You don't have a problem

Last week, a client presented me with a conundrum.

She'd been working on a long-term writing project for the better part of a year and was making headway thanks to her understanding of how habits work: Sitting at her desk for 20 minutes every morning, she'd pound out her unfiltered thoughts before getting started with the rest of her day. She'd made it as much a part of her routine as brushing her teeth.

She's completed marathons before—she's even training for one now—and so, she's no stranger to breaking down a goal or project into small steps, super doable tasks, and then making a schedule to move through each of those tasks.

Problem was, even though she'd folded this newer habit into her schedule quite successfully for a few weeks at a time, it would happen, almost inevitably, that she'd skip a morning to sleep in after a late night of work, or her kids would need her in some unforeseen way, and she'd have a string of days (or even weeks) where she wasn't writing at all.

Would she resume the schedule after some time had passed? I was curious to know if her writing project was truly abandoned or not.

Eventually, yes. She told me she always returned to it, picking back up with the daily habit—but it wasn't too long before there were more skipped days or weeks.

What to do about all that squandered time?

What to do about the lapsed discipline?

How could she make this writing habit...stick better?

I told her I wasn't convinced there was a problem here.

This wasn't procrastination (not that that's even a problem—watch this first and then email me if you're still skeptical). This wasn't a matter of discipline. This wasn't indicative of a need for a new system or tool or accountabili-buddy.

This was life.

Going with the (ebb and) flow of life.

And this was thought.

Thinking a whole lot about what was (or wasn't) happening in a given period of time—and what that might mean.

Some weeks are writing weeks, some weeks are not.

She considered all of this for a brief moment and her face relaxed.

"I'm just going with the flow."

What about you?

• Where might you be seeing a problem where there isn't one?

• Is there a situation that you've been quick to diagnose and attempt to treat?

• How does it change when you consider that nothing's actually wrong, nothing needs fixing or improving?

• What if the way it's happening now is exactly the way it should be happening, whether you're in ebb or flow at the moment?

• What if you knew and trusted that it would change...and, like the tide, change again?

Share with me in the comments.

How to approach the end of a decade

Don't get too worked up about the end of this decade.

Yes, ten years is a notable chunk of time.

Yes, reflecting on the last ten years could be a worthwhile (or at least interesting) exercise and might turn up some useful information for how you want to approach the next ten.

Yes, it can be fun to join in on the collective buzz, posting pictures of yourself from 2009 or sharing all that you've achieved and overcome since.

But also?

The end of this decade doesn't actually mean anything.

The end of any decade—hell, any year or month or week or day!—doesn't actually mean anything. It’s simply the passage of time.

It doesn't mean anything beyond what you make it mean.

Beyond what you want it to mean.

What are you making it mean?

What do you want it to mean, if anything?

If you feel up to it, share your answers below.

New rules!

I finally got a haircut, but I haven't exercised for the better part of a week.

I'm on top of the laundry, but dust bunnies are accumulating along the baseboards.

I returned a phone call from months ago, but I still haven't finished writing the thank-you notes for all the thoughtful baby gifts that arrived back in May.

I'm getting this newsletter out to you, but my email inbox is in desperate need of triaging. (If yours is one of my as yet unanswered emails, thanks for your patience.)

In other words: Trade-offs come with the territory of being human and not machine.

This is not a failure on your part.

I repeat: This is not a failure on your part.

(Did you suspect I said that more for myself than for you? You were right. But I know there's a handful of you who need to hear this, too, so listen up.)

This is one of the Big Lessons of new parenthood for me, so far.

What if I told you it was actually impossible to keep all the plates spinning, all the time? (PHEW.)

What would change in how you approach the events and tasks that make up your life? (I would make choices more quickly, move on them, and then celebrate their completion—instead of deliberating endlessly, feeling like it's all lose-lose, and berating myself for my inaction.)

What would change inside your mind? (Mine would become a more pleasant place to hang out.)

How would you feel? (I'd feel at peace. Open to joy.)

Okay, so, here's something to chew on: Who ever said it was possible to keep all the plates spinning, all the time?

I don't know about you and your situation, but no one told me it was possible. I guess I just assumed? Which means full-fledged plate-spinning is an invention of my mind, a standard I've set, a fantasy I'm touting as reality.

Oof.

The impulse here might be to feel shame. ("Dammit, Helen, you created this untenable dynamic with yourself, for yourself. You are, quite literally, the source of your own suffering.")

But I'm resisting that entirely and I think you should, too. Because you know what this realization really means?

It means we're capable of changing the rules. After all, we're in charge around here. We're the creators of the narrative whether it's screwy and impossible and makes us feel like miserable failures...or it's wonderfully sound and leaves room for us to live life joyfully, if imperfectly.

What's a new rule we should write? Share it below.

How to fail perfectly

The tempered glass plate in the microwave broke last night while my husband was making popcorn.

I kid you not.

The turntable tray that comes with the microwave and is designed to be microwaved again and again?

It broke. Split into three big pieces. Left some nasty glass shards behind, too.

Because it was dropped, right?

No. It broke inside the microwave.

While the microwave was in use.

Popping popcorn. (Yes, microwave popcorn.)

THE COOKING OF WHICH HAS A DESIGNATED BUTTON ON MICROWAVES EVERYWHERE.

Why am I making such a stink about this?

Because it so beautifully illustrates a Life Lesson.

Things that should work perfectly—things that are designed to work perfectly—will sometimes fail perfectly.

Everything will have checked out beforehand.

There will be a specific button for the task, convincing us that nothing can go wrong.

We will follow all the directions, down to the letter.

And still, something will glitch.

A machine will break.

The thing that was supposed to work seamlessly will, all of a sudden, be nothing but seams.

Even under the very best and most perfect circumstances, stuff can and will go to shit.

It isn't personal.

It's just life.

So, by all means, do what you can to put good systems in place—but then let go of the outcome. No matter how likely, it was never a sure thing.

What do you think of this? Let me know in the comments below.

Additives (the good kind)

In the weeks after I gave birth to our daughter, I regressed to being something of a newborn, myself.

For about two months, I didn't leave the house all that much.

I couldn't wrap my head around how to navigate the world now that a piece of my heart existed outside of my body. We were too vulnerable, in my mind, and there were too many hazards to our safety and well-being.

I was overwhelmed by the enormity of the thing I'd just done; I was overwhelmed by all the new ways that I was now responsible; I was overwhelmed by the thought of interacting with others when my mind felt like it had shrunk significantly—leaving room only for thoughts and concerns about my baby.

But slowly, and with a lot of help and patience from my people, I practiced re-entry.

A walk around the block to start.

Eventually, that gave way to a walk around the neighborhood.

At some point, we attempted a trip to Target. I didn't get out of the car and when my baby woke up, I nursed her in the backseat, in a quiet corner of the parking lot. Some time later, we actually made it inside Target.

We built on Target with a 20-minute drive to a state park and a long, meandering walk around the campground—and once we had that under our belts, we went on a longer drive, an hour away to Lake Michigan.

With each new outing came a slow-drip of new experiences: from getting the baby into and out of the carrier, to nursing at a picnic bench, and everything in between (including learning that the backseat of our car really isn't ideal for changing messy diapers... Turns out, the slope of the seat is too great and babies roll really easily...).

Once family outings felt stable, we added in some social stuff, bit by bit.

Five months out and we're continuing to re-introduce those elements of life that we enjoyed before we were a family of three. Very deliberately and very (very) slowly.

This means that Summer 2019 didn't really happen for me in a recognizable way. Same, so far, with Fall 2019. As much as I want to have all the photos ops of our daughter experiencing her first pass through the seasons (hayrides! Pumpkin patches! Hiking through fall foliage!), I'm just not there yet.

I'm getting there. But I'm not there yet.

What I’m saying, though, is this: If, back before the first time I left the house with the baby, you'd asked me when I'd be ready to do so, I couldn't have told you. I might've even said, Never. Everything is different now. Because that's absolutely how I felt.

I couldn't fathom having the bandwidth to drive a car or carry a conversation ever again. It seemed impossible that I'd ever walk the mall or visit a coffee shop. Forget doing seasonal stuff. That was for people who were better than I am at this whole new parenthood thing. (In fact, they're not better at it; it might be that they're able to add stuff back into the mix more quickly than I.)

But with each new outing and each new experience, my feeling of capability has increased.

It continues to increase.

So, a question for you:

Where can you build, just a tiny bit, on what you're already doing?

(And can you allow yourself to feel patient with and proud of your expanding capability, however slowly it may be expanding?)

Share your answers with me in the comments below.