In the past, I have found that I generally try to avoid saying that I am busy. Sometimes, I even go so far as making more and more commitments in an attempt to “prove” to myself that I am not busy.

I think there are a couple of reasons behind my unwillingness to admit that I am busy:

• I am worried that I will be seen to be wearing “busy” as a badge of honour. I don’t know why this bothers me. However, for some reason I simply hold an assessment at the moment that “busy as a badge of honour” does not feel as though something that I want in my current way of being. I have noticed that I will do everything I can to prevent myself being given a badge in recognition of my “busyness”.
• I hold an assessment that “busy” is about choices in managing priorities. If I am “too busy” to get my hair cut, for example, then my interpretation is that this really means that I am not prepared at that time to prioritise getting a hair cut. Therefore, it feels to me as though I should be owning my unwillingness to prioritise a hair cut rather than claiming that I am too busy; it feels as though busy is an excuse.

When I first learned about my negative listening of the word “busy”, I started to change my language so that I could acknowledge the large number of activities in our life, minus the self-judgement that seems to come when I use the word “busy”. For this reason, I find myself saying things like “We have a lot on this week” or “we have a lot happening in our life right now”.

Funnily enough, this leads nicely back to why I have arrived at an exploration of “busy”. We have quite a lot happening in our life right now, and I feel as though it may be time to start setting some boundaries around how many commitments our family can manage. I have started thinking that perhaps it is time to give myself permission to admit that we are busy, that perhaps I can find a way of acknowledging this without judging myself for it.

And so I am now starting to look at “busy” with curiosity and wonder. Why do I have a negative listening of “busy”? What can I learn from others’ experience of “busy”? How might a different interpretation of “busy” serve me more usefully?

I therefore invite you to consider engaging in a discussion around being busy. Please feel free to discuss in the blog comments, or on the Blog Facebook Page:

• What does busy mean to you?
• How do you go about giving yourself permission to acknowledge that you are busy?
• What requests would help you in your experience of “busy”?

As leadership and life coach, these points are all points that I am able to help people to explore. If you feel that it would be useful to HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH ME, please feel free to view my services on the Leading and Being website.

Featured Image Source: Owen Barker from Pexels