My Motivation

Here I sit, getting ready to go back to work tomorrow. It has been wonderful to have some extra time off this weekend. Friday I took a "me" day and today I kept Milo with me for the day. Mark even got to spend part of the afternoon with us. It was a great day. Milo had his 2-year well-check appointment this morning and then we played, went to the pool, took naps and played some more. What more could you ask for? (Oh, before I forget... Milo is still in the 95th percentile for height and 75th for weight now. If he keeps it up he is going to tower over me and Mark!)

The best thing about having time off is that I feel like I have rested my body, my mind AND my soul. There is some value to stress in that it allows you to achieve great feats but it is definitely not a sustainable state. I remember when I would finish with finals in college or with writing that last paper in graduate school I would always have to take some time off to switch gears. Honestly, I love that ramped up, productive feeling - at least when it is appropriate. But I also love slowing down and just being for awhile. I pray that I have some time to "be" now before things pick up again.

Interestingly, after I finished with my last owner meeting on Thursday of last week I had one more obligation - an industry lunch specifically for downtown Dallas property managers. A local motivational speaker, Bryan Dodge, had been engaged to come speak to our group and I almost didn't go. I am so glad that I did though. It was a small group so we had a unique opportunity to interact with Bryan considering he normally speaks to thousands of people at a time.

I had heard much of what he had to say many times before though it rarely hurts to hear things like that again. I did take a few new ideas home with me though. Ideas that are very appropriate to my life these last few months... He stressed that we need to focus on bringing energy home and not giving all of ourselves to the people we work with. Mark and I do work toward this now but it is always a good reminder. I never want Milo to think that he does not have our attention when we come home. I don't want Mark to feel that way either.

He also discussed the fact that success has a price (specifically, higher levels of success carry higher and higher prices - stress, responsibility, more hours, etc.) and that it is within our ability to either accept the price or not. As with everything, it is a decision we make. Finally, I really appreciated his distinction that we have to stop managing our time and start managing our attention. I had truly never thought about it like that but it is so true! We all have the exact same amount of time. The true skill is being able to give our attention to the right things in the right amounts at the right time.

In the end, I am grateful for the reminder that these ideas have given me and for the time to "be" with myself and my family with a different motivation - at least for awhile.