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CHAPTER 2

DISCOVER CHOICE

It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

J.K.ROWLING

I want you to make a choice:

A.I will choose my own path and priorities.

B.I will let others choose my path and priorities.

If you chose B, you might want to stop and put the book down. You won’t like the rest of this chapter—or this book—because I believe we all want and need to be in charge of our choices. This is hard, though, especially when so many people believe they don’t have ownership over their day.

Too often we hand over the reins, allowing others to imprison us with their own agendas and urgent fires that need putting out. We think we don’t have control over how our day runs, but we do. We’ve simply forgotten that we have the ability to choose to spend time on our own priorities.

We all know what a priority is—it’s something that is important to us. But the struggle for most people is understanding what is a priority and what isn’t. After all, how can we prioritize when everything feels important?

When we treat everything as equal, it means nothing is a priority. It all gets jumbled together, and we begin to lose sight of what really matters. We believe we should be able to exhaust all the opportunities available. Because we don’t want to miss out on anything, we treat everything as if it’s important—even when it’s not. This leaves us feeling like a dog chasing its tail.

The word priority did not exist until the fifteenth century. It simply wasn’t a word. And then when it did finally merge into conversations, it was always singular—never priorities. And it stayed that way for about five hundred years, until suddenly it became plural.

And so we began our cultural belief that we should be treating more things on our list as priorities—even priorities that don’t really belong to us. As Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism, noted, “Illogically, we reasoned1 that by changing the word we could bend reality. Somehow we would now be able to have multiple ‘first’ things.” In reality no one needs allthethings, just the things that are truly fulfilling to them. It’s hard to let things go, especially when there’s a little bit of safety or comfort involved. Focusing your time, getting rid of some of the noise, and lasering in on your priorities sometimes takes some discomfort. I know this myself firsthand.

We need to discover the priorities that are unique to us, but first we have to take hold of this truth: we must be willing to not have it all.

IS IT TOO LATE TO CHANGE?

October in Asheville, North Carolina, is gorgeous. The weather dips into the cool temperatures of fall, and the mountains start to light up in brilliant oranges and reds. It’s one of my favorite times of the year—every year except 2013.

I had started my own business years earlier, and I had grown it to the point where John could leave the corporate world and work alongside me. We worked shoulder to shoulder, putting our all into the business, and I loved working together. And yet, even though I should have been happy, I wasn’t. I felt a deep nagging sense of dissatisfaction.

I couldn’t put my finger on what it was—there wasn’t one singular moment when the clouds parted in a made-for-TV moment and I realized this wasn’t the life for me. I just knew I felt weighted down and heavy with the burden of waking up to a job that didn’t really tick the boxes of what was important to me. I was spending my days spinning my wheels, chasing after a life that made me feel exhausted and empty.

Most of my days ended with me feeling defeated and unfulfilled because I didn’t love what I was putting forth into the world. And that unhappiness with my work was starting to bleed into the other buckets of my life, making me feel hollow.

My business, though, was the sole income for our family. It provided food for our kids, it paid our mortgage—it allowed us to live. I owed that business a lot, but I dreamed of finding a life where I could feel full again and satisfied with my work. I dreamed of a life where John and I could continue to work alongside one another, but that seemed like a fantasy.

How could I possibly turn my back on a thriving business that paid my family’s bills to pursue something new? A feeling of powerlessness loomed over me like a dark cloud.

I felt stuck. It seemed obvious to me that I had no choice—there were no other options.

WE HAVE A CHOICE

You may have experienced this feeling yourself. In fact, while reading this book, you may have thought to yourself, That sounds nice, but there’s no way I can make that happen in my life, or I would love to spend time on my personal priorities, but there’s just too much to do.

Let me lay a little tough love on you right now. You can choose or let others choose for you. The choice is really yours. Not making a choice is a choice. But so many of us have forgotten that we have a choice—it’s a case of learned helplessness.

Have you ever experienced that feeling of having no control over your day? As if your world is so rigid and made up of so many rules you don’t really get to choose the life you live? That, my friend, is learned helplessness. That feeling I was experiencing? Of being stuck (and the fact that I wanted to give up and not even think about how empty I felt)? That was my own learned helplessness rearing its ugly head.

The problem lies in where we allow this learned helplessness to take over, because this passivity can lead us to overlook opportunities for relief. A good example of this type of behavior is when a student studies for a test and yet still performs poorly. When it’s time to study for the next test, she may believe there’s no point because “she won’t do well anyway,” so she doesn’t bother.

She seems to forget that for the first test, she went out late the night before or was distracted by an argument with her best friend. She only remembers that she studied and didn’t do well; therefore, studying didn’t help. She feels stuck and doesn’t see any other choice, so she simply stops trying.

It’s not reality2 that makes us feel stuck; it’s the lens we use to view the world. Maybe you are tired of trying because it feels like it just doesn’t seem to matter. I’ve felt this way too. There are times when we all just want to crawl back in bed and throw the covers over our heads because we are so overwhelmed with the chaotic rush of our days.

We can lose sight of who we are deep inside and what is most important to us. We are so busy struggling and fighting to keep our heads above the proverbial water that we seem to forget we can choose to tread water for a moment. We can allow ourselves a deep breath and time to scan the horizon—we can choose to swim to calmer waters.

When we gift ourselves with the ability to step back and choose, something powerful begins to happen. We strengthen our internal locus of control3. In other words, we remember we have the ability to influence our own destiny instead of allowing the current to push us wherever it wants.

People with a strong internal locus of control believe they have the freedom and ability to make their own choices and determine what happens to them. Because of that, they are significantly happier and more motivated. Psychologists have found that an “internal locus of control has been linked with academic success . . . higher self-motivation and social maturity . . . lower incidences of stress and depression . . . and longer life span.” We want to strengthen our internal locus of control and begin to understand that we have choices.

BUT I REALLY DON’T HAVE ANY CONTROL

If you’re still saying, “That isn’t true for me; I don’t have any choices in my day.” I hear you. You have a strict boss, an overbearing family member, an overly regimented schedule, a special-needs child, or something similar. Right?

I met Rhonda when I was speaking at a workshop event a while back, and I instantly liked her. With a flourishing career and a great family, she is what many would consider a successful woman juggling it all. Anyone looking at her life from the outside would believe she has it all together.

I had just led the group through an exercise where we began uncovering the heart of our priorities, and I asked Rhonda what she had discovered about herself. She walked me through her discoveries, but what I noticed was how much her eyes lit up when she mentioned yoga. I asked her to tell me more about her workout.

Immediately her face became animated as she told me all about her favorite morning yoga class—this was clearly one of the highlights of her day. I love when I see passion like this in other people; it lights me up. I asked her if she had been to class that morning, and something funny happened—the brightness in her eyes dimmed. “Oh no,” she said, “I haven’t been in at least six months. I haven’t gone regularly for years.” Years? For something she clearly felt so passionate about? I pushed her on this, and she explained that it just wasn’t possible. There was absolutely no way she could make it happen. She was far too busy and had too many people who needed her—it was just unrealistic to imagine being able to take morning yoga classes at all in her week, let alone every morning. So I pushed again, and she told me that her family relied on her too much for the mornings to run smoothly without her. So I pushed again. (Notice a theme here?) Could the kids lay out their clothes the night before? She laughed lightly when I asked this and said, “Oh, I don’t pick out their clothes. They get themselves dressed.” One hurdle down.

Could lunches be made the night before? “Yes,” she said, “and actually they could do it themselves, now that I think about it. That would help them be more independent.” Why, yes it would. (And if there’s one thing I love, it’s independence in kids and parents who cultivate it.) We talked about how to make this process easier with designated spots for “lunch-approved” items in the fridge and pantry. Already I could see Rhonda’s expression was a bit more hopeful. Two hurdles down.

Now the big one—driving the kids to school. Rhonda sheepishly admitted her kids were both in high school, and since the older one had a license, there was no reason they couldn’t drive themselves. Hurdle number three came crashing down, and in that instant, the possibilities became endless. Yes, she could still take care of her kids and she could go to yoga. Maybe every day wasn’t doable, but three times a week would be amazing at this point in her life.

Remember those stories we tell ourselves? I believe Rhonda was telling herself that a good mom is there every morning to get her kids out the door. And that story rang true for her, even while her kids were growing older and eventually didn’t need her to be quite so hands-on. Rhonda’s role was evolving, and sometimes when that’s happening to us, it can be really hard to see. We want to believe our kids need us, and sometimes in the busy rush of our everyday life, we forget they are capable of being more independent.

At first blush, this evolution might make us feel a little sad, but really it’s cause to celebrate. It means we are doing our job of raising kids to be strong adults. When we take a minute to realize this, we can drop a fresh marble in the jar.

Now that Rhonda could see this clearly, we sat down and made a plan that allowed time for her family to adjust to the changes in routine and for her to adjust her mindset too. We decided that once a week was a good place to start, so the first four weeks she’d go to yoga once a week. Then she would step it up to twice a week for eight weeks, followed later by three times a week. Suddenly this ideal vision for her morning was achievable because there was a series of choices Rhonda hadn’t seen before.

We all have these invisible choices, don’t we?

SQUIRREL STRATEGY

But what if there had been a real obstacle to Rhonda’s plan? For example, what if neither of her kids were drivers? What then? I would encourage her to use the Squirrel Strategy4.

I first heard this term from blind adventurist Erik Weihenmayer, and I think it accurately describes how we can approach problem solving, especially problems that feel unsolvable—you know, like Erik climbing Mount Everest without the ability to see.

Have you ever watched a squirrel aiming to get something she wants? Perched in a tree, tail twitching, she sees a bird feeder and is drawn to it. The homeowners, though, are smart, and they’ve added all kinds of obstacles to make it “squirrel-proof.” Does our squirrel take a look, decide she has no chance of getting to the seeds, and toss in the towel? Absolutely not. A squirrel will attack the problem from all angles, testing and pushing the boundaries of what she knows she can and cannot do, until she sits triumphantly atop that feeder with a belly full of birdseed.

We can learn a thing or two from squirrels. We need to think outside the confines of what we know and discover our choices. We can look at our situation from all angles and see what choices we actually do have.

With some brainstorming and thinking outside the box, you can discover other options in a situation like Rhonda’s: Can you arrange for carpool and share driving duties with other parents?

Can your partner take over school drop-offs on certain mornings?

Can your kids walk to school with friends?

Can you find a before-school option for childcare?

The choices are there; you just have to be creative in looking for them.

There are always ways to buck the system, even systems with incredibly limiting choices. Research proves that seniors who push back against the rules5 in their assisted living facilities to assert small acts of independence live happier, healthier lives. Prison inmates who find ways to create their own positive choices are more successful when reentering society6. Finding choices isn’t only possible, it’s essential to thrive. You just have to start actively looking for them—that’s a choice in and of itself.

My question for you is: Are you choosing to spend your time being busy, or are you choosing to focus your day on what matters most?

CAN I BUILD SOMETHING NEW?

During that dark October in 2013, I remember looking out my back window and watching the wind whip past while leaves settled on our worn-out deck. It looked just as tired as I felt, so I grabbed a sledgehammer to start tearing it down.

Projects involving building and power tools are one of the things in life I truly enjoy. I wanted to rebuild that deck, but even more so, I wanted to see if I still had any fire left inside me. I was scared I no longer had the ability to feel the satisfaction I craved. Twenty minutes later, John appeared by my side with a hammer in hand. As with all things, we were in this together.

There we were, silently swinging and sweating side by side, tearing away the old pieces of wood, and it felt great. Not good, not okay—I felt alive. We worked on that deck while the weather changed from cool to downright cold; I stepped back after a solid week of hard work and saw the structure we had created. I knew right then that we would be okay. There was still drive and passion inside me. I could still build something new.

In that moment, I had no idea what that “something new” would be, but I knew I couldn’t keep slogging through my days feeling numb. I understood I needed to discover what was at the heart of what I wanted to do. I have to be honest and admit this uncertainty was scary, but the idea of continuing on the same path I was on was even scarier. I didn’t want to waste any more time living an unfulfilled life.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF BEING YOU

We have a limited amount of time in our lives, so it’s important to spend it on the things that matter most. It can be really hard to think about our priorities and time because both concepts are so abstract. I’ll make it a little easier by making time seem a little more physical.

Here’s what 100 years would look like if I were to give each year a concrete shape:

Now, before you begin to feel like you have plenty of time, let’s adjust the scenario a tiny bit. Most of us won’t live 100 years. The current life span7 of an American male is approximately 77 years, and for an American female it’s 81. For the sake of argument, let’s make it easy and say that you’ll live to be 80 years old. We’ll adjust our diagram slightly by knocking 20 years off at the bottom: Look at that—already we’ve begun to realize that time is finite. It’s a commodity that continues to disappear. Now, for the sake of this example, let’s say that you are 35 years old: The black is the time that you’ve already used—there’s obviously no getting it back—and the open spaces are the time you have left. How do you feel about your time now?

Let’s look at the diagram again but in a slightly different way—in terms of months. You start your life with 960 months. Now, as a 35-year-old, you still have quite a few months ahead of you. Some people have more; some have less. But for the sake of argument, let’s say since you’re living to the age of 80, you’ve got 540 months of your life left—more than half: (IN MONTHS)

So when we are talking about an ideal vision of who we are and what we are doing, what does that mean? Let’s focus on the area of your life where you spend the majority of your time: your job. Whether you work in an office or you’re a stay-at-home parent, you have a job.

Like many people, you probably plan to retire at age 65, so at the age of 35, you have 30 years of working ahead of you. That’s what I want to concentrate on right now: this section in the middle, the 30 years of work ahead of you: That translates into 360 months—7,800 workdays. Or to put it more succinctly, 1,560 Mondays to roll out of bed, put your feet on the floor, and make your way to work: So you have a choice. Do you want to spend those Mondays rolling out of bed and heading to a job that fulfills you and brings you closer to your ideal vision? Or do you stay where it’s comfortable, where you are now?

Now, you may think, I will shift someday. It will happen, just not today. Maybe I will start in a year: Okay, you are down to 7,540 workdays. What about waiting 5 years:

Now you only have 1,300 Mondays to work in a job that fulfills you. Maybe you wait 10 years, so you have 20 left: My point is, time doesn’t stop. It’s finite, and we have to treat it as such when it comes to our priorities and our vision of where we want to be. You have more time left in your life right now in this very minute than you will have an hour from now. There is not another point in your lifetime when you’ll have the luxury of the amount of time you have right this very second.

This is why you need to keep those priorities in focus and why you can feel the joy of missing out on the rest. If there’s something you really want to do, today is the day to start. It’s possible for your future to look brighter, for you to focus on the things that are important to you. But to do that, your priorities have to take priority. It’s possible to have a job that makes you happy and to spend time on the things you really want.

Here is an example of how I’ve used this concrete diagram to help me focus on my priorities, specifically those not related to my career. For me a top priority is my kids. I want to show you how I was able to shift my mindset so that my time with them was more of a priority, and how I was able to let go of the rest.

When my kids were born, they had 100 years laid out before them like a blank slate:

And, yes, I think they will live to 100, because by the time they are old and gray, science will have advanced so much they’ll probably be able to transfer their heads over to robot bodies or something crazy like that.

I am lucky enough to get to live with these kids for the first 18 years. And if you look at it on the time map, you’ll see, in the grand scheme of things, that’s not very much. It’s less than 20 percent of their lives: As much as I love them, I’m not planning on having them move back home after they become adults. I only have 18 years to soak up that time, to try and impart some values, and to give them a foundation to become independent adults.

When I think about the time I have with them, I think of it in terms of Friday nights. Why Friday nights? Well, for me, Friday night is the best night of the week. The weekend is laid out before me wide open, and Friday nights are for pizza and movies or games or some other time spent together. Friday nights are important to me. I started out with 936 of these Friday nights: By the time my kids are ten years old, my number of Friday nights has gone down:

Only 416, less than half, are left, and at this point they aren’t able to spend every Friday night with me because they have other things going on, like sleepovers, movies with friends, and so on.

And then, they get to high school:

There are precious few Friday nights left, around 208. Suddenly these Friday nights that seemed so plentiful are now dwindling down to almost zero. They’ve become even more valuable to me. They are a depleting commodity, and they are depleting at a much faster rate than I’d like to believe.

So we begin hoarding our Friday nights and treating them a little bit better. But shouldn’t we be doing that all along? Shouldn’t we be treating our priorities like priorities all the time? That’s what we need to keep in mind.

My kids have 100 years of Friday nights on the day they are born. But I only have 18 years’ worth of those Friday nights with them. I want to treat Friday nights as a priority in this season of life I’m in right now.

When I look at this limited time I have, it reminds me that we all have seasons we live through. Seasons when our lives are hard and seasons where life comes easy, but in the scheme of 100 years, those seasons are a mere fraction of the time we have. Later in life, when my kids are grown, Friday night might not hold the power it does now. And that’s a good perspective to remember. Seasons pass, life ebbs and flows, but our priorities are what anchor us.

The point I want you to focus on is that we are all lucky enough to be on this earth for a finite amount of time—it’s up to us to maximize that time and live our lives to the fullest. Living a life with our priorities guiding us is the key to a happy life—a life that feels well lived.

FINDING MY NORTH STAR

After rebuilding my deck, I had gained the knowledge that I could build something new, but it wasn’t enough to move me forward. I needed direction. I remember sitting hunched over on the edge of my bed, palms faceup on my knees, and begging God not for answers but for guidance. I asked him to help illuminate my way so I could see the path he had designed for me. I gave myself a week to dive into the process, and in those seven days I dug deep. I knew taking the time to discover my purpose, my North Star, would provide the guidance I needed.

The process I created for myself, which I’ll be sharing with you in the next chapter, helped me realize I wanted to do something with productivity, because this was what had allowed me to create harmony in my own life. I found that even though I hadn’t stood in front of a classroom for many years, my teacher heart was still a big part of me because I love educating others. I also realized how much joy it brought me to coach women and to see them feel confident and happy. I had found my North Star. I had found my fire.

Taking the time to be still, to listen to my inner voice, and to let my North Star guide me made all the difference. I decided to create inkWELL Press Productivity Co., a company focused on productivity and planning. We design, produce, and sell products that help people center their lives on what’s important to them. To fulfill my vision, I knew there also had to be a part of the business that focused on education, teaching others how to identify their priorities and create their own productivity systems. I decided everything we did had to be filtered through my North Star. In other words, I would create a laser-focused business centered around my vision.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy. I made plenty of mistakes. Just because you are on your path doesn’t mean it’s free of stones or brambles to fight through. But even when I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing, I was confident because I was following my North Star. And that’s where I am today. Still growing, still moving forward (and still making some mistakes), but most importantly living a life I love with my priorities guiding every step.

YOUR TOP REGRETS

I don’t want to live a life of regret, and you don’t either. You deserve more.

Bronnie Ware was a woman who wasn’t sure what she wanted to do in life, but she knew she wanted to help others. She found a job working as a palliative care nurse, a job that really suited her. She was a great caretaker and even better listener, both of which are key traits when caring for the seriously ill.

She listened to her patients’ stories and memories, and within the first year she began to notice a pattern emerging. Regret. Regret for a lifetime of choices. Oftentimes these decisions were ones her patients didn’t even realize they had made. Over the course of her eight-year career, she saw this theme of regret appear again and again with different patients, from different backgrounds, with very different lives: I wish I’d8 had the courage to live life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

I wish I’ d had the courage to express my feelings.

I wish I’ d stayed in touch with my friends.

I wish I’ d let myself be happier.

That last one gets me the most—I wish I’ d let myself be happier. I think the thing that stands out to me is the phrase “let myself.” Why don’t we allow ourselves to be happy, to become the people we want to be?

“Isn’t it selfish to think of your own priorities?” I’ve had some people ask. And, to be honest, this question makes me laugh. You know why? When you become the person you want to be, this not only enhances your own life but benefits the lives of everyone around you.

Think about it. When I broke down the concept of time, what did you immediately start thinking about as you began to see your weeks dwindling down? What important ideas or people popped into your mind? I’ll let you in on a little secret: those are your priorities.

So, I’ll ask you, is it selfish to think of them?

If I’m guessing, I’d say family and friends were at the top of your list. Maybe you thought of something tied to creating a better life or perhaps a dream or goal that you haven’t pursued. Those things you thought of, were they just for you? Or were they about cultivating relationships, providing security for those you care about, and maybe even creating an impact in the world around you? That’s not selfish. That’s life-giving.

It’s not selfish to live a fulfilling, happy life, but we often wrestle with feeling guilty about enjoying our time or loving what we’re doing, especially when we see others struggling. But here’s the catch: unhappiness serves no one.

Happiness is not a limited resource. You are not going to use it all up. If anything, it’s a resource that exponentially grows when it’s cultivated. Happiness spreads.

Your happiness isn’t defined by others, it is defined by you and the daily choices you make. Living a life centered on your priorities is making a choice to be happy, and it’s okay to choose happy.

Allowing your priorities to sit front and center is a daily decision. It’s purposely choosing to let go of what is unimportant—or at least loosening your grasp. Discovering your North Star, just as I did, will help with making these choices easier, and that’s what I want us to dive into next.