When Throwing in the Towel Is Your Best Bet

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It’s been a tough week here in the Silkerson household (a name we playfully use which is a combination of my last name (Richardson) and my wife’s last name (Silk).)

One of our kitties is pretty sick. Kaia, who will be 14 years old in April, has been having some nasty GI issues and they’ve gotten quite bad over the last few days.

As I type this, she is in the emergency animal hospital being cared for by highly-skilled medical professionals as well as a team of angels and spirit guides (because I asked them to join her there!).

As you can imagine, focusing on work is quite difficult at the moment but I’m continuing to do my best.

Well, maybe not my very best, but that’s part of the up and down journey of designing your dream life.

And this is a part that can be difficult to navigate.

Every day is not going to be uber-productive. There will be days when life throws you a curveball (or 10!). When that happens, you can either meet it with resistance, which only exacerbates the situation, or you can surrender to it and just do the best you can in the moment.

And sometimes that “best” is plopping on the couch and watching bad TV.

Or stepping away from your desk and going for a walk.

Or downing a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Clearly some choices are better than others. 😉

I try to gauge things on a scale of 1 to 10 with “1” being that I cannot focus at all, no way, no how to “10” which is, despite what’s going on, I’m still totally in the zone.

Those days when I’m at a “1,” it’s futile to sit at my desk and try to accomplish anything. Whenever I’ve done this, I end up frustrated, jumping from one thing to the next while getting a whole lot of nothing done.

It’s on these days when I’ve learned to throw in the towel and fall back on the old (and incredibly helpful) adage: Tomorrow’s a new day.

And that decision to step away, believe it or not, is essential to ever accomplishing my goals or achieving the vision I have.

If I don’t honor myself in those moments and instead try cracking the whip, Little Kerri would start associating productivity with punishment.

And that, my friend, is a recipe for disaster.

Conversely, when you’re feeling in the zone and the day is like a 9 or 10, honor that as well by putting the pedal to the metal.

Rev up that focus and knock stuff off your list!

Either day can be a slippery slope. Even those ones where I feel plugged in and motivated, I can convince myself I’m like that all the time and then give myself permission to procrastinate.

It’s tricky, for sure, but as Kenny Rogers said, “You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em/Know when to walk away, know when to run.”

So what do you do when the day is more like a “5” on that same scale? Well, then you have some decisions to make.

Ideally you have some sort of plan for your week and have your tasks prioritized. When a “5” day comes along, you do your best to focus on the highest priorities while giving yourself grace on the lower ones.

It’s a dance that takes practice and it’s never perfected. This is when that grace is so important.

Like me giving myself grace about sending my Thursday letter to you on a Friday. 😏

As much as we’d like a clear cut instruction manual on achieving our optimum, happy, fulfilled life, there is no such thing.

However, you can be as proactively prepared as possible with a clarity of vision, an idea of what it’ll take to make it happen, and a solid plan of steps and tasks that will bring you to the finish line.

To help you do that, click here (https://www.kerririchardson.com/wp-content/uploads/weeklyplanninginstructions.pdf) to grab my weekly planning template and instructions.

This tool will give you some guidance on how to best use your time as you take conscious steps toward living without restrictions and crafting your happy and fulfilled life.

It’s also a great tool to use in conjunction with my free workbook, Your Joy Audit, which many of you have already grabbed. If you haven’t, you can get yours here: https://kerririchardson.com/joyauditworkbook.

I hope these are both resources you find helpful for staying on track!

I wish you space and clarity,