Pat Anderson Today

An illustration that has changed my life pertaining to time management, accepting new repsonsibilities, evaluating the effectiveness of the things I am currently doing:

Picture yourself juggling many balls, some are rubber balls of many colors and in amongst those colorful rubber balls you are also juggling several crystal balls.  You are working hard to keep all of the balls in the air.  As you are juggling you find yourself needing to drop some balls in order to keep up your  juggling act.  Which ones will you drop?

Let’s examine the relevance of the balls you are juggling:

• the crystal balls - these delicate glass balls represent the responsibilities in your life that are most important to you (I refer to them as the main pillars in your world).  This would include your spouse, your children, yourself, your spirit, your dreams and goals, your most valued friendships……you decide - what’s most important to you?
• the rubber balls - these are responsibilities that are always trying to crowd out the “crystal balls”.  Some can be very valuable to you; others (most) just want you to believe they are valuable to you.  These rubber balls represent many activities in your life like grocery shopping, dentist appointments, committees and committee meetings, coffee dates, parties: celebrations or home distributor……. you know your list.  Now the hard part may be in determining what is important and what could be dropped.

Here’s the test:

If you dropped one of those rubber balls would they bounce?  Yes, they most certainly would - and many of them would only bounce once, maybe twice and a different juggler would catch that ball and start juggling it with their set of balls.

If you dropped a crystal ball, would it bounce?  Most certainly not!  It would shatter.  You would be devastated to find you had lost one of your most precious possessions in life.

Too often we have a tendency to let the rubber balls take all our time and attention.  We do this at the risk of dropping one of the crystal balls in our life.  We need to evaluate which balls we are supposed to be juggling in order to give our best attention to the crystal balls in our life.  Only you can determine what that will look like in your life.  Only you know how many rubber balls you can juggle before you feel unbalanced and at the crucial point where one of the crystal balls may be dropped.

Some rubber balls cannot be dropped and allowed to bounce out of your life.  For instance, if you stopped grocery shopping you would soon realize that no one would catch that bouncing ball as it left your juggling act.  Unless, someone else in your family would be willing to take on that responsibility.  (What works for your family?)  Once you have analyzed which rubber balls stay then you must determine how many more you can add (or are allowed to remain) in your juggling act.  The choice becomes yours.  You are not out of control.  It is a deliberate decision you must make.  And you have the power within to make that decision and find balance and peace in your life.

So for today, take time to evaluate all the balls you are juggling.  Give each ball a score - crystal or rubber.  Determine which balls you will keep and which you will allow to bounce right out of your life.  Then, and most important of all - decide to pay special attention to the crystal balls in your life.

Create a Great Day!

Pat Anderson