Last week Safiya Bouhouch of I Am Well shared a piece on mindfulness. In it she explained that a mindfulness practice doesn’t have to be super complicated - instead she recommends starting with three steps: hydration, meditation, and breathwork. Meditation and breathwork can seem slightly daunting to me on busy days, but I always feel like I can hydrate! So, since last week I’ve been working on making sure that I drink at least 8 glasses of water a day. And you know what? It is amazing. My skin is clearing up after a few weeks of frustrating breakouts, I have more energy throughout the day, and, most importantly, my thoughts are less muddled and I’ve gained back a bit of optimism that seemed to have disappeared in 2020.
In fact, I started feeling so optimistic that I let myself get carried away with what else I thought I could achieve. I started thinking along the lines of, “If I can drink enough water and help my skin and clear away some of my anxiety, maybe I can make some other mindfulness tweak (meditation let’s say) and then finish everything on my to do list! You know, that real to do list that is a million miles long.”
And that’s how I got to the subject line in today’s newsletter. You, unlike me in my moments of hubris, probably know that doing it all isn’t possible.
Except, maybe, like me, a part of you really hopes that it is possible. You know it isn’t, but you can’t help but hope that with the right advice you’ll figure out what you’ve been doing wrong and all of a sudden you’ll be able to do everything you want all at once. I know I feel that way, and it is certainly something that comes up with clients.
But, we all know deep down that we can’t actually do everything. There simply isn’t enough time. And, the older I get the more thankful I become for that fact. Having to choose means that I get to focus on the things that make me happy and prioritizing forces me to be more thoughtful. If I could do everything then nothing would actually be that special.
Prioritization is necessary in all aspects of our lives -- we can’t do all the smart financial things at once because we don’t have enough time, money or support to do so. And that’s okay! The problem often is figuring out what in our list we actually should focus on first. So, if your list looks something like this:
Buy a home
Save for retirement
Save for taxes
Save for emergencies
Save! Save anything!
Make a will
Find a financial coach
Figure out what to do with that old account
Find my login information for that IRA I haven’t looked at in ages
Reach out to my CPA
Pay off my credit cards
Look into a personal loan
Open a business account
...and you’re not sure where to start, I have a quick piece of advice. Order the list based on how time sensitive each item is and then only focus on the first three things. You won’t get it all done immediately, but you’ll start making progress and knocking down that first domino is often the hardest part.
Oh, and go drink a glass of water.
XOXO
P.S. If your list feels daunting and you’re not sure what is actually the most time sensitive or you know, but you don’t know how to actually do the thing then financial coaching may be a good fit for you! You can schedule a free call with us here.