The hectic panic of trying to strive through life at a 100% is challenging to say the least. You set goals, you manage your kids, your job, your relationships. You still have to find time for your dreams in there somehow. There is interesting viewpoints on living at 100% from all facets of life. Slow down, enjoy life or life's too short, you got to keep on moving! If that is not clear enough: Part of life wants you to sit with a Corona on a beach, part of life wants you to be Bud Light and play ping pong against Arnold Schwarzenegger! The good news is either way gets you a beer in the end. Goal accomplished! Do you see where these mindsets can butt heads pretty quickly in my internal monologues? At the suggestion of one of my friends, I started reading a book to help me learn to try and not cram so much writing into one day with instant expectations that I will publish after a year, as well as it takes time to craft a book/story/manuscript. (Unless you're Stephen King. He has made some sort of deal with something Unholy and wakes up with a manuscript under his pillow every 3 months. That's strictly my opinion with no real proof of Mr. King's unholy deals.). To really slow it down, rather than just stream words onto a page and hope it sticks. The different methods various writers use to arrive at the end of their stories. All are varied as snowflakes. There is no one way to do it. I guess I kind of knew that. Internally I am taking it that the difference between a decent writer, a good writer, and a phenomenal writer is the extra time taken on working on their books. In short the book is telling me to find my own time to write and how to write. The most interesting part of the book is to do an experiment where I take an average day and put all the things into various time slots. Then see how that scheduled day fills up. This exercise would work for anybody really. If done mentally, that schedule fills up pretty fast for any of us. Work, kids, kids' activities, friends, family-time, Spouse-time(or significant other for you non-committal types), hobbies, exercise and of course personal dreams. That's a lot. It's easy to see why so many dreams or even hobbies fall to the wayside. I also see why parents try to get their kids to enjoy the same hobbies and activities. Which there is nothing wrong with that in the least. Schedule-wise if we all enjoy the same activities, it frees up a lot of other time and I think we bond better as people.

Living in the 100% doesn't mean you have to take every thing that is thrown at you and say "yes". It means accepting the things you want to do and putting all of your effort into them. If you choose to do it, do it. It's O.K. not to want to do everything. It's giving your all to the things you have CHOSEN to do. If you are going to be in a relationship with someone, be in that relationship. Schedule time for that relationship and be present in it. My wife and I figured out the other day(well, we probably always noticed it) that she'll sit in her chair and I on the couch when we have our At-Home-Date-Nights and watch our DVR'ed shows(The Blacklist, Modern Family and Parenthood should always be part of your 100%). Mostly this puts a nice side table between us that we each use for snacks and beverages. Is that 100%? How dumb is that? The whole time past the age of 12 I wished there would be a hot girl sitting next to me. Now, I have one right in the house, and we sit in two different spots because we need a place to put the cheese and crackers. Silly. The new rule is we sit next to each other, and of course the dog will not leave us alone. So, she sits with us as well, like our own chaperone, obviously she is just trying to get her paws on the snacks. There isn't anything wrong with some new rules to break up habits we fall into as people. Sometimes spontaneity needs a kick in the pants with some ground rules.

How did this come to be an issue for me? Last night we(once again "We" means my wife and I) started brainstorming all the things we wanted to do once our family relocation was complete. Eat better, drop a bunch of the processed foods, go on family walks, date nights out, etc, etc. That list can build pretty quickly. I understand we didn't need to do all those things and it was just brainstorming. In my head though, it was conflicting with the book I was reading about limiting your commitments in order to make time for writing. Not finding time, MAKING time. A big difference when you think about it. I would say I started to shut down about it after a bit. I was seeing my dream being pushed to the wayside. My internal daily planner was filling up rather quickly and I found I didn't want to suggest anything because my goal is to write, but my family, my wife all take the 100% as well, because without them what is the point anyways? This doesn't mean I don't want any part of those ideas. It just was a little overwhelming to think of all that being implemented, when I have suppressed a personal dream of my own for so long.

Instead of shutting down, I should have kept going and then offered the solution I had been reading about. We should have mocked up the previously mentioned personal schedule with all the items we absolutely want/need to do. Then insert the new ideas/tasks/dreams in to the same schedule, in short find a place and time for them. I'm not usually a draw-out-a-plan-guy-for-my-personal-life, but I'm getting there(I don't think I shocked anybody with that bit of information). However, I like the idea of actually penciling in what a day looks like. It's not set in stone, but it can show us what we do or do not have time to accomplish. Maybe, list things as being part of the 100%, generally things you can not do with out: family, work, a goal. The insert the ideas we may not be sure about, but it's always something we have wanted to try. Stressing to make sure we have the tasks in our schedule that we normally do no matter what. For instance personally, I always like to have some screw around time, especially as a person who likes stories. So, yes T.V., music, and reading are important to me, as they do lend inspiration. It's also always nice to sit and think for a half hour about nothing and everything(I believe people call this meditation, but I'm not that deep). I need to put those in a timeframe and when I would normally do them. After all that is done look for actual win-win situations that actually may free up time: Go for a walk with family, maybe that could count as exercise as well for the day. Get to exercise and get to spend time with family. Win-win.  T.V. time can be part of Stay-at-Home Date-Night. It's all good. After it's all done and penciled in look at it together. Can we scale it back? Or do we see we have plenty of time on other days to accomplish/do things left on our brainstorming list?

I find that everything we really want to do can fit into a schedule with my family. As long as we talk it out and communicate and work towards our win-win solutions.  Everybody loves puzzles and making things fit.We are on the same team, working on the same schedule balancing puzzle. It's not such a bad idea to put that 100% effort into the puzzle that constitutes our daily life.

(Once again. I am not a life coach, what may work for my family may not work for some. If you feel you need a life coach please get one. I am for hire. Currently my advice is free, mostly because I haven't found anyone willing to pay me for it yet. I would also like to thank everybody that supported this blog by reading and sharing it. Between this site and the first one around 2000 people have visited it, no confirmation for sure if they actually read it. Anyways I feel that is a win-win and makes me feel pretty good about my efforts as well as gives me lots of practice writing non-fiction. I also apologize if Mr. King or Mr. Schwarzenegger are offended in any way. I would love to play ping pong with the Governator. I also would love to have as many published works and movies as Mr. King, except for Graveyard Shift. I still want my money $4 back from that awful movie. Thank you!)