OH HELL YES: Making Space For Life To Take Shape
For the past few weeks, I've been binge-watching Girlfriends, one of my favourite sitcoms. I'm currently in the middle of season 5 - Joan and William are (inexplicably) in a relationship, Lynn has connected with her birth parents, Toni is pregnant and ducking divorce papers from her estranged husband Todd, and Maya just got a huge endorsement from Rev. Al Sharpton for her girl-you-can-do-it book, Oh Hell Yes.
It's Maya's story that currently resonates with me - our relationship statuses aren't the same, but our prioritization of our children, our desire to do the work we're passionate about, and our desperate fear of settling and being stuck in something that makes us miserable ARE the same. Funnily enough, these same traits resonated in a real book I read recently - Shonda Rhimes' Year Of Yes, which details Rhimes' journey through a year where she said yes to everything that scared her. After reading her book at the end of 2015, I decided I was going to make 2016 my year to say yes - or, oh HELL yes - and I was going to put themes of priority, passion work, and not settling in the forefront of my mind to create the life I want.
Walking into 2016, I realized that the only way I'd be able to live the life I wanted would be to make room for it. The work I want to do, the experiences I want to have, the goals I want to achieve - none of them will come to fruition if there isn't space for them to thrive. I took a big leap by leaving my job and taking on a new role that gives me more time for my family, my writing, and my other projects. I dropped projects that were taking up time and not giving me equal ROI. I was approached with some opportunities that in the past, I would have hemmed and hawed over before likely declining them out of fear, but this time I didn't waste time - I said yes, jumped in, and blossomed because of them. (Note: there's a message here about innately knowing the difference between declining something because you know in your heart of hearts it isn't for you, and declining because you're scared, even though you know you're capable - or at least curious about your capability. Sometimes fear masks itself as humility, but we know in the pit of our stomachs that we're lying to ourselves. Might write more about that later.)
I'm determined to see some real progress in a variety of arenas this year, and I quickly realized that a) I had to stop talking about it and BE about it and b) nothing was going to grow if I didn't clear the space for them to do so. Change is extremely difficult for me, so stepping out of my comfort zone has been an uncomfortable process. However, I believe so earnestly in the promise of the things I'm working towards that sacrificing my comfort is a necessary move.
Last year, my goal was simply to get through the day. Balancing my first year of being a working mom took a lot out of me, but set me up for this year - where I'm back to having goals, benchmarks, and renewed ideas of what success looks like to me. I have big plans, and now I have the space to execute them. This year, I'm not just saying yes. I'm saying, oh, HELL yes.
What is one thing you can let go of to make room for what you want or need in life?
