Yesterday I was talking with a colleague about my 3.5 jobs. Currently I work for an agency, I’m starting my own business, an online therapy service and I started doing supervision. (My daughter decided on that number and I’m going with it!) This colleague of mine asked me how many sessions I’m scheduling a week? I literally told her “I don’t even want to tell you the answer to that question.” Probably too many honestly. But I’m finishing something and I’m building something and I’m making a difference…and I think that’s awesome. And it got me thinking about my limits.
“How long can I do this?”
“How long should I do this?”
“What am I thinking?”
To my mind all valid questions. Questions that I’m not thinking about in the classic sense of “should” or what’s “right” or even what might be “smart.” I told my daughter that I’m running on intuition and inspiration. I’m actually pretty excited about this time in my life and all the new things I’m accomplishing. I spent a lot of time reflecting on this yesterday. Yesterday was also a day where I ran smack into my limits. Yesterday I realized that I’ve been running too hard and not resting enough.
When people tell me what I’m doing is crazy I say, crazy? This isn’t crazy! When I went to graduate school there was a semester that I was a full time student with 16 units with a part time job and a part time internship. This isn’t crazy! That was crazy! To a point it’s true. That was crazy. And what I’m doing now seems a little crazy too. The main difference is that now I respect my limits. In my graduate school mindset I ignored my physical limits and pushed myself farther while internally struggling with the idea of whether or not I could even accomplish my goal. Now as I’m building a business I have no doubt that I can accomplish whatever it is that I can dream up and I’m very aware of my physical limitations and that energy to get things done is a finite resource.
In this way my mindset has shifted significantly. I believe that my capacity for imagining and creating a new future for myself is only limited by what I think is true. I also know that my body has limited resources that I need to protect and honor in order to be able to continue. I do need to go to bed on time or I’ll feel super tired and really struggle to show up the next day. In graduate school I lived on Mountain Dew and now I try to stay away from caffeine to honor my natural physical limits. While I learn to respect and work within my physical limits I am learning to push and expand my beliefs of what is possible.
There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination and wonder.
Ronald Reagan
I wholeheartedly believe that intelligence, imagination and wonder are limitless resources. If we can believe it then we can do it. My job now as I see it is to push the limits of what I believe I can accomplish and listen to my body as I go. I must make time for rest, gratitude and joy because in that way I can refill my gas tank (so to speak) and have what I need to keep going. I will both respect my limits and push myself even further than I’ve been pushed before. I’ve decided I choose not to be defined by my…
