Inspiration

The balance of life.

Somewhere between your 20’s and turning 30, life takes a turn for the responsible, mundane and sometimes downright boring. How does this happen? Does it have to happen? I’m sure it doesn’t happen to everyone. Why do I feel like it’s happened to me?

I had a thought the other day, that just now, in my life, the crappy boring things I have to do far outweigh the fun, exciting, soul nourishing things I get to do. And I’ve been wondering how to tip the scales back.

I am a mum to one gorgeous 19mth girl, and one gorgeous girl in utero due in 7 weeks. I’ve given up work, taken on the mum and home role, and to be really blunt, I don’t actually enjoy it all that much.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my daughter to bits, she is delightful, and smart, and growing way too quickly. I appreciate her every day. But its the other stuff that comes with it, like housework, cleaning, bills, administration, shortage of money, lack of time and abandonment of friends, that I find so morbidly depressing at times. There are some amazing people and things in my life that I get excited about…if I can rustle it up..but those moments are pretty limited. I just can’t shake the feeling that I need to be doing more……..

So what do I DO?

These are the things I think about doing:

Abandoning all ‘normality’, moving to Asia (yes, with a toddler and a newborn) and immerse our family in a new culture to add a bit of spice to life. (hubby is not really on board with this one)

Getting a housekeeper and a nanny, just to be here at home while I’m at home, so they can do all the things I don’t want to do. Then I can focus on moving furniture and redesigning rooms, or painting pictures, or sewing, or starting an awesome online business.

These are the things I might have to do:

Get a new attitude about the things I need to do in life, take responsibility, get them done really quickly and then plan more fun things into my day.

Realise that having a nanny/housekeeper is pretty unattainable right now.

Suck it up and just focus on being a good mum and wife.

I’m torn, do I fight the feelings of discontent OR do I harness the desire to do great, fun and different things? Am I ungrateful or unsettled for a reason?

The fight.

Guess what, life is not easy. And I’ve come to the realisation that it probably never will be. We live in a constant state of disappointment if we think we are going to one day arrive at Easy Street.

We think “If only I could win the lotto, then my worries would be gone”… Sorry folks, this will bring a whole new set of troubles to your world.

Or “If I could just meet the perfect partner, I’d be so much happier.” Possibly true, however good relationships take hard work! You could just choose to be happier now, and you might even find yourself that perfect partner!

I have known this, but maybe only just now have I ‘got’ it. I think deciding to be in a constant state of fight actually makes life a little bit easier. Its all about the attitude.

To progress, we must take ground, and taking ground requires a fight. If you don’t fight, you don’t win! Victory is not a destination but a state of living.

So if I wake up in the morning and think “Today, I might come across some difficult situations, but I’m ready for it! I am choosing right now, to be up, and enjoy life, no matter what” I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a better day. This friends, is my goal in life…for this week… and hopefully longer!

Confidence…

Why do most people struggle to feel confident in themselves? I do often, but am consciously making an effort to change that. My biggest anxiety is caused by worrying about what people think of me. I have been implementing the following activities in an effort to reduce my anxiety levels:

1. Choose good friends. Did you know that you can actually choose the people you want to influence your life? And did you also know that its totally OK to cut off unproductive relationships. People who continually treat you bad do nothing whatsoever for your confidence, they drag you down into believing that you aren’t very valuable. It takes some guts, but man its good to get rid of this out of your life. Surround yourself with people that you want to be like, listen to you, and appreciate who you are, and then be a good friend to THEM.

2. Catch your thoughts. What do you say to yourself in your head? This is the make or break of successful life in my opinion. You really have to consciously and deliberately think positive things to beat the default human condition of negativity. When my little girl wakes up earlier than I hope for, I have to take a moment to get out of bed happy to be a mum, and not grumpy that I didn’t get enough sleep and its going to set my day off wrong. My thoughts for this week… I can do anything! I am loved! I am creative and talented! I am calm…calm…calm.  🙂

3. Watch your words. Have you ever listened to the way you speak about yourself to others. I started to, and am catching myself often! I started showing my new blogpage of business self promotion to my hubby, (www.jadegoulding.com) its really nothing too elaborate at this stage, but he caught me downgrading myself and my creative efforts and kindly pointed out that I should talk more confidently about it. If you can just step outside yourself for a moment, and hear the words you say, you might want to change them. Be confident in the decisions you’ve made, speak out good things about what you do and who you are. It makes a world of difference to your happiness if you do!