I Won't Be Busy Anymore

Busy.  How many times have you used this word today?  How many times have you heard this word today? How many times have you thought this word today?It seems like I can’t have a conversation without this word coming up. In fact, “busy” seems to have become the default answer to “How have you been?” It might have even trumped talking about the weather as the default small talk conversation.In October 2016, I led a Simplify & Flourish Simple Living Retreat here in Maine. I gathered with six incredible women to spend a weekend relaxing, nourishing and simplifying their lives.We explored big and small changes we can each make to simplify our lives and we came up with ways to actually make them happen.One of the topics that we spent time discussing was the concept of ‘busy.’ We all shared how this word has invaded our lives, coming at us from all directions every. single. day.Knowing that change starts within each of us, we all decided to make the commitment to stop being busy. We challenged ourselves to eliminate this word from our vocabularies. Simple in concept, but certainly a challenge in real life.It’s been over three months since we set this intention and let me tell you, it certainly has been a challenge. In fact, during my first post-retreat coaching call with one of the women who attended, the first words out of my mouth were, “You’ve been busy!” Of course I immediately caught this, we laughed about it then we dove right into talking about how hard it is not to use this word in today’s more, better, faster world.I confess that I’ve said it several other times over the past three months, catching myself when I do and trying to come up with something else to say instead.What do I say instead? For the question, “How have you been?” or “What’s new?” I’ve tried, “We are doing well,” or I simply mention something we’ve been up to or something we are planning.I could even take it a step further and say, “We are focusing on slowing down and not being busy,” but I haven’t figured out a way to say that without sounding snippy.What can you imagine saying instead?I continue to experiment with ways to stop using this word and I invite you to join me. Declare to others, “I won’t be busy anymore” and see what they say.And next time you’re tempted to throw out your usual ‘busy’ answer in response to “How have you been?” see if you can come up with something else instead.Imagine what our days would be like if we weren’t all busy. Less rushing, less stress, more joy, more space...I hope that you’ll join me and the women from my retreat in accepting this challenge. And if you do, remember to be patient and give yourself grace. If it were easy to stop using this word, we all would have done it a long time ago. Take it one thought and one conversation at time and know that there are women throughout the country supporting you and doing the same in their part of the world.To Simplicity & Joy,Lisa