Dear Friends,

I am many decades old and until this week I had never whole heartedly completed a 5 year plan.  There was just something about it that I rebelled against.  In previous attempts I'd stare at the paper unmotivated, failing to see the purpose.  Instead of embracing the exercise when required at work, I'd play it safe and simply "borrow" other generic goals instead of checking in with my mind's aspirations and my heart's desires.  

Looking back, I wonder if this reluctance was simply due to the fact that: 

• I had ample mental space to look forward without needing to slow down and make a long term plan...

• I had the flexibility to shift gears (and direction) whenever needed...

• I had more control over my personal needs (like sleep)...

• and the only person I was responsible for was myself.  

Perhaps that's why I always felt the concept of a multi-year plan was unnecessary - I mean, Oprah never made one and look at what she's accomplished!

Now, as a parent of 4 children, life looks and feels different...

• My mental load is fuller than I ever knew it could be - leaving little space for thinking forward on a regular basis...

• Flexibility has diminished as it does when you partner up and are responsible for the needs of others...

• I must intentionally work to ensure my personal needs are met...

• and I am now responsible for 4 children in addition to myself.

With a little wink from the Universe, the opportunity to complete a 5 year plan found me once again.

A few days ago, my partner, Mike, was chatting with a colleague who encouraged him to not only take the time to make a 5 year plan, but to look at it in a different light.  "Okay," he said, "Instead of thinking about a 5 year plan like a list of goals, what if we were to approach it by asking this question - If we were to look back on our lives 5 years from today, what would have to happen during that time period for us to be excited about our progress?  Then do the same thing while you think about 1 year from now and then, finally, 90 days from now."

Something inside loosened its grip and I felt open, lighter and, dare I say it - excited!  I felt it in my bones - this could be the antidote to the parental burnout I was all too familiar with.  Within 24 hours we had both independently jotted down what could be possible 5 years/1 year/90 days from now and reconnected in unexpected ways.  It was the best date-night-in we've had in a while.  

With L.O.V.E.,

Sarah

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Pause:  5 years is an entire phase of childhood

One of the first things I did to ground myself was to sketch out the ages of our children over the next 5 years.  It sank in.  In 5 years we would have a 20 year old, a 10 year old, an 8 year old and a 6 year old.  Our home would no longer have a child in the early childhood phase - which is where we currently "live" the majority of the time.  One would be entering Kindergarten, one would be in full-fledged middle childhood, another would be on the edge of adolescence and another - a full-fledged adult by society's terms.  If these next 5 years of parenting are anything like the first - well, they'll be fast...in hindsight.

When I saw our children growing across a single page encompassing 5 years I realized that if we don't pause and put some things into place now, important decisions may be made for us by default.    My experience as a kindergarten teacher and elementary principal also helped me to recognize that there were tangible things we could (fairly) easily put in place that could make a world of difference.  

Decision Fatigue

Time.  It's our most precious resource.  

Much of parenting can catch us by surprise.  It's amazing how one day can blur into the next and all of a sudden you're simultaneously holding two thoughts - how in the world is December over - AND - is it really only 8am??  As any parent knows, the days (and nights) are long, but the years are short.

How can this be?  I have this theory that Decision fatigue plays a large role.  They say that in the first year of a baby's life parents make 1,750 difficult decisions.  Decisions from how to approach sleep to choosing a Pediatrician to naming the baby.  One Thousand Seven Hundred and Fifty difficult decisions.  This number does not include decisions made in the moment on a daily basis of that first year as you decipher the many ways babies communicate their needs without using words.  This number does not come close to including the many decisions required to parent a toddler or young child who is mobile and beginning to make visible decisions of their own every waking minute of the day.  Nor does it account for the many questions that come with inquiring minds.  

Decision fatigue occurs when your brain is so exhausted and overloaded with decisions that you subconsciously (or even consciously) short circuit, resulting in indecision, irritability and general feelings of overwhelm. This might look like shutting down or grasping for any shortcut within reach.  When we suffer from decision fatigue we often outsource our decisions, essentially giving away our power; giving away our influence to those who offer quick fixes on Instagram or we enter Google rabbit holes - wherever we can find a shortcut we believe in for the moment.  While this is an understandable coping mechanism, it's also likely to create additional challenges which leads to - you guessed it - more decision fatigue for our future selves.

Taking this into consideration, I realized that the next five years would be shaped by our collective ability to combat decision fatigue.  After finishing my 5-year crystal ball "Look Back" I moved on to 1 year - asking myself the same question - what could life look like, and what would need to have happened for me to look back with fulfillment and not regret?  This one was definitely full of more hopes than wishes, as wishes take longer to become possible.  And after the 1 year "Look Back" I approached the next 90 days "plan" with zest and determination to prevent, or at least withstand, decision fatigue.

Causes

Because decision fatigue takes a toll both mentally and emotionally we need to underscore this list with the MOST obvious:  Unmet Basic Needs.  If your body is not getting the nutrition it needs, and/or the sleep it needs you are more likely to suffer from decision fatigue.  I'm working on these.  My morning self is convicted - "Tonight is the night I'll go to bed at 7 when the kids are all in bed." I told myself this morning in fact.  But here I am.  Is it a lack of willpower?  maybe.  Or is it decision fatigue creating a chicken or the egg scenario?  For me, personally, I think it may be that I do not proactively carve out personal time for myself, so I'm fulfilling a different need.  The only problem is, I need more sleep.  (future link to this experiment here)

Remedies with L.O.V.E.

Armed with my 5-year, 1-year and 90 day "Look Backs"* I was determined to find remedies for the most common causes of decision fatigue and build them into every day life.  The thing is, I could write anything down - and unless I was willing to take action between now and then it might as well be a wish!  Some are remedies that we can continue, some needed reviving, and some require creating.

Let's look at this logically with a simple list of causes and remedies.

Consciously Driving Down Decision Fatigue

Perspective

Tunnel Vision:  When we can only see what is directly in front of us.  Now this is not great in many contexts, but with regard to parenting in particular, it's even more troublesome.  I'm not talking about presence.  I hope we all strive to be present with our children and with one another.  No, I'm talking about not looking up often enough to see what's right around the corner, or lose our ability to sense when our children need us to grow with them.  Childhood is magical for this very reason.  Our children are changing so rapidly that they are literally in a continuous state somewhere between being and becoming.  As adults, we aren't used to this pace.  We, ourselves, tend to change more slowly and deliberately.  As parents, we have a choice - to grow with our children or to miss out on the phase, sometimes not even realizing it until it's over.

This is where perspective comes in.  There are three main ways to gain perspective - from Macro to Micro.

Think Big Picture & Zoom Waaaay Out - Look at what the future may bring and/or notice what time you have.

Get Unstuck -  When you find yourself in survival mode - and it feels like it will last forever (even though it's temporary, I promise) - focus on doing what you CAN!

Get Behind Your Child's Eyes - Intentionally connect to the way they are currently experiencing the world around them.

Prioritization

Ambiguity & Uncertainty:  There is ambiguity that comes with the daily grind - "what to do next" type mental tasks and the unpredictability of what your child(ren) may do next.  

There's the uncertainty of knowing enough about child development to make a decision that will benefit your child and your family as a whole -or even knowing there is another option that might fit your family.

Ambiguity - When the list of things you need to do is so large it vanishes in usable time or the time you have is too unpredictable to count on.

Parents need a system - a catch all and way to sort the never ending mental list so that distractions don't take over productivity and so that together, all in your household are able to build synergy.  We also need tools to reach for when the unpredictable strikes so that we can more swiftly return to equilibrium.

Uncertainty - Learning more about child development

While it's impossible to know everything - sometimes it's about knowing what to focus on so you can learn more about out.  It's also about not biting off more than you can chew and figuring out where to go next.  

Routines & Rituals

This is the most logical of them all - when we create routines and rituals we eliminate the number of decisions we need to make - because routines encompass habits.  Our brains thrive on habits - both as adults and as children.  When we make the time to create meaningful routines and rituals with our children, our brain has the luxury of autopilot mode, making space for our hearts to fully engage in the everyday moments life is made of.

Reflection

Reflection and Mindfulness go hand in hand.  When we reflect on how things are going, we become more aware of our locus of control AND our role in the present reality.  Both are empowering.  Through reflection we also notice what is going well and once we see it, we can build on it.  Conversely, without reflection we are likely to continue further down the same path in the future - even if we'd never choose to relive what we just experienced.

For now, let's begin with Perspective - not only because the beginning of a new calendar year somehow invites such thinking, but also because it helps us to know where we might begin.

Invitation to Pause - For Perspective

Look Backs

Take a moment, if you haven't already, to look to the possibilities of the future.  If you have a way that already works for you, by all means do not reinvent the wheel.  If you don't, or you're not sure it fits what you presently need, feel free to borrow the 5 years, 1 year and 90 day from the present as "Look Backs" to gain perspective.

1. Make a table to see your children grow across the page and picture your life in 5 years with children of those ages and stages.  What might your life look like?  What do you hope for them, for you, for your family?

   • As I grappled with what could be true for our family both collectively and individually 5 years from now I felt myself pulled between this feeling of groundedness (this needs to be a real word) and disconnectedness or floating.  in other words, I felt a tension between wishful thinking and hopeful thinking.  While wishes are unlikely to occur and hopes are things much more within our control - and while I wanted to intentionally capture a wish or two that could eventually become a hope - things that, at this moment, perhaps feel unreachable.

2. Think through each "Look Back" through multiple lenses

   • When I was creating my 5 year "plan" - I was thinking on three main levels - on a persona level, a professional level and a family level. I thought about how I hoped my relationship with my partner would evolve and how I hoped to build some lasting friendships here in our community.  There's nothing you can't think about - it's your exercise.

3. Take it as it comes - don't let the enemy of good be great - these did not take me very long - maybe a total of 30 minutes - maybe only 15.  Once I was free to simply think about what would feel really good to be true it came pouring out.

4. If it doesn't feel good for you - pass.

Marbles

Here's another that's a bit more tangible and literally hands-on, (it's also a ritual - more on those in a future post):  Marbles. 

We have a jar for each of our kiddos and inside each jar are marbles.  One marble for each week we have with them before they graduate from high school.  This idea is not mine, but found me while I was pregnant with Joshua and had the formative experience working with and learning from Reggie Joiner and Kristen Ivy.  They created Legacy Marbles as a tool for parents to gain perspective on the first 18 years of parenthood.  Here's the perspective:

"You have approximately 936 weeks from the day a child is born until he or she graduates from high school - and the weeks move quickly. The Legacy Marbles bag provides 1,000 marbles for parents to display in the container of their choice as a visual reminder...

Because, when you see how much time you have left, you tend to do more with the time you have now."

In our house this one needs reviving.  It had been going pretty well.  Then "Newborn Season", as I like to call, it arrived last November and we got out of the habit.  Grateful to get back to this, here's what we plan to do beginning Sunday.

Each week we will sit down as a family and move 1 marble from each of the kids' jars to a larger jar as each member shares about the past week.  They can share anything they choose - from something that they enjoyed, to a challenge or something someone else did to brighten our home or the world around us. The boys used to get so excited for "Marbles" on Sunday and I can't wait to see if they remember next week.  Now, I just need to get more marbles for TJ's jar and count out the 58 weeks he's already been with us and adjust the other jars for the last 58 weeks as well. EEK - maybe this Sunday we'll go with the general idea and move the marbles we have, adjusting later!

Looking Ahead

Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing our own journey as we consciously address the causes of Decision Fatigue with potential remedies in hopes that by sharing our experience you gain precious time back as parents.