weekENDs, weekENDs, weekENDs…
I love’em and I suck at ‘em.
Monday mornings, everyone share's the pleasantries, "How was your weekend?", "Did you have a good weekend?"...
THAT QUESTION... So simple... So well intended... So inoffensive... I want to answer them... but nobody has the time to hear the answer...
EXCEPT
MAYBE
YOU ;-)
As mindful as I am about living a life of harmony, there are many aspects of my life, where HARMONY eludes me, and if I am honest, weekends are one of them.
How can you screw up a weekend? It’s like sex and pizza… it’s all good ;-) Or, is it?
I think I am actually more in harmony during the week, because my balance between work and home feels more appropriate. And, that is SAD!
Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE my weekends. I DO! I am just not truly relaxed, not truly at peace, and not truly in harmony on weekends.
SO, let’s explore my “absolute truth” about weekends…
- I feel guilty that I am not more productive with both work and home stuff. Read “Disharmony – I wish I was more productive.”
- I feel guilty that I am not more thoughtful with my time with Susy and my kids. Read “Disharmony – I wish I was more thoughtful and planned with ideas for us as a family.”
- I feel selfish with the moments that I do take for myself. Read “Disharmony – I wish I was more comfortable with my own need to recharge and unplug.”
OK – so based on that, do I “suck” at weekends?
I don’t think so…
This weekend,
I worked out three times ran, lifted and did a boot camp with a friend….(possibly 4).
We had a great soccer practice with my son’s team and enjoyed it.
We went to the pool and played tennis as a family.
We played Yatzee together and my youngest was proud of his big wins.
We made some fun drinks with Susy and ate outside on Saturday.
We went out for a big pancake breakfast on Sunday.
We watched the World Cup games.
I got into Orange is the New Black (wow – FUN and exciting).
Susy and I watched some old episodes of Good Wife, that we have wanted to watch.
I had a great meeting with a friend about his business.
I got some good work done… (not quite enough).
I dismantled and gave our bunk beds to friends, which we needed to do in order to get the boys rooms ready for the 3 year “shuffle”.
I cleaned up my room and my stuff around the house.
I thought about taking a nap.
I spoke with my parents a few different times by phone.
I played chess with my youngest – and we laughed a lot.
My middle son came home from a successful and fun sleep-away camp and we had dinner together and talked a little (not enough - my fault) about his exciting week.
I bought a guitar to learn with my son – something I have been meaning to do.
We went to the store.
And, overall, I feel like I wasn’t productive.
WOW… Somethin’ ain’t right with me.
I used to feel free on weekends. I used to not feel the weight of trying to make them more meaningful and productive, both with life and with work.
My mindset is to push whatever work I am doing forward, to “leave it better than I found it.” I want to “transform it”.
So, that leads me to wanting to “recreate a lot of things”.
That is healthy. But it creates an on-going sense of “not enough”. I am not thinking clearly enough, not producing enough, not creating enough clarity of strategy, not enough alignment on priorities… etc. A LOT of wishing going on with respect to my approach to work. NOT GOOD.
We are having an awesome year. We are having the best year that we have had since 2007. Our sales are above target. Our strategy is unfolding and we are picking new business in new services that we have strategically ALWAYS wanted. Our team is more aligned than ever. And, we are working on a VERY exciting acquisition. And, in my gut, it still feels like I am “not doing enough”.
That is the stuff I need to fix.
FOR SOME REASON, I expect weekends to be this "magical time" where I can get more done in an hour than I can the rest of the week. The amount of "work" and life "stuff" that I expect to accomplish on weekends is simply unreasonable - and I seem to go into every weekend with the same unreasonable expectation, I feel the stress of not getting it done throughout, and then the dissolution of having failed against unrealistic goals.
I AM SMARTER THAN THIS!
I allowed this very frustrating and complicated issue that I am having at work, get in my mind and never get out all weekend. It just bounced around and that underlying disharmony of wishing I could fully resolve an unresolvable problem never left my mind.
The cost of any disharmony is that it then keeps me from fully enjoying the time with my family. I feel like I am not thoughtful enough because I am not planning enough fun things in advance. It bothers me how much time we are all spending on screen, and I am part of the problem. If I am not working, then I am losing myself in a silly sit com that allows my brain to escape.
This is the plague of disharmony… it anchors on the “wishing” things were different.
Then as you start feeling the disharmony of not being productive enough – disharmony starts to beget more disharmony. My head starts to go… IF you had been more productive earlier in life, you would be able to have a boat or a beach house and you could take the family there and then the draw for screen would be a lot less. So, I start to push into the “wishing” I was more successful. And, then I hear myself thinking, “really?”, “really, Nestor, you are going to go THERE?”
My weekends are not bad, as I mentioned earlier. I do enjoy them. I look forward to them. There are many moments that I enjoy – but I am pushing through the low grade anxiety caused by my underlying disharmony.
SO – based on my own philosophy – I should be able to change it in a single moment.
I need to anchor on the absolute truth and build from there.
SO, I a going to try, and I am going to report back for the next couple and tell you how I do.
MY TRUTH
I have a beautiful home. And, it is a wonderful place to spend many of our weekends. The backyard is full of trees, and sitting on our deck - makes me feel proud and at peace. I dreamt of having a house like this as a young boy.
Work is going well. Work is going VERY well. And, business is inherently about managing and solving problems non-stop. So, dealing with issues, is PART of a successful business. The fact that we have problems, shouldn’t make me feel like I am failing.
My boys need their space. They are no longer at an age where they need to be with daddy all the time. I should be happy they are doing their own thing, and should encourage them to spend more time with friends.
It’s ok to watch some television on weekends, and its not necessary to work while I watch TV to make it seem more productive.
Not every moment of my life needs to be “productive”.
There will always be more work for me to do than time to do it in. It will ALWAYS be about picking the most productive actions and find harmony with that.
We belong to a great pool and tennis club, and we have a great time going there.
There is no reason that I cant plan a little more during the week for activities on the weekend. And, there is nothing wrong with having weekends, or parts of weekends that are unplanned, impromptu and unproductive.
WHAT DO I WANT
I want to feel relaxed on weekends. I want to enjoy my family on weekends, and only on occasions when there is something UNUSUALLY pressing and DUE at work will I use my weekends to do it.
SO WHAT WILL I DO
I will stop checking email on weekends until Sunday night.
I will put out my next week’s to do – FRIDAY (not SUNDAY) so that its not weighing on my mind all weekend.
I will stop expecting to be productive on weekends. I will focus on simply being present and enjoying them.
I will schedule more “quality” time during the week to do those things that I unrealistically “expect’ to get done on weekends.
I will plan on getting to work very early on Monday’s to get a jump on the week, and not place that pressure on Sunday evenings.
Like, I said.
I will keep you posted.
Harmony is not discovered – but created deliberately through our actions, in every moment.
And, I need to do a better job of creating it in the moments of my weekends.
I love my weekends. I do. And, I want to enjoy them more, and use them to find more peace with my time and my family…
I will figure this out.
I will change the way I look at weekends.
There is no "magical" time - where moments are longer where more can be accomplished...
There is only "magical" time where we are more grateful for our moments, and more at peace with our own truth ;-)
Yours in harmony,
Nestor