The month of January I have ‘set aside’, so to speak, to regain some strength from all of last year!  I know, I’ve mentioned that a lot already.  But I have used much of this month to ponder what the rest of my year will be devoted to.  It has not only been extremely refreshing for me- but very insightful.

Well, last night, as we were getting ready for bed, I asked Ren to look at a draft of what I call my “Ideal Week”.  I was challenged to do the exercise by Michael Hyatt (want to know more- go to http://michaelhyatt.com/081-how-to-create-more-margin-in-your-crazy-busy-life-podcast.html ) (Good exercise by the way!!!)

The article talks about the need for margin in the middle of our crazy, busy lives.  While I am not experiencing that this month, I have and will again soon.  His suggestion was to fill out a schedule of what that ideal week would look like.  Now he’s very aware of  the things that interrupt our lives and keep ideal weeks from happening. But he makes a great point, “Life is a long-distance run not a sprint. If you and I are going to be effective over the long-term, we have to create margin and pace ourselves.”

We must be intentional.

So I copied off Michael’s example that is available at his blog, and fashioned it for my own. You can too!  Just click on the picture. It will take you to Michael’s post. Scroll down and you will find some links to an Excel spreadsheet or a .pdf file so you can view what he did,

What was interesting was that I thought Ren would look at my schedule, and see that I was being quite intentional about pacing myself in  the ‘getting work done’ aspect.  I had a regular wake up time each day and a work day planned.  Not to mention my extra events in the evenings and weekends included.  I intend to make my business work and therefore, must plan my work.

But he pondered it for just few minutes and said, “No, no, no- you don’t have enough margin planned in your week.  If you try to do all this, you will be exhausted by Wednesday.  For one thing, you need to not push to be up with an alarm every week day.  You don’t work well if you don’t have some days where your body can just wake up when it needs too.  

Now that’s a very true statement.  But I felt like he thought that was just my lazy way of doing life for the last few years, and I needed to kick it in gear now that I’m working on my own.  But suddenly my husband, who is up hours before me and often at work for a while on one of my good days, gave me permission to do life and business like I need to do life and business.

There was a time in my life, when giving myself ‘margin’ still allowed me to get up earlier and work longer and weekends.  But now, with the limitations I deal with at this point in my health- that does not work for me.

Just when I needed it most, he reminded me to BE ME!  Even though his need for margin and pace is so very different from mine, he was seeing me! Knowing me!  Giving me permission to do it my way!  As I allow for the ‘margins’ that my health needs, I’m actually stronger in every other way.

How about you? What are the margins you need to be allowing in your life, so that you are stronger elsewhere?

What permissions do you need to be giving those you love?  How can you encourage them to BE themselves?  Where can you help them create margin  so they can be stronger?

Who knows, you might offer a tremendous gift, just when they need it most!

Thanks Rennie!