The Blog

Spoiler alert: you can’t do everything in your life perfectly.

In this day and age, so many things are accessible to us. We can learn how to DIY a coffee table, start a business, get a degree online, and so much more. If you are anything like me, so many choices are overwhelming because SO many things interest me. At the start of quarantine, myself and so many others that I know picked up a variety of projects. The pictures of bread being baked, rooms being renovated, and new hobbies to start were abundant on social media. Naturally, I felt like I needed to share what I was doing as well.

Part of this is a pride issue for me and also, I believe, partly because of my personality. I love staying busy and learning new things, but I also feel the need to prove to others how great I am at things. So I pick up a lot of different things and I try to be good at it all.

This wasn’t just a quarantine problem, but also a problem that I faced in high school and college as well. Specifically in college I remember constantly feeling like I was drowning in responsibilities and things to do, but I couldn’t let anyone down so I said yes to everything. I couldn’t handle it all and my grades were rough for awhile because I could let my grades down and handle everything else.

I couldn’t do everything perfectly no matter how many sleepless nights or hard work that I put in. Even when I wasn’t striving for perfection in all areas, I still wasn’t even able to do a mediocre job in all areas. I was spread so thin and I couldn’t keep up.

Have you ever felt like that? Are you currently holding on to too many things and feel like you’re drowning?

I can imagine many people are. With this year looking so different and never knowing what the next month could hold… It has been crazy to say the least.

So how can we do it all?

TIP ONE: Understand that you won’t do it all perfectly. I said it at the beginning and I’ll say it again, it is impossible to do everything perfectly UNLESS you are only focusing on doing a few things perfectly.

TIP TWO: Break the things you do into categories. High importance, medium, and low importance are the categories that I break down my priorities into. I currently have found 2 high, 2 medium, and 1 low is what works for me. For example: my relationship with Christ and my marriage will probably always sit in high importance, this blog and home maintenance are medium, and reading has been the lowest for me. But I work on each of these things pretty much every day and sometimes they move around in importance. Some weeks I spend more time focusing on knitting or cooking or work… Some weeks I only focus on the few high importance things and the others take a pause for a second. Anything extra that I get to do outside of these things are a bonus that feels SO good.

TIP THREE: Have someone you check in with about the things you are trying to juggle. Have a close friend who will encourage you and also who will keep you in check when you try and juggle too much. BUT you also have to make the commitment to being vulnerable... which is not always easy. This will be a key part in managing your load in a HEALTHY way.

So no, we can’t do everything in life perfectly but you can still do/try all kinds of new things. Maybe next week I’ll learn some new cooking techniques but it’d be hard for me to expect myself to learn new techniques, sew some clothing and knit a blanket. I’d LOVE to be able to do all of that, but you have to say no to some things (even if they are good) to do others.

Keep learning and growing and doing all different kinds of things, but more importantly, remember to take care of yourself while doing it.

XOXO, Caro