You Can’t Have It All
The phrase “You can’t have it all” has been going around and around in my head for the past couple of weeks. My mother used to say it when I was a child. I haven’t really thought much about it, but as I realized how much I was juggling, it occurred to me that this phrase sums up why I’ve been feeling overwhelmed for the past month.
I’ve been trying to have it all. I’ve been trying to spend sufficient time with my family and homeschool my youngest because those are priorities. Then I’ve been trying to manage the writing aspect of my life, and that includes the business side of things like record keeping of expenses and social networking. Add on that just the basic running of a home and other things that inevitably pop up in life, and I was hurling toward another round of burnout. I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to embrace my limitations.
Over the past week, I’ve been working through a list of what I need to keep and in what order those things fit. Then I started crossing off the stuff that needs to go. So this is the new plan, which I hope will help me find the proper balance.
The first thing I’m doing is cutting back on writing. I’m not going to stress a daily word count anymore. I’m going to give myself a set time to write early in the mornings. When that time is up, I will go to homeschooling. I was trying to sneak in writing between breaks in the homeschool day, but I really need to stop that because it’s left me feeling frazzled.
Non-writing tasks will have to be done on days I don’t schedule to write. I will still be making these blog posts because I love blogging. Facebook, MeWe, and emails, however, will be sporadic. I dropped everything else. I know the changes I’m making will upset some people, but I’ve been stretching myself too thin. If I don’t scale back, I’m going to crash and burn. Then I won’t be writing at all because it’s impossible for me to write during burnout.
I want to keep writing because that has always brought me joy. I’m not sure what my output will look like for next year. I have no idea what books will be out and when. I’m just going to take each book as it comes and do the best I can to tell a good story. I want to have fun with what I’m writing. I’m a firm believer that a story that a writer loves writing is the very best possible story it can be, and I want to honor everyone by giving you my best.
