Do What’s Possible

Jul 22

“Do what’s possible. Don’t waste time with guilt.”

These wise words weren’t penned by me, but by Erin Falconer, the author and mastermind behind the book How to Get Sh*t Done (which you can get a copy of here).

If you haven’t read the book, you should. Erin tells her readers (women, specifically) to quit being busy just for busyness’ sake. We should focus on the things that really bring us joy and move us towards our goals. If you’re thinking, “yeah, that sounds great and all, but how is it even possible?” then you’re right where I was when I picked the book up at Barnes & Noble. I’m a fan of colorful wording (read: curse words) so the title caught my eye, and I figured the worst that could happen would be that I’d be out of some money…but man, it really changed my perspective (so much that I have now read it through twice).

What I’ll share with you in this post is the biggest lesson I had to learn…how to delegate.

Get to know yourself

First thing’s first, you have to be brutally honest about who you are. You don’t have time to waste with lies about how nothing brings you greater joy than cleaning up after your kids for the eighteenth time today (unless that’s true for you. If it is, I bow down to your awesomeness and may God bless you with all the world’s riches).

Identify your strengths & weaknesses

Figure out what things you’re good at and what things bring you joy, and do thing that marry those. For example, I’m good at solving problems, and I love helping people, so I often find myself solving other people’s problems. It’s a win-win.

Next, identify your weaknesses. I know that self-helpery warrants these to be called “areas of improvement,” but that implies that it’s something you want to work on. I’m referring to the things that make you miserable. You aren’t going to work on those, you’re going to delegate them. For example, I LOATHE grocery shopping. There are always too many people who leave their carts in the middle of the aisle and don’t respect the beauty of personal space. The checkout lines are too long, and a trip to the grocery store takes up my entire morning, between getting there, doing the actual grocer shopping, waiting in line, loading the car…you see where I’m going with this. My time could be much better spent doing things that I’m actually good at, and that I enjoy. And so…I don’t do my own grocery shopping. Ever.

There, I said it.

There are beautiful services like Shipt and Favor that will not only do the shopping for me, but bring the groceries right to my door. It’s glorious!

The amount of grief that I get from people (OK, really, from other women) over this is unreal. I used to struggle with it, but that brings me to my next point…

Don’t waste time with guilt

A little background: I’m a wife, mom, and a Latina…ain’t nobody supposed to be buying my groceries but me. I’m supposed to be offended at the mere thought of another human picking my aguacates and carne because I’m the only one who could possibly choose the best ingredients to feed my family. The shame that’s attached to outsourcing tasks that “women do” is something that would loom over me, and that I quickly had to shut the f*ck down (there goes that colorful wording).

There’s a level of insanity attached to feeling guilty about not doing something that you don’t like and aren’t good at, just because someone decided one day that being born of a certain gender means you have to do that thing. Seriously, it’s nuts. When I think about it like that, it makes me feel so much better. Whose idea was it to assign grocery shopping to women? Why do I have to do things that I don’t like when someone else can be paid to do them for me? Yes, it’s a privilege, but one that I can afford with my hard-earned money. I don’t work for free, and I can use my money however I damn well please! Y’all don’t know me, and can’t tell me how to live my life. I’m grown!!

(I do not exaggerate when I tell y’all that this internal discussion happens on a regular basis).