If you do nothing else today, let it be this

Why hello again beloved.

Recently I promised to tell you my best tip for becoming more proactive each day. But what I didn’t tell you is how I came across it.

Enter: screaming baby and bleary-eyed, head-pounding mama.

(By the way, Coffee Chats and Yoga Mats is not a parenting site… but parenting is basically an unpaid internship in learning how to be more intentional, so you’ll see some #kidlife stuff sprinkled in.)

It had been another agonizingly long, loud and lonely day with my infant. I spent the day alternating between celebrating that he was finally home (#NICUbaby), feeling guilty for being bored (because caring for a baby is a full-time job, right?), and desperately trying to figure out why he was screaming for the billionth time that day.

(Tip! Stepping outside in the torching 100+ Arizona sunshine immediately calmed him down. Maybe the shock of feeling baked alive shocked him into silence?…)

The thing is – we’d gone through a variation of this routine far too many times – and I was sick of it. I started to tick off all the things that were stressing me out – from a lackluster cup of coffee to feeling mind-numbingly bored (yada yada – lots of complaining).

I wondered, “How could I pivot? What can I start doing differently now to make it less sucky?”

I quickly grabbed my trusty notebook and started dumping what I know call my Challenges and Pivots. (Super creative name, I know…)

For instance, why did I keep making really lame coffee? I could pivot by actually following the coffee’s instructions. (Dude – it totally makes a difference. Who knew? 🙄)

Then… the boredom. While there’s “always something to do” when you have a baby, washing a zillion bottle parts every day wasn’t quite the stimulation I longed for.

I remembered that as an Intuitive Feeler (or Idealist), I get jazzed about personal growth, learning and connecting with others.

My pivot? Make it a legit priority for podcasts about personal growth, read books that made me think, and get hopping on Coffee Chats and Yoga Mats after a 9 year hiatus. (Result: Less bored and less stressed overall – especially later on during our never-ending pandemic life… And connecting with you, Reader, now!)

… the list went on.

Now jotting down my challenges and pivots has become an almost daily practice (more about that another time). On especially hard days, it’s a gamechanger to get real about what was challenging (like my shorts are uncomfortable, Little Man and I got sunburned) and quickly brainstorm potential pivots (ex: get rid of the dang shorts, put sunscreen by every exit so it’s harder to forget to wear it).

… and it’s also awesome to celebrate the pivots you’ve already made. Like when you could have started screaming at your family and took a big deep breath instead.

Pretty cool, right?

You wouldn’t think that simply brainstorming your challenges and pivots would make a big difference, but it does.

Today, take 1-5 minutes to braindump your challenges for the day and come up with possible pivots you could make. After you do it, hit reply to this email with how it went!