How Being Wrong Can Save Your Relationships & Make You Rich!
I recently made a big discovery about how wrong I was, and I wanted to share it with you in the hope that it might be helpful. While it’s never fun to look back at your choices and see them as “mistakes” or recognize the damage you may have caused by acting in a certain way, the willingness to correct oneself comes with a certain degree of personal empowerment and opportunity, too.
When you have the humility to admit what you did not know, or what you did wrong, you open yourself up to the possibility of actually figuring it all out. This article is for those who might not have it all figured out yet, and are looking for a little support along the way. This is an article for those who aren’t afraid to be wrong, so they can figure out how to do things “right.
My Life Started “Wrong.”
I’ve been a single mom for 15 years. I was raised by a single mom, too. That makes two generations of “broken homes” and a whole lot of “tough stuff” survivors.
Being a single mom usually means you have to take on more than your “fair share” of duties in life. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily. Being a single mom means:
- You’re always very aware of your ability to contribute and get things done.
- You’re usually very busy and productive.
- You don’t get to just complain to someone else, give up or back down when you’re tired.
- You don’t get to pass the buck on to someone else when you don’t feel like doing it.
- You know you have to keep going, so you do.
- This can make you strong, resilient and unusually persistent.
There’s no other choice–no one else to fend off the tigers at the door, so you drive forward and do whatever it takes to get it all done. If life were only about laying bricks that could be a very useful situation, but it’s not.
Being Tough is Not Enough
Life is not just about getting things done.
Yes, production is a very big part of making life go right, but it’s also about UNDERSTANDING, COMMUNICATION and OBSERVATION. If you’re not able to see what’s really happening as it is, then how are you going to be able to decide what the BEST things to do should be?
Life is also about PLEASURE and ADVENTURE and PLAY!
What’s the point of getting things done, if that doingness isn’t in the direction of who you want to become, or the things you want to have? Doing out of a barebones need to survive is hard and burdensome and SERIOUS!
For many years I was caught in a dizzying spell of getting things done.
It’s as if my divorce, or some other early incident in my life, kicked me into “drive and survive” gear–as if at that moment in my life, I started to run because I was being chased by a tiger.
As time moved on, so did the tiger. The problem was that I never stopped running long enough to look back and see if the tiger was still there, or not.
After all, even tigers sleep.
What’s Right About Being Wrong
I mentioned in my last article that we have put some new family rules in place, including an internet detox.
Well, it’s not just been an internet detox that has come into place. A whole bunch of really empowering and helpful rules have been put together to help everyone improve their relationships and communication.
While tigers sleep, I certainly haven’t been. Caught in the dizzying spin of things to do, I forgot to put one really important thing on my list–SLEEP! So now it’s official.
7-8 hours a night. Every night.
I would like to tell you it didn’t change much…
I’d like to tell you it made no real difference to my well-being, productivity or overall happiness…
I’d like to tell you that, because not sleeping was how I thought I had survived the last 15 years.
But it’s not true. 🙁
With great humility comes great strength. It’s with this in mind, rather than an apologetic confessional or regret, that I chose to share the fact that by not getting the sleep over the last few years (like 15!) there were quite a few things I did wrong.
My 5 Biggest Sleep Deprivation-Induced Mistakes
I didn’t have consistent boundaries with my kids. I was distracted by all the things I had to do and my attention was dispersed all over the place. I couldn’t just BE there and make my “no” a no and keep it a no. I would put in some boundary, make a request, then get distracted by something else or sidetracked by another thing to do. My kids are cute, and clever. They knew exactly how to take advantage of my overwhelm. Whenever I didn’t have good control, things got out of control.
I was too easily swayed by other people’s feelings and emotions. Because I was under slept and overwhelmed, I didn’t do a great job of looking at the facts before deciding how to handle things. My kids’ spilled tears, a boyfriend’s frustration, even my ex-husband’s mother’s snarky little comments would knock me off my game–even if only for a little while–when I wasn’t getting enough sleep. I was too easily pulled by people’s emotions instead of reason and common sense.
I was too willing to accept “good enough” instead of what I actually wanted. I would constantly compromise the quality of my friendships, business associates and personal relationships because I was too busy handling what was there instead of thinking about what I wanted. It was like having a parking space and I would drive whatever rolled in, rather than choose the vehicle I loved and thought was best for me before riding about in life.
I worked and worked and worked, but didn’t get things done. There’s a big difference between being “busy” and being “productive.” I was “busy” and some of it looked like being productive, but if I consider the ACTUAL completed results of all those thousands of hours of “working,” there’s so much that really didn’t amount to more than “a lesson learned.”
I wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars. I brought so many people on board to help me handle my overspilling “to do” lists, and many of those people didn’t really know what they were doing, either. There was too much delegation of duties without a good understanding of what I was delegating in the first place, and the whole thing cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Without a clear compass or a map to guide you–without understanding how the winds and tides of life can turn things, and without being present enough to your life as it happens–you could spend 15 years paddling in a boat and still get nowhere.
Emergency Rescue Webinar
The thing I needed was HELP, not just sleep. I knew I was supposed to sleep. I didn’t know how to organize my life to GET that in place. I just kept running on overdrive until, with tear-stained eyes, I told my hubby that I needed some real help. Like boundaries, policies and something to help me get control on this part of my life that felt so out of control.
Chances are the part of life you need help with isn’t sleep. Maybe it’s food. Maybe it’s drugs, alcohol or social media distractions. Maybe it’s a really difficult relationship with someone you just don’t know how to handle.
WHATEVER it is, if you join me on October 6th, I’ll tell you exactly what it takes to stop running from tigers and start looking them in the eye.
Maybe if I hadn’t been a single mother…
Maybe if there had been someone else to help point out what I was doing to cause a problem, and keep me going to bed at night, I could have figured some of these things out a LOT sooner and saved a whole lot of time, energy, attention and money.
I learned this lesson, like so many, “the hard way.”
You don’t need to be a single mother to have blind spots and you don’t need to wait until Romeo shows up to get the help and support you need. Anyone trying to keep up under the pressures of family, business, health and life in the “real” world is having to do way more than their share to keep up and needs some help!
This is my first webinar, and I’ve poured my heart and soul into it (but no late nights!) and I know it’s going to help!
Love and soft pillows,
Tera
p.s.
This is the first event I will have created while not under the constant stress of sleep deprivation. If you’ve been following me for a while, this is your chance to join me and and find out if I’m on the up and up, or not. 😉
