Wanting Isn't Enough

Most of us are good at stating what we want.

“I want a promotion.”

“I want to lose weight.”

“I want to have a great partnership with my spouse.”

Wanting is easy.

We also know (obviously) that simply wanting isn’t enough, but we don’t typically talk about our wants in context of all the other wants that we have, all our other priorities, our responsibilities.

Because only when we elevate a want to a priority, create time for it, and make boundaries around that time to protect it from our other priorities and what other people want and need from us can it happen.?

Some of those wants will get our time. Some will become priorities.

?? “I want a promotion so I will work closely with the team to ensure that the big project we’re working on is completed on time, within budget, and gets us a high rating on our client satisfaction survey.”

?? “I want to lose weight and to do so I’m going to make a commitment to go to the gym 3 mornings a week and track my calories every day.”

But not all of our wants can become priorities. We choose. We choose what will get our time and we choose what will get our attention. So, in turn, we choose what will not.

? “I want to have a great relationship with my spouse, but I’m not going to go to marriage counseling like she asked.”

? “I want to be healthy, but I’m not going to schedule time in my day to exercise.”

I received a message on Monday on social media after I posted a photo of my family at the YMCA of the Rockies xcountry skiing saying “I can’t believe how much your family does on the weekends! I don’t know how you find time for it. I can’t imagine being gone all weekend all the time.”

How to interpret that message aside ;)? – what that person sees is the fun stuff I post. What this person doesn’t see is the choices I make and what I don’t prioritize in order for that to happen.

This weekend’s example:

We want to enjoy this time as much as we can with our 10 and 8 year olds. We want to make memories with them and with snow on the ground, those memories typically come from ski weekends together.?

“I want to spend weekends skiing with my family.” comes with a lot of BUTs, SO’s, ANDs…

And it was in full effect this weekend on Sunday late afternoon. I was ready to go. We had already x-country skied that day, done archery classes (kids), gone to the craft center, and we were at the Rec center finishing up the day. Traffic on 70 was going to be terrible.?

I wanted to get home and get some domestic things done and ready for the week. Grocery shopping, laundry, putting our stuff away. All the stuff.

I also wanted to take up the challenge my daughter and husband were throwing down at me and crush them in pickle ball.

They couldn’t both happen.

So what people saw was this…

Instead of this.

Wanting to prioritize time with my family on the weekends right now means a lot of things that I I’ve had to put on the back burner.

I want, but won't prioritize.

I wanted to go into this week with cupboards full, grocery shopping completed, and laundry put away, BUT I didn’t want to give up the rest of the day with my family. SO I was grabbing coffee from a coffee shop Monday at 7 to just get the day started and my daughter just said moooooooommmmmm in 8 syllables asking where a matching pair of socks are.

I don’t know. I’m not done yet. There’s a big pile and I’m sure you can find it in there.?

We made a choice.?

And it's one I'm glad we made but we had to give other things up (like those matching socks).

There’s a great quote:

“You can have everything, you just can’t have it at the same time.”

Try it yourself.? What are you saying that you want.? Then finish the sentence using BUT, AND, or SO to see how much you’re willing to give that want the time and attention it needs. You may find it’s not worth it and I find that powerful.