Wean off the juggle

[00:00:00] Well hello, this is The Daily Five with Aurooba. That's me, where we reflect on creating our best lives a little bit every day. Here we go.

[00:00:15] Last season, I talked about the four burner theory a few different times. The theory goes there are roughly four parts of your life, family, friends, health, and work. And in order to be successful, you have to turn down one or two of your burners, or maybe even turn them off. Because you can't go full throttle on all four burners, you'll fail.

[00:00:43] So, you think to yourself, okay, cool, I'll tone down the heat on, say, friends and health, because right now, family and work are really important to me. But here's the thing, life is often more complicated than just four burners.

[00:00:59] For a lot of people I know, me included, the work burner, for example, isn't just work. It's actually the job that pays the bills, the hobby that you one day turn into commercial, you're hoping anyway, and maybe a side hustle freelancing thing that already is commercial. There are so many parts to life, and you can probably break it down into many tiny little pieces of pie that you go bonkers trying to manage.

[00:01:28] But juggling different priorities and different parts of life is normal. We all do it. However, there's a limit to how much we can juggle effectively. Once you are in the world of advanced life juggling, however, it can be really hard to stop or reduce how many things you are juggling. This is where purpose, your word of the year, and your goals come in handy. This is where that Wheel of Life exercise comes in handy. All of these things help you face the truth. Because there is a time to juggle a zillion things and a time to juggle a little less and focus a bit more. A time for fierce exploration and a time for putting what you know and are learning into action.

[00:02:17] So for those of us who are in that time where we should be putting what we learn into action, how can we stop juggling quite so many things?

[00:02:26] I'll be frank, it'll probably be several hard decisions and difficult conversations. It'll mean choosing between multiple things you're passionate about and care about and having to choose what you're most passionate about and leaving the rest alone.

[00:02:45] But you have to make these decisions and slowly wean off the juggle. If what's most important to you is truly what is most important to you, then you have to learn how to say no to what is also important. but not the most important. Josh Kaufman? Kaufman? Not entirely sure how to say his last name. He calls this strategic apathy.

[00:03:07] Now, when he's talking about strategic apathy, he's talking about not letting social status negatively affect our decision making. He's talking about choosing to deliberately not care about forms of social status that don't align with our long term goals. I'm not talking about status. Or, at least I don't think so?

[00:03:29] Or, as I say this out loud, perhaps I am. Perhaps we've somehow attached some form of twisted social status to juggling so many things, like the students at university who talk about pulling three day all nighters like some badge of honor and display of commitment or something. Spoiler alert, it's not. It just means you were careless with your time for the rest of the semester and are currently ruining your health stupidly.

[00:03:55] Maybe you juggle a lot of things and people say to you, "I don't know how you do it." And the small twinge of admiration you detect, you detect, in their voices, becomes a status thing. I've certainly heard that from people, and I generally respond honestly by saying, "I don't. I do it badly." But I suspect some people think I'm being modest rather than honest.

[00:04:18] I digress. What I'm trying to say is You have to consciously, deliberately stop caring about things that aren't driving you towards your long term goals. It's not easy, because a lot of things we do are relevant, in some way, to our long term goals and interests. But, you still have to do it, because you can't go full throttle on the things that are most important to you if you don't.

[00:04:41] It's hard, and it sucks. But, I bet you soup to nuts, heh, that rhymed, you'll be better for it, and maybe even happier because of it. Thanks for listening, same time tomorrow?