This morning I got up early to finish my blog post before playing pickleball at 8 AM. I was a little bit stiff and it was a cool 65 degrees out, so I decided to spend my time relaxing in the hot tub drinking iced green tea and looking at the beautiful sky rather than prioritizing my work. It was awesome!

I’m committed to getting 2 posts out every Friday morning (or as close to morning as possible) but this morning I really wanted to look at what my priorities were. Did I NEED to skip the hot tub that my body really wanted so that I could get work done earlier or would it be OK to get it done a little bit later? You already know what I decided!

As women, we have to balance a lot. We are mothers, daughters, wives, workers, etc. We are socialized to care for and think about others, often at the expense of ourselves.

Part of aging better includes reexamining some of our past habits, priorities and thought processes in general and figuring out which ones make sense to hold onto and which might make sense to let go.

Balancing responsibilities with fun and relaxation feels super important, and that’s where prioritization comes in. Think about the following questions for a minute:

• What do you really NEED to do in any given day?

• What do you WANT to do in that same day? and

• What CAN YOU REALISTICALLY DO in that day?

If you start your day with these questions in mind (or even the night before), you significantly increase the likelihood of creating more balance and joy in your life, and isn’t that worth the effort?

Maybe an area you don’t prioritize yourself is related to exercise. You know you’ll feel better if you get your workout in but you haven’t made the time.

What, if anything, could you give up in your day to spend an extra 30 - 60 minutes prioritizing your workout? How could you make your workout more fun so that it’s something you look forward to rather than avoid (e.g., work out with a friend, take a class, come play pickleball!)

Do you want to eat healthier but are not quite committing the time you need to do so? How might you shift that without adding extra pressure on yourself? (e.g., grocery shop online, spend an hour on the weekends prepping food for your workdays, cook extra when you make a meal and eat leftovers the next day or freeze the extra for a later meal, etc.).

Meditation practice is another area that many women have told me they want to spend more time on but don’t quite get to. Maybe you start out with a 5 minute practice, or less. I actually started with a 1 minute practice because that’s all I could manage.

Over time, that 1 minute turned into 10 and eventually 20. I now look forward to meditation because of the peace and equanimity it brings to my days, but it was quite a long time in coming due to not prioritizing it.

We all have something we’ve been neglecting that we KNOW will make us feel better if we can get to it. It might be related to our health and well-being, it might be related to our work, it might be related to friends/family, or something I haven’t mentioned. Only you know!

Action Steps:

• Take a minute to really think about something in your life that you have NOT been prioritizing but you KNOW it would make you feel better if you did it.

• Figure out how to do that one thing TODAY, and if you really can’t get it done today without creating stress for yourself, make if happen tomorrow.

• Consider starting each day with these questions:

  1. What do I really NEED to do today?

  2. What do I really WANT to do today? and

  3. What CAN I REALISTICALLY DO today?