You may have noticed that I’ve been a bit quieter than usual over the last month. This is because I have been thinking about how I can make some space to start doing some new things. I often talk about balance and over the last couple of years as I have grown my business, it is something that I have kept coming back to. When I think about taking on a new project or adjusting my working hours, I check in with myself to make sure it won’t upset the balance I have found. For the most part I do well at this, and it has helped me to build a way of working that continues to nurture me and allows me to do the work I love. However, over the last couple of months, as some new opportunities came my way, I realised that if I were to take them on, I would need to look again at how things could work. Taking a break from writing these posts over the last month has been a way of claiming back some time and energy so I could re-evaluate how I work and what I prioritise.
It can be so easy to get stuck into thinking that we must keep doing things a certain way because that’s the way we’ve always done it, even when it is no longer serving us. I realised that writing these posts every week had become a ‘should’ rather than a want to. I was aware that if they became another chore that I ‘had to do’, they would lose the thing I liked best about them – my authentic voice. It took me so long to find myself and feel ok to share myself in this way, that I didn’t want to risk losing it because I felt I had to write something every week. Sometimes giving ourselves permission to say no is as important as giving ourselves permission to say yes.
I’m still figuring out what my new balance will look like as I figure out how much space some of these new opportunities will take. My desire to hurry up and get to the end so I know exactly what will happen is still quite strong, but I am trying to respond to it with kindness and compassion, because I know that to make sustainable changes I need to go slowly and let things emerge as they will. As you may imagine, these two parts of me can sometimes be at odds with each other, but I’m getting better at maintaining the balance between them. Posts may continue to be sporadic for a while as I figure out how to make space for new things, but I’m still here and my core work with clients and supervisees isn’t going anywhere.
How do you make space for new things while keeping your balance?
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