It’s time to start blogging again. Late last summer, my life went crazy for a while. This past (almost) year has been a blur. My “real job” became off-the-charts busy, then my husband changed companies, then we moved to a new house, then I changed jobs, then I learned what “off-the-charts busy” really meant.

Have you been on auto-pilot and overwhelmed like me?

The thing is, life will never slow down to the point that I feel I have enough time to do everything I want to do. Life continues on, regardless of the part I play in it. I can fill every hour trying to keep up with it, I can get sick for a few days and disconnect from it completely, I can try to grab it by the horns and wrestle it into my idea of what my life should be. None of those actions changes the pace of my life. There are some that do:

Wake up

Are you shoving things that matter to you behind the “someday” wall? Someday I’ll spend more time playing with my children. Someday I’ll write that novel. Someday I’ll start going to the gym. Someday I’ll start eating better. Someday I’ll figure out what kind of career I really want to have.

Identify your big rock

You know the metaphor of the big rocks? The little things that crop up each day are like grains of sand. The medium sized rocks are routine things you do. The big rocks are things that are important to you. If you fill a jar with sand, then pour the medium sized rocks on top, there will not be room for the big rocks. If you reverse it, putting the big rocks in first and then the medium sized rocks, the sand fills in all the gaps between the rocks and you can get it all into the jar. Your day is the jar.

Stop living in reactive mode, answering every little fire that flares up in the day. Choose 3 priorities for today. I’m planning to choose one work thing, one family/household thing, and one thing to nurture myself. Those are the big rocks. If 3 seems huge, pick one. One thing.

But it must be meaningful.

Does your one thing bring joy to your life? Does it make you feel like your life has meaning? Do you feel on-purpose when you do it? If not, choose something else until you can answer “yes” and your rock is meaningful.

The other things on your to-do list are important, too, but if you have to ignore them to get the one thing done, ignore them. If you came down with a 24 hour bug that made you spend the day in bed, the world wouldn’t end. It won’t end if you have to postpone some of the things on your to-do list for one more day.

No matter what happens today, do your one thing. And be proud of it.

I wrote this post this morning, my first one in about 9 months. I didn’t have time to put a picture in it, but that’s a smaller rock I can do later.

What will you do today?

Share it with me in the comments.

“If I were a wild animal, I’d have gnawed my leg off by now.”

This is how I began my journal entry in March of 2007, feeling trapped in a job that had promised wonderful opportunities but now felt like a straitjacket. The trick was to begin finding a way out, but before I could start I had to set a strong foundation for myself. I floundered around for a while, but in retrospect I think the following areas were key in giving me the strength I needed to break out of a life that didn’t fit me anymore.

Accept where you are on the passion path

If you are struggling with finding your passion, accept that you are in the beginning stages. There will be a lot of trial and error, a lot of starting and stopping, a lot of swirl. It might make those close to you (especially those dependent on you) a little crazy.

When I started my own journey, I desperately wanted to find something that would excite me, create meaning in my life, and give me a sense of purpose. I leaped at several opportunities, thinking “That’s it!” and jumping in with both feet. It felt great until I got a little more involved and realized that not only was the activity not “IT”, it wasn’t even something I enjoyed. Being an extravert, I talked excitedly to family and friends about every new thing on my radar. A month later, they saw me dropping the thing I had been so excited about. I really began to feel like a flake, a failure, someone who didn’t stick to anything.

If you are just starting out, realize that you are going to go through a lot of churn at the beginning. Allow yourself to experience it. Don’t try to avoid it, even if it makes you feel very uncomfortable.

Commit to the Homework

If you are trying to find your passion, realize that it’s going to take some time to figure it out. Commit to putting in that time. Introspection isn’t sexy. It isn’t something that your casual friends will want to hear about, and it isn’t usually something you would talk to them about anyway.

If you have spent months or years burying your feelings, it’s going to take some time to rediscover yourself again. Go in with the expectation that you will try things, you will take small steps, and you will NOT rush yourself. Set yourself up for success by realizing this is a process, not a miracle moment. You’ll have more fun along the way.

Find Your Tribe

The blogging community might have initiated use of the word “tribe” in everyday language, but it applies to finding your passion too. Do you know the #1 reason most people fail in making changes that stick? They try to do it alone. If you have a supportive significant other, friends that cheer you on, or motivational family members, this might not be a problem for you. If not, here are some ideas:

• Read blogs about others making the same change
• Get on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or other services and find a group that wants to make the same change you do
• Listen to audiobooks that motivate and inspire you
• Go to MeetUp.com and find others who share your interests

Your Turn

Where are you on the passion path? Have you handled the basics yet? Tell us in the comments below.

Today is my son’s birthday. He’s no longer a baby and not yet a pre-teen. Yep, we’re at that fun transition stage where he’s still young enough to want to cuddle sometimes but old enough to want his own independence.

He’s also old enough to develop his own limiting beliefs.

This morning as I thought about this, I realized I might be responsible for some of them. There are some beliefs I want to encourage. There are others I want to actively try NOT to pass along to him.

Some of the limiting beliefs that I want to encourage in him:

• I should treat others the way I want to be treated
• I should be respectful to adults, and also to other kids
• When I feel shame, the best way to get rid of it is to apologize and ask forgiveness

They are limiting, but in a good way. If he follows them, he will change his behavior when necessary and will get along a bit better in this world.

Here are a couple that I recognize in myself, and that aren’t always true. These rules of thumb I want him to use generally, but realize that sometimes they don’t apply:

• I should always do what adults and authority figures tell me
• I should do my best to look at the bright side of life and be cheerful

Here are some that I fight against myself, and hope he doesn’t inherit:

• I need to please everybody
• If everyone isn’t happy with me, I must be doing something wrong
• If someone doesn’t like me, I need to work harder until they do
• When I feel angry, depressed or frustrated I should stuff it down and cover it with false cheer and happy behaviors

The Acid Test

For each of these limiting beliefs that I’ve grown up with, the test I ran them through to see whether they were helpful or hurtful is this:

Would I like my child to believe this and act accordingly?

Your Turn

What limiting beliefs do you hold? Which ones help you get along better in the world, and which should you modify or abandon?

Do you feel like you aren’t enjoying life as much as you could? Do people ever accuse you of being negative? Do you want to become more passionate about life? Here’s a tip for living a more positive life – strive for a small “but”.

How many times have you heard an authority figure – a manager, a parent, a teacher – say something nice about you or your work and you can’t enjoy it because you’re waiting for that, “BUT … ” part of the statement? Have you ever been surprised when it didn’t come, and then found you couldn’t remember the positive things they said because you were focused on defending yourself against a criticism? Here are some ways to get the “but”s out of your own discussions:

1) Replace “but” with “and”

I read once that impromptu actors practice their skills by using one rule when they get together – each person begins their segment with the word “and”. It seems like a simple thing to do, but and you’d be surprised at how difficult it is to switch that one little word in your responses (see?).

If you do nothing else this week, give this first step a try. When a friend comes to you and asks you to look over a report she wrote, try something like “This is very well organized and easy to follow AND if you changed the wording of the introduction a little it would really grab the reader’s attention so they would absorb every word.” When a co-worker has an idea during a brainstorming session, you could say “That’s pretty creative AND I think we could also …” Responding in a positive way will encourage your friends to seek you out for your feedback.

2) Receive feedback with something other than, “But …”

These points might make more sense with an example, so I’ll share an experience of preparing a speech for a Toastmasters contest. First, let me acknowledge that I am a strange animal because I truly ENJOY public speaking. Joining Toastmasters has given me an opportunity to find my voice and share my thoughts with groups of people. That is not to say that it’s an easy path. While I love talking with people and see public speaking as an extension of that, creating a planned speech that educates, inspires and entertains is difficult.

I brought my fledgling speech to a dear friend and coworker of mine, who suggested that I bring up a point that I had already included. I could have said, “But I talked about that point here, in paragraph 5 …” It was hard not to say that. Instead, I substituted it with “Great! How do I make that point stand out?” This positive response allowed my friend to continue on and give me some excellent suggestions to incorporate. If I hadn’t changed my response, I wouldn’t have received that additional info. He would have closed down, not wanting to offend.

3) Replace “But I can’t do that!” with “I’ll give it a try”

Do you greet new ideas with suspicion and worry that you’ll fail? If so, you might be cheating yourself of growth opportunities. Trying and failing gives us a chance to grow new skills. It also gives us a rich resource for embarrassing stories later, though you might not consider that a positive.

When you give something new a try, you join in the fun others are having. If you approach it with a sense of humor and tell people this is new to you, it gives you a chance to enjoy life more fully with the support of others. Those experiences can help you engage with life more fully rather than sitting on the sidelines. So give something new a try!

Your Turn

There are many benefits of having a small “but” and being more positive. Your friends will seek out your feedback more when you deliberately replace “but” with “and” in your suggestions. You’ll find that others are more willing to collaborate with you when you add to their ideas instead of criticizing them. You’ll open to new experiences that will make your life more meaningful and fun when you try new things.

Will you try one of the steps above this week? Let us know what happens in the comments.

I read recently that “Saying you don’t have time for something is the same as saying ‘I don’t want to’ do it.” I fought that for a minute, because it stung. Of COURSE I want to do [all the things I haven't had time to do]. When I thought about it a little more, and forced myself to be honest, I found that there might be a bit of truth in it.

What about you? Try this little thought exercise and see where it leads you.

1. Make a list of 5 things you had time for this week

Not the list of small chores you don’t think twice about and not your job, but those [almost] every day activities lasting 30 minutes or more. For me, that list was:

• Watching 1-2 hours of TV with my family
• Reading blog posts from emails, RSS and Twitter links
• Writing responses on a membership bulletin board
• Shopping for and cooking meals
• Tweaking this site (design and features)

2. Make your case

Are there any activities that don’t help you advance toward your main goals? If so, make a case for why it’s important to do them. Some of my excuses responses were:

• I need to spend time with my family
• Reading other blog posts inspires me to write my own
• Being part of a community makes me feel happy
• We have to eat
• My site has to appeal to readers

3. Go deeper

Ask yourself some questions about each activity and excuse response:

• Is my response true?
• Do I spend more time than needed on this?
• If I stopped doing this, how would it change my life?
• Is what I want/need to do more important than this?
• Can I be more disciplined or efficient with this?

4. Are any of these covering up fear?

What we say we don’t have time for is often something that we’re afraid of doing or (more accurately) afraid of doing poorly. I spend a lot more time than truly necessary reading other blogs and tweaking my site design. Why? Partly because I truly enjoy it, but partly because it relieves my anxiety about coming up with a topic of my own to write about.

Be ruthless about this part, because this exercise is only beneficial if you are completely honest with yourself.

5. Fish or cut bait

Now that you’ve examined each activity and its true value to you, compare it with the things you want to do and make some decisions. Are you going to give an activity up in favor of another one? Reduce time spent in one area so you can fit the things you want to do in? Or, when you really think about it, are you truly happy just doing what you are doing?

If you decide to keep doing the things on your activity list, do yourself a favor and put the things you “want” to do on hold for a while. Commit yourself to the activities you are doing so you can enjoy them completely. Put a reminder date on your calendar for 3 months or 6 months to run through this exercise again. Your answers might be different, in which case it might be time for a change. Until then, deliberately push it out of your mind.

Guilt and “should”s can drive you crazy and waste a lot of energy. Take a few minutes to get to the truth about what you really want, and then allow yourself to have it.

Your Turn

What activities came up on your list? Which were more important or more scary than you thought? Did you change anything as a result of this exercise? Share your thoughts in the comments.

The beach is fun, right? You languish in the sun, read a good book, play in the waves.

Then when you turn your back to the water, a huge wave comes along and whallops you from behind and suddenly you’re spitting sand.

Oh sure, it’s funny when you watch it happen to someone else. It’s embarrassing as hell when it happens to you.

Doing something new is like that.

I’ve been trying to blog regularly on this site for the past six months. It’s still rough going. And I haven’t figured out exactly why. I love talking to people, sharing ideas, encouraging and motivating others. I thought this site would give me the chance to interact with more people and the stimulation would naturally lead to me generating lots of content. The first part happened (thank you Catherine, LaVonne, SusanJ, and all the others who made me leap around the room with joy when you commented on a post). The second part, not so much. At least, not yet.

I’ve struggled a lot over the past month with a few issues, and here are some thoughts that are helping me get back up, dust myself off and get back in the game. If you ever hit a road block, these questions might be helpful to you too.

How can you plug energy drains or get more energy?

Is something draining you? If so, can you take care of an issue that is an energy drain so it will stop dragging you down? Can you at least lessen the impact on your emotional or physical energy?

Likewise, is there something you can do to boost your energy? Can you get more sleep? Spend more time alone? Spend more time with others? This is where knowledge of personality type can help. Specifically, knowing whether you naturally focus on external stimuli or internal processing will help you when you realize you are down in the dumps and need a life but don’t know what to do.

If you are an extravert like me, you probably will gain energy if you interact with people. I don’t mean going to a crowded event or walking the mall. I’m talking about spending time with people you know and enjoy. If you are an introvert like some of my closest friends, you will probably gain energy from building some time into your schedule to reflect and think or take a walk in nature.

I’m also taking a look at what I eat and trying to eat a plant-based diet. I’ve fallen off the wagon so often in the past two years with this that I hesitate to mention it, but it’s worth trying again. You’ll hear more about this in upcoming posts.

Are you paying more attention to what you believe or what others believe?

Who thought someone could make a whole TV show out of picking junk out of people’s garages? Who believed a free website that asked for volunteer contributions could put make Encyclopedias obsolete? Who stood behind a dog lover from Mexico who dreamed of providing a refuge for unwanted dogs and helping Americans understand their pets?

If you are passionate about a cause and you believe it will help people solve problems, who’s to say it won’t work? There are lots of people in this world who are risk averse. They will caution you against doing things that aren’t the norm. You can learn from their stories about their experiences, but if you let those stories spook you into quitting you will lose any ground you’ve gained.

The only guaranteed way to fail is to take no action. Take one small step. Then take another.

Are you enjoying the process, or enduring it just to reach the goal?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has written a lot about a state he calls flow and how important it is to enjoy the process, not just the expectation of the end result.

I’m currently reading his book Good Business, and I’m thinking about what I actually enjoy doing and how to do more of it.

I love speaking to groups. That’s my favorite thing to do in the whole world, and I get a rush every time. I haven’t been doing any public speaking. None. Not even at my Toastmasters club. It’s time to change that.

Do what you love. If you hope to succeed, make sure you love what you are doing.

Your turn

Have you hit a road block before? How did you get through it? Tell me in the comments.

I hate to put things off.

Oh, not things that I’m scared to do or hate doing – those I can put off for weeks and weeks. But things that I really, really want are tough to put aside. I am the queen of instant gratification. This works to my advantage when I can reach the goal in the near term, or at least see how I can make progress on it in the near term.

But I’m not here to talk about the easy times. I’m here to talk about the times that the need for instant gratification threatens to kill my progress, because I believe you can relate. And because going through it together might help both of us out.

Making Progress

For the past four years I’ve been figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. I changed jobs to have more interaction with people because that’s what I love. I found myself more fulfilled. I joined Toastmasters because I’ve always enjoyed speaking in front of people and thought I’d build my skills, and for the past three years I’ve served as a club officer and have earned speaking and leadership credentials. I found myself happier. I changed my role at work to one that required facilitation, mediation, and coaching skills. I found myself joyful. Each step along the path has helped me grow, and now I want to become a certified coach. Suddenly, progress has stopped.

Today’s Block

I have a chance to apply for a coaching certification at a major university, and I’m stalling out. It’s not because I don’t want it. On the contrary, I long to learn more about coaching. Susan at The Hearts Voice wrote a post recently about longing and stated, “And in our instant gratification culture we often bury it [our longing], thinking that it’s too painful to want what we can’t just go out and get.” Light bulb. I think that’s my block, or at least part of it.

Building coaching into a strength demands more than raw talent. It requires experience. It requires skill. And, for me, that means credentials. It also requires time, which means I have to put other things on hold that I really want. And that is painful. Just like anyone else, I have a limited supply of energy (though I hate to admit it, even to myself).

The Lure of Spinning Plates

I also have an addiction to spinning plates. As in, if I’m not screamingly busy between 10 different objectives at the same time, I feel as if I’m not accomplishing enough. But running in between plates to keep them all spinning burns a lot of energy. I could better spend that energy keeping two or three plates spinning.

I want to build a business coaching people in finding meaningful work, using their strengths, and helping others (their employees, students, etc) develop their strengths as well. I’ve spent invested several months now in learning how to build that online business. It’s so close that I can taste it. But doors are opening at work also, giving me opportunity to use my coaching talent in the corporate world. I can’t start a business while investing my energy and time in certification, building experience, and changing my role at work. Something will have to give. Realizing that is the painful part, but even more difficult is choosing the plates to keep spinning.

Making a Commitment

This weekend I spent a lot of time figuring it out. I need one more year before I launch a true business in this. One year to:

• Become a certified coach
• Build experience in coaching
• Continue to build my writing and speaking skills

Luckily, this blog is part of that. Hopefully, I can continue to provide value to those of you who read this as I continue to grow, learn and develop. I consider this a battle in mastering my craving for instant gratification. I hope to win the war.

Do you sometimes feel like you are running around like a crazy person trying to get everything done, only to accomplish nothing at the end of the day because of distractions? This morning I was cooking biscuits for breakfast. They were almost finished, but needed one more minute. I turned off the oven but left the biscuits in to finish browning and went to my computer to check one thing in my email box. Three minutes later I jerked my eyes off the blog post rant I was reading about Facebook and looked at the oven in horror. I have completely forgotten to take the biscuits out! And the scary thing was that I could have gone on reading for another 10-20 minutes.

Luckily, the biscuits weren’t burned since I had turned the oven off, but the episode reminded me that there are dangers in running from bright shiny penny to bright shiny penny down the path of life. If you are anything like me, you start off the day with great intentions, get distracted by events during your day as you run around to get things done, then end up feeling you’ve accomplished nothing. In the interest of sharing what I am in the process of learning, here are some questions to ask yourself when you are trying to accomplish a task and something threatens to change your trajectory:

Is this a bigger priority than what I was doing?

The distraction might be fun, urgent, or have an impatient person attached to it, but if it isn’t as important as the task at hand then you need to save it for later. Jot it down on a notepad, send yourself an email with the reminder, call your other phone and leave a voice mail. Somehow, find a way to add it to your collection of things to think about later.

If I allow myself to get distracted now, how do I make sure I come back to what I’m doing?

Your reminder might be setting a timer, putting a rubber band around your wrist (you’ll notice it later, I promise) or leaving a big yellow sticky note in a prominent place for when you return. The trick is to find something that will get you back on track when you can focus again on your task.

How much energy or time will reacting to this take?

In the process of chasing every new idea that comes along, you’ll burn off a lot of energy. Is that energy better spent heading toward a specific goal today? If not, enjoy running after your pennies and have a great time doing it. But if following it will take so much energy or time that you can’t accomplish your task today, you need to remind yourself to stay on target.

Today’s Strength Training Challenge

Identify one thing you will accomplish today. You can do more if you wish, but make sure to finish one small piece of meaningful work. If you finish one task that is important and will lead toward a larger priority or goal, you will end each day with a sense of purpose and accomplishment. And you won’t find yourself eating burned biscuits.

Mothers do so much for us. They give us life, nurture us through our baby stages, and model behavior so we learn to conduct ourselves and lead a successful life. Now that I am a mother, I know how it feels to make the rules that others live by – and it’s not as easy as it appeared to be when I was little. As adults we might know how to set rules for others, but we often don’t care for ourselves as well as we would care for our child. Do you ever feel as if you are in need of nurturing? Following Mom’s Rules might help:

Rule #1: Get Enough Rest

Remember how Mom insisted on a bedtime far earlier than you felt was necessary? She had a point, and it wasn’t just the health benefits that a good night’s sleep grants you. The truth is, you turned cranky when you didn’t have enough sleep. And you still do.

A night without enough sleep sets you up to be more reactive, stressed, and temperamental than you would be otherwise. Someone cuts you off in traffic and you get all worked up. You arrive to work already frustrated, which isn’t the best frame of mind when your coworker in the cube next door starts bickering with her boyfriend on the phone for the fifth time this week. You have a headache by mid-morning from clenching your teeth and trying to complete the project due today, and you just aren’t making any progress. This sets you up to reject the next Mom’s Rule:

Rule #2: Eat Your Fruits and Veggies

It’s finally lunchtime, and your stomach isn’t happy with it’s four cups of coffee for breakfast. Healthy food at this point? Come on, who has the time? Besides, on a day like this you need comfort food. You’ll get back on your eating plan tomorrow. You need to cut yourself a break. Today, no one else will. So you down that plate of nachos and a refreshing soda, and then go in search of that chocolate bar you saw in the break room earlier.

Without food in your system, your body will crash like last year’s housing market. That lunch wasn’t food. It was processed junk. If you haven’t read Michael Pollan’s recent book In Defense of Food (affiliate link), spend the $10 today. It’s worth every penny. It’s not your imagination that Mom’s food tasted better 20 years ago. It really did. The ingredients were fresher, chemicals weren’t added to every product you ate, and the bitter taste of artificial sweetener resigned foods that contained them to the adult’s world. These days it’s hard to find foods without sugar, corn syrup, or chemicals in them.

As Pollan says, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” It’s that simple. Not easy, but simple. Mom knew that 20 years ago, and if we had continued with her advice we would all be a lot healthier.

Rule #3: Go Play Outside

What a day! You get home and fling yourself on the sofa. You’re beat, and you deserve a beer while you watch some TV. Yep, time to veg. You’ve earned it. But what, exactly, did you earn? The chance to placidly re-live the experiences of others through your favorite reality show while you order takeout? Is this what you want in life? A few programs later, you suddenly realize that it’s 11:30pm. Whew! You made it to the end of the day, and you are exhausted. Definitely time for bed. You have another long day ahead of you tomorrow.

Wait a minute! What is this madness? Let’s rewind.

A Day Following Mom’s Rules

The alarm goes off at 6 and you’re able to get up without hitting the snooze button 5 times, which means you have time to grab a quick breakfast before heading off to work. Boy, are you glad you got to sleep by 10 last night! Traffic is heavy, but no worries. You listen to a book from Audible on the way, and your creative genius wakes up with some fun new ideas.

You settle into your cube and start on the project that’s due today. An hour into it, you hear your coworker in the next cube yammering on the phone as usual. Should you confront her? Nah, it will only distract you. You put your headphones on so you can focus on the work at hand.

Around 10 your stomach starts growling, so you munch on an apple while you outline the three points you need to make during your next presentation. The next two hours fly by since you are so absorbed in your work.

Suddenly you realize it’s lunchtime and you need a break. You think of some food choices based on what will actually fuel your body, and with some choices in mind you head down to the cafeteria. You spot a friend in line, and invite her to catch up during lunch since you have a few minutes. You enjoy your chicken breast, green beans and fruit while hearing about your friend’s latest escapades. Refreshed and somewhat full, you head back upstairs to get to that 1pm meeting. You only have a couple of hours to finish that project, but you refuel with some carrots and hummus and email the final draft to your boss before leaving the office.

What a day! You get home, change clothes, and grab a handful of nuts as a quick snack before heading out the door. You need to get outside, if only for a few minutes, to clear your head and separate work from relaxation. You grab Bowser’s leash and chat with a couple of neighbors during your walk around the block.

Relaxed and back home, you make dinner and enjoy your evening while you visit with friends or family. You watch your favorite program, then turn off the TV so you can write a blog post or Tweet with your friends before it gets too late. You’ve had a full day, and you want to be rested for tomorrow.

Do your Mom’s Rules help you live a stronger life?

Forget living a whole life following Mom’s Rules. Striving for daily perfection can cause stress of it’s own. But how about for one day? One week? Do you notice your outlook changing?

What were your Mom’s rules when you were growing up? Which ones could help you in your life now?

Do you have a relationship or situation that causes you stress and anxiety, but that you cling to anyway – trying everything you can think of just to hold on to it? Recognizing and dealing with an energy drain is tough. Perseverance is a respectable quality, but holding on to something that brings turmoil and chaos into your life won’t do anyone any good. Least of all you.

This week I had to give up a pet. It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do.

We found a stray dog on vacation in 2008 and brought her home. We named her Jingles because we found her on Christmas day. She was pitifully thin, sweet as could be, nervous as heck and we opened our hearts and home to her. We had a dog already, but decided that we could make room for one more. We nourished her and nurtured her, got her spayed and housebroken (eventually), and built up her confidence over time. She had issues with other dogs, so we invested in training classes and dog behaviorists to help her. Six months into it we knew we were over our heads, but it took us another year to finally decide to find her a new home.

The struggle was enormous, but in the end it came down to this: the stress was poisoning our family. Sweet as she was, adding a second dog was draining us of energy. She would get jealous of attention paid to our other dog, compete with him for food, and always seemed in a frenzy to claim more of us. She needed a family who could spend more time with her during the day, not one where both spouses work. She needed more exercise, though I did try to conquer my phobia of bicycles in an effort to fulfill her needs. She needed more kids to rub her tummy. She needed a household where she could be the only pet. And I believe that we have found her one.

What does this have to do with engaging your strengths?

Perhaps nothing on the surface, but I believe the reason we are given challenges in life is to struggle through them, learn lessons and share the stories with others in the hope that it can help someone else. Besides, you might have wondered where I’ve been this past week.

There is something entirely relevant about this story. Identifying, developing and communicating your strengths takes energy. You can’t do any of these things if that energy is being constantly drained by a stressful situation or relationship.

Are you trying to make a tough decision about giving something up?

I wanted to make a three point process out of this, but it really comes down to 5 questions that only you can answer:

• Have you tried several different solutions to resolve the problem?
• If you found something that helps, can you sustain the changes needed to make things better?
• Can you actually solve the problem instead of just reducing the symptoms?
• Will putting up with the problem now help you create a better life for yourself in the end?
• Is the problem likely to change with the passage of time?

In our case, the answers were: yes, no, no, no, and no. At that point our decision was clear. We did find some things that helped, but nothing would actually solve this. It was a misfit of needs, of energy levels, and of personalities. I will never know why she came into our lives if it wasn’t so we could keep her in our family. A wise friend of mine suggested that the reason might have been to help her become adoptable by a new family. That thought provides me some comfort.

Jingles seems happy in her new home with her new family, though she will always hold a place in our hearts. We have more time for each other and our other dog. We can come home and relax. We can all breathe. And I’ve learned a powerful lesson.

Your energy provides you the strength to lead a powerful life. Make sure you are spending that energy on things that are important to you. And be willing to acknowledge it when something is draining more energy than you can replenish.