You Can Do Hard Things

And sometimes the hard thing is to not do the thing

A friend asked me the other day about my weekend plans and my brain literally went blank. What day is it? When is the weekend? I have moments that blur into days and weeks where I have no idea what the next hour will hold.

I have been so distracted and overwhelmed that I can hardly think ahead to the next day and then when the weekend rolls around, it’s filled with just recovery - coming up for air. And by the time we can exhale, the Sunday Scaries are setting in and it’s time to start it all over again.

Perhaps this seemingly permanent state of mental cloudiness is parenthood? Motherhood while also working full-time outside of the home? Working parenthood with a baby who is rapidly evolving into a wild woman toddler?

Sure. Maybe. But I also have a propensity to do too many things. 

I’m a YES (wo)man

Even though I’m feeling burnt out, my historic propensity is to push through. Harder, faster, more, quicker, go, go, go, go. If you invite me to do something even remotely interesting, I will say yes. And when things conflict or overlap, I try to do them both! I daydream about things that might be fun and then I spiral into fully planning them without consideration of any external variables. I sign up for things without considering what it will actually take to get there and continue showing up. I am a YES MAN!

And for years, my husband has been begging me to do fewer things. He is so wise and almost always right (which I hate and am also thankful for). So I have been trying, honestly, to do fewer things and it felt like I was making marginal progress! 

And then we had a baby. 

If you’ve ever had a baby, you may be familiar with the phenomenon that your time is no longer your own? Your plans are in the clutches of a tiny human and the family unit you have now firmly solidified. 

With the addition of the baby, the part of me that was a yes man crumbled a little. I felt my priorities shifting – I wanted to stay home, do less, keep our world small and special to soak it all in. The reality slowly sank in that every time I said yes to something, I was automatically saying no to something else. It had never felt like it before, but my default enthusiasm was a choice – all those YES’s were decisions, inflection points, active choices. 

Time and energy are finite

I knew that having a baby would shift our priorities and change our life, theoretically. But I didn’t actually think about what the reality of that would be like (oops). I really only considered what would be added to our life with the addition of a baby. I did not consider what would have to be removed to make space for all the new goodness. 

We only have so much time, energy, and emotional bandwidth. So to add something, another thing must be removed to create space. Our YES to one thing is an automatic NO to another thing. The overcommitting YES (wo)MAN energy will make my choices for me if I’m not careful. And then who knows if I’m attending to the things that are my actual priorities? 

You can do hard things

I’ve been thinking a lot about the phrase, you can do hard things. I love this encouragement – I wrote it on my arm in the morning before I ran across the Grand Canyon, I put it on a token to stay next to me while I gave birth to my daughter. Being reminded that I can do hard things makes me feel strong and empowered and helps me do the hard thing! 

climbing up to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon…. when I was not at all certain I could continue doing the hard thing

But lately, what has felt hard (but necessary) for me is NOT doing the thing. Instead of GO! DO! BE! The right thing has seemed more often like stop, stay, rest. I need this encouragement written on my arm to do the hard thing of deciding and saying no. The enthusiast in me has such a hard time choosing to not do something. Even when I know the right answer is no, I have FOMO, I fear disappointing others, I want to avoid hard conversations.

But in this season I am trying so hard to do fewer things – quality over quantity - which means I’m saying no more than I predicted I would. 

Every time something comes up, I have to make a very conscious effort to pause and consider. Is this thing right for me? For my family? For our life right now? If I say yes, what will I be saying no to? When the answer is no, I am protecting our capacity so that we can say yes to something else. Something that IS right for me, my family, and our life right now. 

Am I alone in this struggle? I can’t be and yet, this practice of saying no or not doing the thing can feel isolating. There aren’t usually exclamation points or cheers when you decline an invite. Especially in this age of comparison, it’s even harder to make the right decision for ourselves and not the decision we’d default to out of fear or because it will be impressive to outsiders. 

The practice of pausing to consider is an active work in progress for me. All week, I’ve been pushing against my own boundaries wanting to get this post completed. I’ve been tempted to squeeze in writing whenever I could when really, I just wanted to fall into bed. And every evening it was an active battle within myself. 

Setting boundaries is hard, holding boundaries is hard, making decisions is hard, saying no is hard, resting is hard….. So you’re not alone in thinking any of those things are hard. And you can do them! Because you can do hard things. <3

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Hi! I’m Liz. Thanks for being here and reading my journals on the journey. If you’re new, learn a bit more about me and this space here and consider subscribing to my weeklyish posts. You can choose which types of posts to receive via email or make other changes to your subscription below.

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