Making Time for What Matters

Y'all, life is crazy. If someone had told me 12 years ago when I first started the married-with-kids chapter of my life that I would have three (almost four) kids—and four dogs, that I would have started multiple businesses, have been broke almost as much as "wealthy," and have moved more than 10 times in 12 years, I would have thought it impossible to fit so much living into such a short span of time.

We go through our school years being conditioned to think that there is one main cookie cutter style of living: get a job, punch in five days a week, live for the weekends, and then rinse and repeat year after year until we finally retire, and get to enjoy what we worked our whole lives to achieve.

Thankfully, a quick pregnancy after getting married at 21, and finishing up college, and then finding that there was little to no work available because of the 2008 economic crash that happened literally as Derrick and I were starting a family, forced us into an alternate lifestyle that has brought us more joy than I ever thought possible.

Sometimes the things that seem like setbacks really end up forcing us in a new, better life direction, Funny how that works.

We started our own design agency in July of 2008... a few months after the economy blew up, and two months before our first daughter was born. We had no clue what we were doing. We just knew that there were no jobs available where we lived, and we needed to figure it out fast. We've now worked for ourselves or remotely for others for our whole careers... the highs are high, and the lows are super low, BUT through it all the knowledge that we are the main masters of our lives and work plans is such a comfort.

Need more money? We would get to work applying for side jobs or tracking down requests for proposals and submitting bids.

Need more time with our kids or each other? We would re-organize our schedules to make our priorities line up with our work lives.

Need a break? We'd plan a trip and take our work with us while we traveled.

Crazy day? We would create pockets of peace and breathe deeply in the freedom that it brought to our little corner or the world.

Lately we have been trying to wrap up work early so we can scoot out to the lake or river and go paddle boarding with the kids. Even just an hour floating and hitting reset on our thoughts and feelings has been so good for our whole family. When something that time consuming isn't an option, we try to do little things like carve out a 15-minute TV or coffee break, or play some frisbee or tag with the kids in the yard.

The biggest thing we can do when life gets crazy is to force ourselves to STOP and reset. It's a total lie that we have to just keep pressing forward without pause. By breaking the cycle of frenzy or anxiety that easily builds up when we have bills to pay, and work deadlines, and crying kids, and dishes in the sink, we are better individually (and also better together).

Make time for what matters this week—you may find you have more energy to tackle what lies ahead than you first thought :)