My Bag of F#%k's - And Why You Can't Have Any

I have a bag of F#%k's and you can't have any.

On any given day, I'm a boss, co-worker, teacher, friend, mother, daughter, sister, confidant, wife, opponent, leader, business owner, challenger, student, partner and cheerleader. I have alot of F#%ks to give. But given who I am on any day of the week, I can't guarantee you're going to get one.

Where did my bag of F#%ks come from? You can credit an old friend of mine. She introduced this theory to me when my first kid was born.

When he arrived, I was overwhelmed. Truly for the first time - totally overwhelmed. Up to that point, I prided myself on "A place for everything and everything in its place" both figuratively and literally. I didn't miss deadlines, my house was immaculate, and I had time for every project that came my way. I was the ear available if anyone needed, or the last person standing at the party - whatever you needed from me - I had it for you. I was there.

Then, with the arrival of my first son, I didn't have space for everything. And even if I did, I had to conserve some form of energy to deal with the gruelling nature that is parenting in the first few months and years of life.

My life was upended. I didn't know how to cope. How could I be everything to everyone? How could I hold myself to the same standard professionally and personally? How could I manage everything? And then my friend said:

"You have a limited bag of F#%k's Tiffany - and you decide who gets them. Some days you protect them like diamonds, and some days you're Oprah and everyone gets one. Doesn't matter - they're yours and only yours to give".

That stuck. Not like the skies opened up and everything changed that day, but I started to pivot my thinking. Not everything was deserving of a full F#%k. Some things got partial and some things, well as Voltaire once said:

"Great is the enemy of good"

Things in my life now had to be good enough. They had to be stack ranked. I had to determine what was worthy of full F#%ks and what got partial. New client pitches? Full F#%ks, homemade baby food - didn't even make it on the radar. Up-leveling myself at work - partial F#%ks in the sense that I had to learn by doing now instead of taking time out to take a course. Working out - partial F#%ks. Spending time with my kid - full F#%Ks. That list changed weekly! Sometimes something that got a partial got a full one the next week! It was in a constant flow contingent on what was happening at that time.

Sound familiar? Constant change? Life being upended? Feeling grossly overwhelmed?

Ya me too.

This week I had some version of this chat with 4 people by Wednesday not including the people I spoke to last week. Whenever I have the same chat with multiple people from different walks of my life I pay attention. Somethin' bigger is underway.

It's no secret. We're tired, we're stretched, and it's only the first week of Feb. We've run a marathon only to look up and see we've clocked a mile/km and there are 25 more miles or 45 more km to go. How do we keep going?

There's no golden ticket. No perfect answer but my answer is let go. Let go of perfection. Great truly is the enemy of good when you have an overwhelming amount of stuff that requires your attention. Alot of things are good enough to get out the door and iterate on later. Hold your bag of F#%ks tightly. Give them out sparingly. Stay true to your core. We'll all get through this with our bag of F#%k's and maybe when we meet in person one day - we can exchange stories of this crazy time and have a laugh.

More work can be found on Tiffanyheimpel.com