What My Gravity-Defying Baby Can Teach You About Goals & Deadlines

Six months ago my daughter Téa was a blob. Cute, but utterly helpless. Then, like all babies, she performed a miraculous gravity-defying feat. She learned to sit up. In watching her process, she became my superhero and role model in how to achieve goals and meet deadlines.

Allow me to explain.

As far I can tell, Téa (pronounced TAY-ah for those of you who are curious), accomplished all this without an iota of stress or worry. Unlike myself or most of my friends and clients, she didn’t have unrealistic expectations or beat herself up for not achieving sit up status faster. She simply practiced flailing her arms and legs about daily, strengthening a million little muscles. Then voila, one day she sat up. And wow, did that change her perspective in life.

For those of us who are recovering overachievers with high expectations of ourselves, I see how much stress and judgment we create within ourselves – daily.

In the last week or so, I’ve caught myself, friends, or clients stressing over:

• A business’ website not launching “on time.”
• A messy, not yet cleaned house – that’s full of kids, friends of kids, dogs… and a husband.
• Feeling behind financially after a major life transition.
• Encountering the inner critic/feeling low self-worth after years of spiritual work.
• Not being completely moved into a new home – one week after moving.

Sound familiar?

As adults, we make two critical errors that baby Téa doesn’t. First, we grossly under-estimate how long most projects take. Second, we don’t give ourselves credit for what we have accomplished. When we enter this cycle of judging ourselves for not getting it done, we expend valuable energy that could be used to – well, get ‘er done.

Take my dear friend and business coaching client Jan for example. She’s had a vision of creating a holistic health center for years and has been working hard to make it a reality over this past year. (Check it out www.ausoleilhealing.com.) When we realized that the website would not be ready to launch on deadline – again, she expressed her understandable frustration.

I jokingly said, “I know the boss. I think she’ll understand why it hasn’t launched yet. She may even be willing to move the timeline for us. What do you think? Should we ask her?”

Jan, the boss, laughed and realized that her deadline was self-created. We then took a step back and looked at how much had been done over the past six months – she built a beautiful, multi-functional almost-ready-to-launch website, hired a team of expert support, enrolled a group of highly talented practitioners, and implemented dozens of systems that will help her business grow with ease – to name a few of her accomplishments.

Seeing the bigger picture of what had been completed – and realizing how many unanticipated steps needed to be taken (not to mention continued life with children, husband, home front ) enabled Jan to fix the critical errors in her judgmental mind – or at least see the “bigger picture” and feel a lot less stressed.

When I start feeling overwhelmed by all there is to do, unsure of what to do next, and unhappy that life is not progressing on my timeline, here’s a few steps I take. Clients claim they work for them as well:

1. Get still. Connect to your intuition, guidance, older wise self or inner mentor.
You know what’s best for you and will receive spot on direction when you ask.

2. Have a big “to do”? Break it down into bite-sized concrete steps, preferably no more than 3 at a time.
“Track my finances better” is a wonderful goal – but utterly overwhelming. But:

a. Ask friends for name of accountant.
b. Schedule appointment with accountant.
c. Print out all bank statements. – utterly doable.

3. Really – all you only need to know is the next right step.
Take even one step, preferably one in sync with your inner guidance,  and the next one will become clear.

4. Stressing over a deadline? Ask yourself, “Does this really need to be done by then? Who says?”
Most deadlines are self-imposed. And while you may need to get the winter clothes out before you freeze your patootie off, you probably don’t have to do it today.

5. Pick a “perspective date” – 3 months ago, 6 months ago, a year ago.
Are you farther along than you were then? Unless you have just started a brand new project, I’m guessing the answer is undeniably yes.

With a little re-framing, you will feel less stressed and more able to take one baby step at a time. And as anyone with a baby knows, it’s not long before you’ll be (sitting) up and running – full speed.

Meghan Gilroy is a Life Changer. She works with women to tap into our inner knowing, take care of and value ourselves more deeply and become more compassionate. (Sigh!) She offers private shamanic healing sessions and retreats at her Healing Space in N. Conway, NH in the White Mountains.