TL;DR:
- Make the shift from balancing your life to blending your life.
- The blended lifestyle is the mindset of recognizing that no matter what you are doing, it’s who you are that matters most.
When I made the shift from trying to balance my life to blending my life, I went from surviving to thriving almost instantaneously. You’ve probably heard the saying, “keeping all the plates spinning” and for years I did this. So many years, trying to give equal amounts of time and energy to all that I was doing. The keyword there is equal. Looking back now, I realize equal time wasn’t the goal.
And it’s also important to share that it wasn’t possible. But I kept trying. I would plan out my schedule in detail. And always in pencil, so anytime it was needed, I could erase and move and change and alter. Hopefully you see the pattern here. What all this boiled down to for me was I was trying to create balance as a perfectly even amount, and kept feeling defeated when it didn’t happen the way that I had envisioned it would look like or feel like.
It is when we change our mindset and trust that living the blended lifestyle is the commitment to YOU that you deserve and desire, that everything becomes simple and easy. Click To TweetBlended Lifestyle: My Own Personal Journey
On my journey through my own personal transformation, my coach asked me one day to create a list of the roles I serve throughout each day and week. She asked me to write down as many as I could think of. I encourage you to do the same activity right now. Grab a sheet of paper, or use the voice note on your phone, and name as many roles as you can for 30 seconds.
See how many you can list. I did this activity (and hopefully you did too) and I remember looking down at the list, where I had written 18 words. 18 roles. And that was in 30 seconds. How many are on your list? And in actuality, the number isn’t important. What I really want you to look at is, are there more than 2 that you wrote down? If yes, what I’m sharing next hopefully resonates with you!
What Balance Means to Me
When I think of the word balance, I go back to elementary science class where we learned how to use a balance and make two objects (or groups of objects) equal. And in the moment that I looked at the 18 words on my list, I had the immediate awareness that balance isn’t the goal. How could I find balance when I’m clearly participating in more than 2 roles on any given day. I saw in that moment that balance wasn’t the goal. And over time I realized that the goal was never about being balanced, it was about living the blended lifestyle instead.
When I looked at the list of 18 roles, there was one thing that stood out to me above anything on the page. And that was, that no matter which role I was doing, I was always 100% me. That’s it. I’m always 100% Lindsay regardless of the number of roles I serve in a given day, week, month, or year. And so with this realization, balance went out the window. I ditched balance and replaced it with the blended lifestyle, and I haven’t looked back.
Letting Our Mindset Lead the Way
Living the blended lifestyle is truly a mindset practice. It has less to do with scheduling or planning, and more to do with who I am being as I am going throughout my day. It’s the mindset of recognizing that no matter what I am doing, it’s who I am being that matters most. At the end of the day, all that I do adds up to 100% me, and that is what I am most proud of!
Once I adopted this mindset, everything made sense. Instead of looking at my roles as isolated silos, what if they were interconnected? What if they were the key elements to create the path I walk every day? Sure, some days might look like 80% work and 20% life. And others, they are 90% life, 10% work. The possibilities are truly limitless.
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Blended Lifestyle: It Gets to Be Easy
As with so many concepts in this Think Better series, the mindset we hold about the different roles we serve is essential. If I am holding the beliefs that I can’t do it all, there isn’t enough time, I’m not giving enough of myself, or anything like these, we will continue to find truth in these statements. It is when we change our mindset and trust that living the blended lifestyle is the commitment to YOU that you deserve and desire, that everything becomes simple and easy.
And it all starts with changing our thoughts to change our lives!
About Lindsay Titus
Lindsay Titus is a K-12 Behavior Specialist with a license in behavior analyst. As a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, Lindsay coaches and trains educators on the study of behavior and how to implement evidence based behavior principles in simple and easy ways! With experience as a classroom special education teacher, and behavior specialist in public schools, residential placement, and private settings, Lindsay enjoys working with all educators looking to reignite their passion for education, connect with all students, and conquer challenging behavior in any classroom setting.
