Happy New Year! There is something about the number 2024 that I like. Some numbers are just nice. Clean. Useful. Easily divided. They have a good feeling about them. Being a mathematical person, I love numbers that have lots of possibility. 2024 has lots of possibility.
So, you can imagine my surprise when my year did not begin how I had imagined. In fact, before the first week was over, I had been to the funeral of one of my dear dancing friends, Karen, and had mourned the loss of our cherished Uncle Roy, my dad’s brother. It all set me back on my heels and had me rethinking 2024.
I usually love a new year. As a kid I always loved a brand-new notebook or binder, with not even one mark yet made on the pages. The new year reminds me of such a book. There it is, laid out before me, waiting for me to make the first entry. I can enter anything I want, a scribble, a drawing, a blueprint, a poem, a design, a letter, a list, a plan, a spreadsheet, a story. Anything I desire.
I’ve often made resolutions, or set intentions as I understand they are now called. To be honest, I usually make similar ones to everyone else. Most often, I’m pretty good about commitment. As I’ve reflected on my usual intentions, I notice that so often they involve self-discipline (which I love), restraint (which I’m good at), and delayed gratification (which I really could give myself permission to fail at once in a while). Most often, resolutions, or intentions, revolve around ‘getting it together’, simplifying, streamlining, creating order, having self-control, and somehow being at peace.
This year, I’m taking a close look at my mindset to figure out whether all my resoluteness is what will really matter to me in the end.
While we were sitting at the Celebration of Life for Karen, or Mac as we called her, one of the speakers told of a time when Karen was on holiday with her family. They were at Disneyland, or some other large amusement park, and they decided to go on one of the rides that offered the feeble warning, ‘You may get wet’. Karen chose to sit right at the front. Her family members warned, ‘Mom, don’t sit here. You’ll get soaked’. Many of us, upon hearing such a warning would have thanked the person warning us and moved to a different seat.
Not Karen.
“I want to do it all!”, was her reply.
This was her way of approaching all things in her life. She was low on judgement, fear, and complaining, and high on experiencing life. Karen wasn’t reckless or irresponsible, she wasn’t showy or loud; she was smart, had an open mind, and believed life was full of wonderful things to be sampled and enjoyed.
Those words ‘I want to do it all’ have stayed with me, and with others who heard them that day.
I, of course, am not Karen. I don’t have her exact same personality or makeup. It would be a disappointing world if we were, in fact, all identical. So, while those words might not be the exact words I would say, the essence of them has had a profound impact on me.
I can’t say I want to do it all, but I do have a yearning for something more. In my case I don’t think it’s for more things for me to do. What is truthful for me is that I want to spend less time getting it all together, and more time being fully engaged, right in the middle of life. I have no desire to walk a high wire, parachute jump, or drive a race car. But perhaps it’s time to stop dipping my toes in, revealing only parts of myself, and instead step right into the water of life, sometimes up to my ankles, sometimes to my knees, sometimes my waist, and sometimes, maybe even right up to my neck.
Sometimes when we look at others experiencing what looks like joy, we say, ‘I want to do that’. I suspect it’s not as much that we want to do the exact same thing, but we want the feeling they have.
I don’t quite know what my ‘doing it all’ will look like, but do I know what it will feel like. It will feel like I am giving myself permission to be me. It will feel like I am fully engaged in life. It will feel like an open heart, and deep respect. It will feel like I don’t have to hold back any parts of me. It will feel like joy. I think that part of me, that part deep down that knows exactly who I am and what I am capable of, will gain a stronger voice. I will become more of myself.
I know too, that sometimes, this ‘full living’ might sometimes feel like heartbreak, for this is the price we pay for daring to love, and for daring to bring our full selves to the table of life. I’m ok with that. My heart has felt broken this week, but I know the only way I could have avoided it would have been not to know or love Karen and Uncle Roy. What I would have missed out on.
I know too, showing up fully as myself also has its risks. Not doing so does too. That somehow seems so much more dangerous.
I hope you have set some intentions for this year and that you extend your 2024 New Years list to include not only the usual ‘get it together’ type things, but also to a couple of things that satisfy your personal ‘Doing it All’ list.
My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How am I ‘Doing it All’?’
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching. She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society. She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching. She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups and has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to ‘do it all’.
So, you can imagine my surprise when my year did not begin how I had imagined. In fact, before the first week was over, I had been to the funeral of one of my dear dancing friends, Karen, and had mourned the loss of our cherished Uncle Roy, my dad’s brother. It all set me back on my heels and had me rethinking 2024.
I usually love a new year. As a kid I always loved a brand-new notebook or binder, with not even one mark yet made on the pages. The new year reminds me of such a book. There it is, laid out before me, waiting for me to make the first entry. I can enter anything I want, a scribble, a drawing, a blueprint, a poem, a design, a letter, a list, a plan, a spreadsheet, a story. Anything I desire.
I’ve often made resolutions, or set intentions as I understand they are now called. To be honest, I usually make similar ones to everyone else. Most often, I’m pretty good about commitment. As I’ve reflected on my usual intentions, I notice that so often they involve self-discipline (which I love), restraint (which I’m good at), and delayed gratification (which I really could give myself permission to fail at once in a while). Most often, resolutions, or intentions, revolve around ‘getting it together’, simplifying, streamlining, creating order, having self-control, and somehow being at peace.
This year, I’m taking a close look at my mindset to figure out whether all my resoluteness is what will really matter to me in the end.
While we were sitting at the Celebration of Life for Karen, or Mac as we called her, one of the speakers told of a time when Karen was on holiday with her family. They were at Disneyland, or some other large amusement park, and they decided to go on one of the rides that offered the feeble warning, ‘You may get wet’. Karen chose to sit right at the front. Her family members warned, ‘Mom, don’t sit here. You’ll get soaked’. Many of us, upon hearing such a warning would have thanked the person warning us and moved to a different seat.
Not Karen.
“I want to do it all!”, was her reply.
This was her way of approaching all things in her life. She was low on judgement, fear, and complaining, and high on experiencing life. Karen wasn’t reckless or irresponsible, she wasn’t showy or loud; she was smart, had an open mind, and believed life was full of wonderful things to be sampled and enjoyed.
Those words ‘I want to do it all’ have stayed with me, and with others who heard them that day.
I, of course, am not Karen. I don’t have her exact same personality or makeup. It would be a disappointing world if we were, in fact, all identical. So, while those words might not be the exact words I would say, the essence of them has had a profound impact on me.
I can’t say I want to do it all, but I do have a yearning for something more. In my case I don’t think it’s for more things for me to do. What is truthful for me is that I want to spend less time getting it all together, and more time being fully engaged, right in the middle of life. I have no desire to walk a high wire, parachute jump, or drive a race car. But perhaps it’s time to stop dipping my toes in, revealing only parts of myself, and instead step right into the water of life, sometimes up to my ankles, sometimes to my knees, sometimes my waist, and sometimes, maybe even right up to my neck.
Sometimes when we look at others experiencing what looks like joy, we say, ‘I want to do that’. I suspect it’s not as much that we want to do the exact same thing, but we want the feeling they have.
I don’t quite know what my ‘doing it all’ will look like, but do I know what it will feel like. It will feel like I am giving myself permission to be me. It will feel like I am fully engaged in life. It will feel like an open heart, and deep respect. It will feel like I don’t have to hold back any parts of me. It will feel like joy. I think that part of me, that part deep down that knows exactly who I am and what I am capable of, will gain a stronger voice. I will become more of myself.
I know too, that sometimes, this ‘full living’ might sometimes feel like heartbreak, for this is the price we pay for daring to love, and for daring to bring our full selves to the table of life. I’m ok with that. My heart has felt broken this week, but I know the only way I could have avoided it would have been not to know or love Karen and Uncle Roy. What I would have missed out on.
I know too, showing up fully as myself also has its risks. Not doing so does too. That somehow seems so much more dangerous.
I hope you have set some intentions for this year and that you extend your 2024 New Years list to include not only the usual ‘get it together’ type things, but also to a couple of things that satisfy your personal ‘Doing it All’ list.
My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How am I ‘Doing it All’?’
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching. She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society. She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching. She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups and has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to ‘do it all’.
RSS Feed