When I sat down to evaluate the things that make me happiest, the first category I came up with was relationships. Many of my moments of Blissful Timelessness occur when I am spending quality time with the people I love.
Within relationships, there are several categories: My family, My friends, My love life
First, let’s take a look at my family. As a single mom, my immediate family consists of my three sons and the two girlfriends that live with us. Quality time with my sons is one of my favorite things! When I applied the Pareto principle, I realized that I often put off time with my children for other things, that are less important to me, like work, television, books, etc.
With that in mind, I evaluated how much time I spend with my boys and decided to turn it around and make quality time with them a priority.
I have a different relationship with each of my three sons. Each of them expresses and expects love in a different way. Each of them also has different interests.
The key to making changes in my life is taking baby steps.
As a task oriented person, I decided that it may be best for me to schedule time, somehow, putting it on my to do list will make sure it happens. I don’t want this to be just another thing on my ever growing list of items that needs to be done, I want it to be special. The boys each agreed to a date night with mom, once a month. This quality time I crave with my children, must be a mutual desire, as they all agreed to family dinner every Sunday as well. So, My handy bullet journal gave me a place to schedule dates with each son and write in family dinner.
One caution here is that sometimes life happens and we miss a date or family dinner is replaced with some other obligation and that is ok. The important thing is making it a priority without the guilt, if plans have to change.
I don’t want to feel guilty if I have to reschedule, so, if I reschedule, it has to be a mutual decision and something important. Healthy boundaries are important and establishing boundaries around the things that are important to me feels good.
Identifying what is worthy of a cancellation or reschedule and what is not worthy, upfront makes it easy when something comes up.
So, there you have it, I was able to add family dinner to my schedule and date night with each son. Simple baby steps that make me happy and fulfill me.
Later, I will talk about how I added my other relationships to my priority list and dig into the other 9 categories on my life balance wheel.
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