Breaking Plates & Establishing Priorities
“Fitting in is the greatest barrier to belonging.”
– Brene Brown
Brene Brown’s quote jolted me awake as I was leisurely sipping my coffee and enjoying my morning reading a few weeks ago. It stopped me mid slurp and made me think deeply (no easy feat at 5:30am) how the need to fit in over the years has at times pinched me off from my gifts, my success, my happiness…my authenticity.
It’s not something I’m comfortable admitting.
To be honest, it makes me cringe a bit.
But I believe it’s more important to share because as a woman who is confident, independent, and most definitely boundary bearing, I still find myself on occasion choosing to hustle for my worth…putting my priorities on the back burner while accommodating the expectations of others.
My ‘fitting in’ of choice over the years was the belief I needed to do it all to be a whole woman as a person in business.
Run a successful business, chauffeur my kids to multiple events (a day), always make family and friends a priority, keep a clean house, work out, keep my shit together, and, of course, make it look easy. And still get a good night’s sleep. Is this ringing true for you too?
I’ve experienced this many times in my 27-years as a business owner.
It’s something I see and hear consistently through my work with women.
We continue to add more and more spinning plates in the air, believing that we can balance them all.
I call BS.
We can selectively choose which plates to set down (instead of break) and which to keep as a priority.
It’s important to choose. It’s important to stay one step ahead of dropping a plate, or three. Or maybe the whole damn lot.
Don’t let the breaking plates determine what you do and don’t do.
You get to decide what’s a priority, where you place your focus, and what drops out of focus, instead of stopping to clean up the pieces of broken plates that inadvertently fell.
You’ve got to be clear on your priorities because let’s be honest, ‘WHO’ are those breaking plates? Your children? Your aging parents? Your clients? The people you lead at work? YOU?
Which plates are you breaking each time you add to the plethora you already have up there spinning when you say yes to someone else’s priority? When you accommodate, adjust, fit in, ignore your intuition, and move your boundaries…again?
Priorities
It’s important to say, “these are the things I need to do to accomplish everything I want to accomplish…and there simply isn’t enough time. AND, I get to decide what goes into the priorities and alignment of my life.”
Give yourself the gift of slowing down for an afternoon so that you can get clear what and who you want to be, what you want to create.
There are 24-hours in a day for everyone, no wiggle room there.
How will you prioritize and structure those 24-hours?
How will you fit in your self-care? How will you build in your work, parenting, family & friends, personal and professional growth…your belonging?
What do you need so that you can say no to what’s pulling you off course from your goals and putting your priorities on the back burner, adjusting yourself for the expectations or needs of others?
It’s about aligning with your priorities.
It’s not about balance.
It’s not about keeping 457 plates spinning in perfect balance.
Create your vision then align your goals and daily actions with who and where you want to be. Without apology.
Powerful possibilities come with prioritizing. This I know for sure.
As a result of my epiphany that morning, it has put a megawatt spotlight on the work I do with women, as well as my WHY.
Clarity is a beautiful thing. It’s impossible to make intentional and aligned choices in our life, and business, without it.
It can also be a double-edged sword at times… highlighting areas that we’d prefer to keep out of view, from others as well as ourselves. This was the case for me as I was enjoying my coffee that morning.
Digging deeper, becoming more grounded in my gifts and my brilliance (how dare I claim my brilliance for fear of getting too big for my britches…), I was able to see I was the one getting in my way, choosing to experience life through a lens that kept me over-balancing and out of alignment.
When I read those eight little words that morning, it jolted me awake and into alignment, like a chiropractor…with no copay. Win-win.