying "If all you ever do is what you've always done; all you'll ever get is what you've always gotten." Get fearless. Challenge yourself. Step out of the comfort zone. Recognize that what looks like happiness to you may not match what's considered "normal" by your friends and family. Get OK with being perceived as different or eccentric or even the 'bad guy'. This is your journey. At the end of the day the only perception you have to live with is yours. Be aware that 'security' is an illusion. Any one of us, in a moment, could lose everything or face a life-changing event that was completely unforeseeable. Embrace uncertainty, make it a friend, and then you can begin to manage your reactions to the unforeseeable in a positive way.

 

3. Radical Surrender

There's that word again. Surrender. This doesn't mean giving up. It means freeing yourself from worrying about things you never had control over in the first place. It means forgiving people, not because what they did was OK, only that you'd rather not carry the burden of resentment anymore for something that's already in the past. It means detaching from outcomes and just giving yourself over to the work, the relationship, the journey and having faith that where you end up will be precisely where you were supposed to end up. Relinquish the desire to make others respond or behave the way you think they should. They are on their own journey, with their own lessons to learn. It is not your business to dictate their steps. As I've said for many years, "You can't tell grown people what to do." Your only decision is whether to walk with them or not. If not, send them love and light and let your paths diverge.

Just let go. You don't have to drive everyone's bus.
Finally, get grateful. Gratitude and depression cannot occupy the same space. When you start looking around for things to be grateful for in life, guess what happens? More things for which to be grateful start to show up. And it grows exponentially. You don't have to believe me, try it for 30 days, it will prove itself to you.

Before you know it, you will find yourself in a brand new place, perhaps one you never expected to see. And you will be able to say, as my friend Judie said today, "No matter what the future holds, I will greet it with open arms and be the best person I can be." 

Thanks Judie, for inspiring today's post. You are my Ambassador of Rad.

When Did I Become HER?!? (of Men, Unintentional Polygamy and a Whole Lot of WTF?)

Quick story.
OK so, I was getting dressed for my son-in-law's graduation from law school.
I was in full on Main Line Mom Mode.
Calvin Klein navy sheath dress: Check.
Pumps: Check.
Pearls: Check
Poker straight blowout: Check
Kenneth Cole clutch: Check
I looked in the mirror and thought: "Who in holy, blazing hell is THAT???"
My mother. That's who that is.
Not me. Never me. I'm a tree hugging, hippy-dippy, incense burning, yoga-loving, we-are-our-brother's-keeper, artistic, liberal-independent (ok I voted for Reagan once upon a time, but it was my first time and everyone was doing it!)

It startled me.
I got to thinking. "No, that country club princess is me too." She's in there.

And so is the glamazon, sex goddess of stage and screen. She shares quarters with the super-nerdy history buff who can tell you more about ancient religious customs than you ever wanted to hear. Like, EVER. They live right down the hall from the hard working single mom, who doesn't have time to bake cookies for the bakesale because she's got two god damned jobs, so will you just give her five minutes of quiet, please?!? Right next door is the girl who just wants to sing with the band and dance all night and stumble in at four in the morning with tired feet and a head full of adventurous stories to tell. She likes to have breakfast with the domestic goddess who loves to cook and will feed you until you are fit to burst (and make you a Tupperware of leftovers to take home, because you never know, you might want a nibble later.) She takes care of everyone, especially adventure girl, who does things like ziplining down volcanoes in Costa Rica and running off to Paris for her BFF's 50th birthday. And they all sit down at the table with Writer Chick to sort it all out.
They're all in there. In me. Along with multiple others.


No wonder the poor men in my life have been confused. They were involved in a polygamous relationship without their knowledge. Feel bad for those guys.
Because all of those women, in greater or lesser degrees, require acknowledgement. The biggest relationship fails I've had- and there have been a few - have been because the person with whom I was relating kept trying to fit me in to a category. A box. A pigeon hole. It's suffocating and then I am forced to flee. I have no choice. There is no oxygen in there.
When I've met someone who 'gets' my gypsy soul, (there have been exactly two), despite great love, or at least the potential for artistic power-couplehood, they end up having a gypsy soul of their very own and can't stay. (annnnnd cue broken heart....or at least bruised heart).

My father, who was the smartest human I've ever met, once told me "Tootsie, in relationships you need a string and a kite. If you have two strings they just lay on the ground and no one flies. If you have two kites, they both fly off into space and get lost. But when you have a kite and a string, the string holds the kite steady and the kite lifts the string as far in the air as the string lets it. And thank God for your mother because she's my string. Get yourself a string, TootsiePop. You are a kite."
He wasn't wrong. He got me.
 

 


If I ever find someone who gets me like that....I'll love him so hard his head will spin.
And he'll never be bored.
Ever.

2014 Post-Mortem...and Forward Motion

So I didn't name last year.
2012 was the Year of Making.
2013 was the Year of Manifesting/Publishing
I didn't name last year.


I think, partly as a result of being nameless, last year was a haphazard whirlwind of big changes. If I had to name 2014 retroactively, I think it might have been the Year of Mayhem. I wasn't entirely unfocused but my focus was rather like a light house beam, spinning around in a spiral to highlight different things at different times. As a result, everything changed in 2014, just not in any kind of linear fashion. 

 Everything changed. 

My residence- a significant upgrade. And I now live alone, which has its pros and cons, but for the most part, works beautifully for me. My job - In addition to my writing, I now manage a rad team of beauties who make the world more beautiful - and more importantly, help women realize their own unique beauty.  My children are wonderfully successful and happy in the main. I wrote and performed a cabaret that I am developing into a one woman show.  I played Marie Lombardi (wife of legendary football coach Vince Lombardi) on stage, as well as the comic book villain version of myself on another stage. I became a BeachBody coach and committed to helping other people be/stay healthy.  There's still a part of me that whispers in my ear - "You haven't done enough, accomplished enough." What's enough, I wonder? What did I miss?

-I didn't write every day. I wrote, but writing is like water - if you want it to flow, you have to turn on the faucet regularly. I had some self-inflicted plumbing issues in 2014. 
-I didn't care for my health properly. I turned 50 in September. And while I'm pretty fit, I didn't take care of some important baseline medical stuff. 
- I let sporadic time management derail some important progress, and allowed myself too much tech distraction. 

So let's name 2015... The Year of Motion.
Forward Motion- not haphazardly,  but rather on purpose.

Part of that is going to be blogging more. In the past I have focused on blogging about things to help others. If something inspired me, I'd pass it along in the hopes of inspiring someone else.  The funny thing about that is the things that actually inspired people were almost always different than my expectation. It was a continual surprise.
So I'm just going to tell my stories. Tell my truth. And continue to be surprised by what moves people.  Forward motion.

Another move forward will be to protect my health better. Get my behind to the doc's more often and get my important testing done (mammogram and colonoscopy etc.) Because all the fitness in the world can't cure cancer.

The final vehicle for motion is better time management.  
Less distraction, more presence. 
Being here, now. 
Doing the work in front of me. 
Not forecasting or projecting. 
Not rehashing the past. 
Just gifting myself and others with my mindful presence.

Here's to 2015!

The Year of Motion!

Get Real.

OR

How Being Less Than 100% Authentic Can Kill Your Mojo

 

I'm a pretty authentic chick, for the most part.
That said, when I love somebody I morph into a somewhat "permeable membrane", to quote Elizabeth Gilbert.  I so want to give my beloved - be it friend, children, or lover -  everything that would make them happy that I frequently land myself in the poorhouse, emotionally and literally.
I don't like to think of myself as a people pleaser and I'm not exactly being inauthentic....it's just that I leave out the ugly bits sometimes. I've historically let it go when my needs or boundaries aren't honored.  It's not worth fighting about.


Except that it is.
Worth fighting for, that is.
Now, I am fortunate that I have some real and true friends who will call me on this behavior when they catch it. Thank god for that. When my core group tells me "Your light is going out." "You've lost your mojo." and the fatal "I didn't want to say anything but..." I know it's time to act.
To dig deep and get real.
So I dig. I excavate and dust off all the stuff that I've buried down in the dirt and the muck in order to keep everyone's life pretty.



Do you know what happens then?
Honesty. I vomit hardcore, brutal honesty like I spent the last night on a Jack Daniels bender. It's not pretty. It frequently stinks. It can be really, quite awful. But it purges me. It cleanses me of the fakery and forces me to be 100 percent authentic. Afterward I feel lightened, relieved... the way throwing up is a relief after hours and hours of sweaty nausea. And then everyone says "Thank God, you're back".

There has to be a better way.

 So I'm trying the following three things.

 

1. Tell the unvarnished truth. - Even when it's hard and scary. Even when it hurts like hell.

2. Insist on boundaries being respected. -  By everyone. All the time. No exceptions.

3. Do not engage in toxic conversations. - Nope. Not at all.  Kindly say "I'm not doing this with you" and walk away.

I figure taking these three steps along with my daily meditation and spiritual practice will keep me from allowing myself to violate my Self.

What is your check and balance for keeping yourself on track and 100% authentic?
Feel free to comment below.

Namaste.

Limitless (poetic reboot)

The challenge was to pen a poem with the first words "I am..."
Here's mine.
Please feel free to add yours in the comments below!


Limitless

I am
a mighty creator, a music maker,
an illusory truth teller.
I am too pretty to feel this mean
and too abundant to lack the cash, the flow I desire.
I can make you feel things
and I choose to make you feel
as if you can fly without wings.
I choose to inspire you,
to require you to think
about where you are and whence you shall fly.
My purpose is divine,
to shine a light
on your gorgeousness, your delicious uniqueness,
your fearless quest to be...

divinity.

I am a bringer of words to light,
a singer of songs so bright
that to stand in their tide
is to let love wash over you
like a dream of waterfalls and sun rays.
I tell truths you try to hide.
Why?
Because your dreams frighten the lesser part of you,
the part that has tricked you
into thinking that this is all that you are?
I am a trumpet call
announcing your greatness,
renouncing the lies that kept you
fearful and tired.

I am the drum, the different drum
to which you can march
in order to get to the top
of your own pinnacle, miracle,
dream of dreams.

I am
a mother, a lover, a daughter, a sinner, a sage,
a maiden, a crone,
a limitless creature of pure radiance;
here to tell you that you, also,
are this.
Limitless.

Finding Beauty in the Mundane

Hello Darlings!
So I've been a bit blocked and doing some excavation. In digging through my past writings, I found a series of exercises I did during one particularly brutal bout of writer's block.
One exercise in particular caught my attention. 
I thought it rather good, if I may say so. 

Even though it is years old, it speaks to my current belief that part of my mission in life is to inspire people to be better. Not to do more, to be better. Not to have more, but to be better. Inside. I firmly believe the road to that goal is paved in moments. Everyday, mundane, ain't-no-big-thing moments. 

So I'm sharing one with you that I think is pretty relatable. 

Prompt: Write 400-500 words about a less than remarkable aspect of your life.

  Laundry.

 

It’s heavy. The basket, I mean. I look down the murky stairwell of my ivory tower and sigh at the thought of descending, step by burdened step, out into the irksome damp. I wish for the grace of those straight backed African women who can fluidly tip a basket to the top of their head and stride boldly with swinging arms. I am not so graceful. So, I schlump down the steps, listing like a drunken sailor, and fall out the front door. Juggling basket, soap and big hips, I cross the street. Moving as if shackled, I trudge up the ramp into the Laundromat and collapse in a heap of weariness and my son’s BVD’s.

Breathe. Just get it done.

Fetch a big, wheely basket and transfer the tangled mess of jeans and hoodies/ Load the machines: light, dark, colors, three in a row. Add soap and quarters, and breathe. 

In the bottom of the basket is a book. Excellent. Sit on beach blue molded plastic and transport to somewhere else. Outstanding.

The damned buzzer rings. Stupid, shrill call back to here. Drag up and back to the wheely basket to dredge the soggy lump down and skate over to the cavernous dryer. Brush off the sudden urge to climb in there in the hopes that it’s actually a teleportation device, cleverly disguised. Load damp clothes in, insert quarters, go! Breathe.

Back to the awkward chair and the book. Gone. No smell of bleach remains. No rumble of machinery, no coughing old man can penetrate the force field of gorgeous prose that enters through my eyes and insulates me utterly. Longer, this time, the respite before the cranking whine of the slowing dryer calls me back. Look lingeringly at the page and, sighing, arise to unwanted duty.

Open the door. Roll away the stone. Suddenly I’m fogged over in the enveloping scent of clean and warm. Breathe in. It’s good. Move the suddenly unburdensome burden to the chest high table and begin to make order of the chaos.  Jumbled pile of color becomes pristine stripes of folded precision. This isn’t so bad. Suddenly, there are only skyscrapers of warm, perfect clothes.

Carefully place each square in the basket. Breathe. Lift the weighty, clean smelling basket onto one big hip and stride back across the street, soap swinging from the free arm. Smile.

Perhaps grace in motion is a state of mind after all. Ascend lightly the stairs from dark into light and place careful rectangles at the foot of each bed. Wonderful emptiness in the basket, except for the battered book. 

Excellent. 

Breathe. 

"Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." ~Zen Proverb

Namaste, 

Shanna

Get Aligned With Your Best Life

I used to work in corporate training and sales management. It was a good gig. It helped me raise my family. It allowed me to hold the fort while my children were growing up and needed the stability of little things like a paycheck and health insurance. It taught me that one of my callings, if not my biggest calling in life, is to inspire others. It brought me into daily fellowship with some extraordinary people. So why am I no longer doing that?
One word: alignment. 

As much as I loved those with whom I worked and aspects of my various corporate jobs; there was always a vague restlessness, a feeling that I was waiting, impatient for my real work to begin. I was hopelessly out of alignment.

You see, I am not someone who will ever feel aligned in a cubicle. I am a writer. I am an artist. I am a creative person. Now that I need be a fort-holder no longer, I align myself with my purpose and passion. I use the tools my corporate life gave me to be a better writer, a better artist and a more complete me. I am aligned.
Well, most of the time, anyway.

Do not make the mistake of underestimating alignment and its importance in our lives. How many of us even bother to consider the state of our physical, emotional, financial, and spiritual alignment? We know when our cars are out of alignment, we start drifting off the road, and have to constantly, manually readjust to “stay in our lane”. Sometimes, we grip the steering wheel tightly, white-knuckled; thinking that it may help us stay “aligned”. In fact, what we really need to do is to check the tire pressure and wear, and get ourselves into the shop for an all-wheel alignment. Then, when we return to our journey, we won’t have to constantly course correct, and we can relax our grip on the steering wheel of life a little…

So in my favored format of “three things”, I give you:

3 Ways to Get into Alignment.

 

1. Meditate. – Are you tired of hearing me say this, my darlings? Too bad. I will keep saying it  because it’s true. Don’t take my word for it. There exists study after study showing the efficacy of meditation not only for aligning your mind, body and spirit but also for stress management, battling depression, increased immunity, increased fertility, relief of inflammation, lowered blood pressure, and emotional balance. The University of Pennsylvania study showed that these benefits increase exponentially with daily practice and can even significantly reduce the severity of congestive heart failure. Allow yourself to get still so you can hear the small voice of spirit tell you what it wants. Just do it. It’s good for you.  
 

2. Visualize. – See your ideal life as if it already exists. This is not a new technique but how many of us actually do it? Decorate your dream home. Drive your Maserati. See your name on the New York Times Bestseller list or the Billboard Top 100. It needn’t take scads of time. Five to ten minutes daily should do it, once you’re somewhat practiced at it. Make it real. See it, smell it, taste it as if it is here now. (Hint: it is.) Most importantly, feel the emotions you know you will feel when your life is aligned and on purpose. Your emotions are powerful tools for manifestation, Use them.

3. Know and Walk Your Truth – This is your truth, not your parents’ expectations, not your friends’ idea of what is “normal”, not what you’ve been told you should be or do or want. Dig deep. Find what makes you come alive, even if you will meet with disapproval and even if it scares the bejesus out of you, especially, if it scares the bejesus out of you. Know for sure that what you want, wants you. Because it does.  It always has. (Matthew 7:7-8) Just get out of your own way and allow it to show up.

When you practice these three steps every day, with some degree of consistency, your actions cannot help but follow suit. You cannot help but begin to manifest in ways large and small the life you desire and the life you were put on this Earth to live. And when you are moving through the world in alignment with your highest purpose, the Universe conspires on your behalf and miraculous things occur. Don’t take my word for it. Try it for yourself.

Be well.

Feathering the Empty Nest... What Now?

The empty nest.

Some parents dread it.

Some parents can’t wait.

Let’s be honest, some parents haven’t experienced it yet, though their kids are in their thirties.

But I think most feel a combination of the dread and anticipation embodied in the single question:

What now?

What indeed.

There are a million decisions to be made. Correction, there are a million choices to be made. You see, your children are adults now. Your choices no longer possess the urgency they did when you were making decisions for them as well. Relax. Breathe. You now have the time to do both. You don’t have to sell the house and move to Boca Raton. At least not now. Hold off on buying the bejeweled track suit just yet. Relax. Breathe.

It’s time to take stock.

Let’s look at the things you no longer have to do. You no longer have to pick up socks from random places socks were never meant to be. You no longer have to sew Halloween costumes that absolutely must look like an authentic Jedi uniform. You no longer have to wipe boogers, catch spit-out food barehanded or clean up projectile vomiting. You never have to change another diaper as long as you live. You are no one’s chauffer, maid, personal assistant, chef, party planner, personal shopper, ATM or nurse. Now if you’re like me, this is a mixed blessing. I don’t miss the boogers. I do miss the little face looking up at me as if I could fix everything that came attached to said boogers. Those little faces have already gone through the “Mom’s-so-dumb-she-doesn’t-know-anything” teenage years and now look at me as I am – a flawed human who did the best she could and still has a few pearls of wisdom to dispense.

So now you have been fired from the countless jobs you had when your children lived at home. Congratulations! You’ve done well. Ultimately, your job a parent is to put yourself out of a job.

Yay! You did it. You raised self-sufficient human beings. The question remains- What now?

Taking Stock – Three Lists

Whether you are elated, miserable or some combination of the two over your empty nest, the fact remains that you now have some expendable time. Let’s think way back, before you had children. What did you love to do, when you were just you and no one’s parent?  Make a list. Revisit those things to see if they still hold any charm for you. Now let’s try thinking back over the twenty plus years you were raising your children. How many times did you see something, a trip, a business opportunity, an idea for a great book, or a chance to volunteer that you were unable to pursue because you chose to be fully present for those little people you brought into the world. Make another list. Finally, let’s recall all those crazy, harebrained schemes you wouldn’t dare even entertain the thought of doing while you had kids at home. Sky diving? Bungee jumping? White-water rafting? Ok, maybe not so extreme. How about running a marathon, taking a meditation retreat to an ashram, or chucking your corporate gig to open your own business? All possibilities are on the table. Make a third list. Good. Now let’s get moving.

Taking Action – Three Dares

Now you have three lists of things that, if pursued wholeheartedly, will fully use your ability, passion and talent as well as using up your expendable time. 

Your next step is to choose one item from each list. Take your time and really mull over which item on each list calls to your soul. Which items will give you a real sense of accomplishment?  Then dare yourself. Double-dare yourself. No, let’s not be wishy-washy, triple-dog-dare yourself to do those three things. Give yourself a time line. Write it down and place it where you will see it every day. For example: “I, (your name), will relearn how to ride horseback, become a volunteer at the animal shelter and run a half marathon by exactly one year from today.” Sign it and date it. This is your contract with yourself. You are reclaiming yourself as something more than someone’s parent. Honor that promise to yourself as you would honor a promise you made to your children. It is that important. No, don’t argue. It is. 

Now you’ve answered the three small questions that make up the big question: What now?

Specifically: What have I accomplished so far? What is possible? What is my next step?

You have also made a commitment to yourself to pursue three things that are for you and only you. You are re-feathering your empty nest in your own beautiful colors.

You no longer have to pick up socks from random places socks were never meant to be. You no longer have to wipe boogers, catch spit-out food barehanded or clean up projectile vomiting. You never have to change another diaper as long as you live…. 

Until the grandchildren arrive.

Enjoy!