Sometimes it’s difficult to make your relationship with our partner a priority. Life gets in the way. There’s also the relationship you have with yourself. This must be a priority too. Get the balance of these priorities wrong and trouble starts to appear.
“Treasure your relationships, not your possessions.” Anthony J. D’Angelo
Over the last month and a bit our relationship has taken a bit of a battering. We’ve both been ill with colds and neither of us have been the best of patients. It’s been so long since we’ve had colds, we’ve forgotten how ill you feel during the height of them, and how drained you feel in the long aftermath.
It’s during this slow recovery to full-strength were our relationship has suffered the most.
At the beginning of December, we had a plan and now that plan lies in tatters around our feet.
Plan 1
We would work hard on the next issue of the magazine until the 7th December. Then our focus would shift to the new format of blogs. We calculated that if we both wrote one blog a day until we finished for Christmas on the 21st December, we’d have January’s blogs completed all bar the shouting.
Plan 1 didn’t happen because Andrew came down with a bad cold. It was so bad he retired to bed for a day or two. During that time, I did what I could to keep up with my work load: however, it was hard because I was fighting off the said cold.
Plan 2
We would work hard on the magazine until the 14th December. Then our focus would shift to the blogs. If we both wrote one blog a day for the next seven days, we’d still have all the blogs ready up until the magazine was published. When we returned to work after the New Year, we could write a blog a day until the end of the month to get ahead of the game for February.
Plan 2 almost worked. When Andrew returned to the office we did focus on the magazine: however, neither of us were on top form. We were only working 50% of the day and that time was spent focused on the magazine. No blogs were written.
Plan 3
Between the 15th and 23rd December we would write blogs. If we only write one blog each a day that would still be 18 blogs. We’d then have a few days holiday and then write some more blog between 27th and 30th December that would add another eight blogs. That would see us until after the magazine was published.
Plan 3 didn’t even see the light of day. My cold hit hard on 14th December and it was game over. Guess what our plans needed another
Plan 4
This was developed over Christmas. We’d have a decent break until the 27th and then make a start on the blogs. If we could write one blog a day AND create the structured outline for a second blog we’d still be OK.
That didn’t happen. My cold carried on for longer and I simply didn’t have the spoons available to work any harder.
Plan 5
Breathe and don’t panic. Although it was now 30th December and we had ZERO blogs written we had faith that everything would still be alright. We would get there in the end. We’ll write enough blogs to be a couple of days in advance so we’re keeping slightly ahead of where we need to be. Work on the magazine can then be the priority for the rest of the time.
That plan sort of happened. Except ….
And this is where the relationship part comes back in.
Plan 5
This, as you can imagine, has caused loads of stress. We don’t want to let magazine subscribers down. They are our priority. Yet we also have a priority to do what is right for us. We must push ourselves hard that we are. If we do, we run the risk of being ill for longer.
At the moment Andrew is getting frustrated with me because I won’t change our blogging schedule. We’ve put a lot of work into the planning. The work involved is going to enable us to build something bigger later. It’s part of our strategy to work smarter and be more consistent on social media. We haven’t been able to give it a good “test run” yet. It’s too soon to change track.
Yet Andrew does have a point. At the moment we can’t do more work than we are.
The magazine is due to be published on Monday. There is still so much work to be done that unless we burn the candle at both ends and the middle at the same time, we’re not going to get it done. Instead we’ll publish and Edition One on the Monday with the content that is ready and then a second edition will be published later in the week.
On Friday morning it became clear that Plan 5 wasn’t going to work after all.
Plan 6
So big decisions are needed to work out Plan 5. Time to pull on my big girl’s pants and taken action now.
Over the weekend we are writing one blog each day. The outlined structure is already done so they shouldn’t take too long. They are also going to be much shorter blogs, an approach that was in our original plan. We’ve been so focused on keeping to the original plan that we forgot we can be flexible with that plan. If a blog is becoming too long, we’re going to divide it in two. We’ll look at the future schedule and slot “Part 2” in somewhere appropriate.
If we can keep two days ahead of ourselves for the ten days, we’ll be fine.
What about the magazine?
It’s going to be published a week later, on 21st January. It means that we won’t be panicking. We can take the breaks that we desperately need during our working day. Rather than publishing something that we are not happy about we can make sure that it is right. It will also give us time to improve the website to ensure that accessing the old issues of the previous magazine it still easy from the new website.
Our Relationship is THE priority
It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make in a long time. We hate letting people down. However, our relationship HAS to be the priority. That, and our health, and the well-being of the pups. As we’ve become more stressed the dogs have too, and that’s not good.
As we are Creating A New, Beautiful And Courageous Existence we must ensure that we don’t damage the part of our current existence that IS already good.
Practice makes perfect
It’s all well and good writing about things in theory: however, we need to start applying what we learn. Today I’d like you to consider the most important relationships in your life. Now think about how you treat those relationships. Are they a priority that you ensure you protect, or have you started to take them for granted slightly? Do you need to pull on those “big pants” and make some hard choices to protect the relationships in your life that are good?
For some ideas on ways to make your relationship a priority please click here. I particularly like Tip #6 because the author obviously hates the word “but” as much as I do!
If you haven’t downloaded “My January Canbace Diary” to help you keep track of your progress, please click here.
Be kind to yourself …
In CANBACE friendship!
If anything I have written resonates I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I appreciate that this can be a difficult subject to speak openly about. If you don’t want me to publish your comment on the website, please let me know. I will keep your words private.
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