Break Out of the Norms You Set for Yourself
I had to take a forced break from my usual live broadcast and my newsletter topic plan this past week due to my mother being in the hospital.
Between both my parents, other family members, and one of my children’s childhood spent in hospitals, I’ve been here all too many times.
HERE is disrupted, in hyper-vigilance, learning on the fly. It’s making important decisions while watching the American healthcare system flail and often fail to meet the needs of those that require care.
HERE is sitting with loads of time on my hands while I’m bedside to advocate for my loved one’s care, but not having enough brain power to do anything productive or move business forward.
HERE is going through every full-time job in your mind of what will be required to get your loved one to the next stage of care (or resuming their life) without being able to do anything to prepare because you have no idea when you have to activate a plan or what level of functioning you have to prepare for.
You can’t know until you know, which makes everything a last minute rush to an invisible finish line.
Good healthcare workers are heroes. Truly. I’m so grateful for those that truly care and fight alongside me for the care my loved ones need.
What I want to impart here is a call to action to wake up to your own life and shake yourself out of inertia. As I watch my mother struggle with a watershed moment where she is only likely to get worse and not better, I put forth this message to not let your life pass you by.
I’m not sharing about this personal challenge for your attention or sympathy. I don’t need it nor want it. I’m sharing to encourage you to shake off whatever is holding you back and take a bold action to move your life forward.
As hard as it seems, as impossible it appears to reach your desired outcome, as hopeless as your past results may make you feel, do something to break out of the norms you have set for yourself.
Yes, you have set them for yourself. You’ve accepted certain behaviors from yourself or others, you’ve let circumstances curb your possibilities, you may have even given up.
STOP THAT NOW.
Imagine sitting bedside (maybe some of you have) watching a loved one deteriorate to a shadow of their former selves. Imagine the things they never did and wanted to do.
The things they didn’t know how to say and never will. The wonderful things they did that they could never repeat again. What would that stir you to do?
Maybe it’s time to look at your bucket list. Maybe it’s just your to-do list that need a glance where you might find all the items are absurd in the bigger scheme of things.
Maybe it’s a look at your goals to find out if they’re really yours or better represent things you think you SHOULD do vs. really want to do. Maybe it’s just doing NOTHING and enjoying your life for a while that is the call. I don’t know, but you likely do.
I have nothing cataclysmic to share about what another round of being bedside is doing for me. Right now, it’s just draining and anxiety producing to not know what I’m preparing for.
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