Becoming Bad Enough: Cutting Back

It’s Thursday, so I’m Crafting my Life! I invite you to join in the fun. If you would like to share a story from your own journey, please drop me a line. If you’d like to find out more about my online class on living with intention and my upcoming e-book, visit craftingmylife.com.

Last week I asked myself a question: am I bad enough? I concluded that I was not. After all, I’ve spent pretty much my entire life trying to be good enough, which seems to stand in direct opposition to being bad enough. Seeing that, I decided that things had to change.

When I say that I want to be bad enough, I don’t mean that I want to go out and break laws and harm others. I mean that I want to give myself the space to consider my own needs and happiness. Is that actually bad? Probably not. But many of us are so trained to ignore our own needs and desires that it can feel bad … or at least overly indulgent. Even if we understand intellectually that we’re not much good to others if we don’t take care of ourselves, we have a very hard time following through with our plans.

When I embarked on my Crafting my Life journey, I realized that this was my life that I was living, and so I wanted to live it (at least in part) for myself. If I compare my life today to my life almost two and a half years ago when I was laid off, I can see that I’ve made some substantial progress. I’ve grown as a writer, and landed some paid freelance gigs. I’ve become more adept at saying “no” and I’ve re-learned the skill of dreaming. And yet, I am still very far from where I would like to be. Maybe I always will be – after all, life is a journey and not a destination. What this means is that there is always room for growth and improvement and advancing self-awareness.

As I’ve taken on more commitments, I’ve had less and less time for myself. This is hardly surprising, and it’s not rocket science. And so, as part of becoming bad enough, I have decided to cut back on some things. The first thing that I am cutting back on is my posting schedule here – I will be going from six days a week down to five. I will not be posting on Saturdays anymore. Is it dramatic enough? Maybe not, but it’s a start. I’m also re-examining some new projects that I had planned to take on, which I realistically now see that I don’t have the room for.

I love this blog, and I love this space. That’s what makes the cutting back so complicated for me. The big upside to this whole business of living with intention is that I’m doing things I love. However, as those things pile up, I have to recognize that I am only one person, and there’s only so much of me to go around. And so I am keeping the things that I love – including Strocel.com – and just tweaking them a little. When you don’t get a post from me this Saturday, now you’ll know why.

I’m taking baby steps, so that when I look back in another two and a half years, I can see how good I’ve become at being bad.

What about you – have you ever found yourself cutting back on something you loved because you had too much on your plate? And how do you give yourself the space you need to take care of yourself, when you have a lot of other responsibilities? I’d love to hear from you!

PS – Every month I do a monthly review of things I learned. Some are serious, some are funny, and all are hard-won. I will be running my September review on Monday, October 3. I’d love it if you played along. Write a post on or before October 3 and come back here to include it in my link-up!

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