When You Can’t Sit Still

True story:

I have a client who, when we first started working together, was constantly in motion. She was always busy.

“What are you doing all that time?”, I asked.

“You know,” she replied. “Cleaning and picking up and taking care of things. I never sit still. And if I did, I’m not sure I could even enjoy it because I’d just be thinking about all the things I could be doing instead of sitting down.”

She dreamed about relaxing. About smiling more. About sitting on the floor and actually playing with her kids, instead of just being in the same room with them while she picked up around them.

But she’d lost the ability to prioritize all the things in her life and she’d fallen into the habit of just doing whatever was in front of her.

I’ll never forget our very first coaching session. The grip on her pen was so tight. She was taking furious notes. And she wanted to outline and review every single step in her plan. She wanted to make sure she was “doing it right.”

She even went off and created a detailed spreadsheet of all her cleaning tasks with a rotating schedule so she would be sure to get to everything regularly.

She had a tight grip on being busy and I knew we had our work cut out for us.

But then, after a few more sessions, I saw her shoulders starting to relax. She spent more time listening and less time taking notes. I even saw her smile more.

The Ripple Effect

In her daily life, I had her create dedicated blocks of time for chores and housework so she wasn’t constantly cleaning and picking up. She had time set aside for that.

As that schedule freed up more time, she used it to do some of the things she WANTED to do but had neglected. She prioritized movement, and journaling, and reading again.

Those personal activities ended up sparking new ideas and motivation for her work. That fulfillment from work made her even more grateful for her family. That gratitude motivated her to spend more focused time with her 3 children.

And that cleaning spreadsheet? She forgot all about it.

No Longer Busy

If you were to ask her today if she still feels busy all the time, as a full-time working mom of 3 kids under the age of 6, she would probably tell you no.

But my guess is you wouldn’t even need to ask. Because you’d see it in the way she walks, in the way she listens, and in the way she smiles.

She went from someone who literally couldn’t stop moving (physically and mentally) to someone who approaches her days with purpose and gratitude.

Moral of the story: