Just Don’t Squeeze It In!
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Last week, a friend who is always rushing from one thing to another said in passing, "Yeah, I think I can squeeze that in."
I don't remember what the object being "squeezed in" was, but I do remember my own exceedingly negative response.
"Please don't," I said. "For goodness' sake, please stop squeezing things into your life!"
Needless to say, she was taken aback by my (over)reaction. She didn't understand why anyone— especially a Life Coach—would object so vehemently to an act meant to accommodate, collaborate, and increase productivity. After all, isn't that what we are all striving for?
My explanation to her is what I'll endeavor to share with you today.
A good place to begin is by reading last week's blog, The Woman I Finally Sat Next To. In it, I explain the concept of living life from a place of rest—and why I reacted so strongly to my friend.
I have no beef with being accommodating, collaborative, and productive. Thousands of self-improvement books and teachers have focused on how we can all become more, faster, and better versions of ourselves. But those of us who dedicated the first four decades of our lives to these disciplines have become so expert that we've unknowingly crossed over to the other side.
The Dark Side.
The Dark Side is that place where we are recognizably productive, optimizing every bit of open space on our calendars. We say yes to people and things we genuinely care about, but who fall into the second or third tier of commitments we want to honor. We appear successful from the outside, always delivering and checking off lists. We secretly take great pleasure in being asked, “How do you do it all?”
When I started working with a Coach in my forties, I was squarely in that place. If my Coach had chastised me for the behavior that got me there, it probably wouldn't have landed. Instead, he shared these words from the elite Coach, Marshall Goldsmith:
"Carolyn, what got you here won't get you there."
Boom.
That landed because it honored the practices I needed to master to reach the top of my career—and my life as I knew it.
It was an acknowledgment of how hard I had worked to reach those external markers of success—which, let’s be honest, actually do matter to us.
Yes, it took an exponential level of hustle to open a business at sixteen, work full-time, and raise my kids as a single parent. It took "squeezing in" my two-year-old son's naps (which would only happen if his head was on my chest) during my lunch breaks while managing YSL.
I was the queen of "squeezing in”.
But as I found myself feeling absolutely unprepared for a new season of my life, I knew the old ways were no longer serving me—though I simply didn’t know which new ones would.
David Brooks speaks eloquently about this life change that so many of us experience. He uses the analogy of climbing the First and the Second Mountain of our lives.
The First Mountain—the one I devoted the first part of my adult life to—is about pure, ego-driven, achievement-centered goals. They’re not bad goals, but they always tie back to our sense of how worthy and valuable we see ourselves to be. To climb this mountain, whose peak is career, family, financial, and social status, we need to hustle, squeeze in, and push.
The Second Mountain is different. To begin climbing it, we must develop a whole new mindset, skill set, and—often, as in my case—an entirely new identity. We have to let go of the skills and habits we so carefully mastered during the first climb and develop new ones we often don't even know we need.
The "how" of Second Mountain climbing is the work I started and continue to do on multiple fronts. I don't want to give you a buzzy list that excites you today and is forgotten tomorrow.
So here's just one rule of thumb—one you can begin using immediately:
Never squeeze anything in.
Plan your day, week, and life consciously.
In the morning, plan your day. On Sunday, plan the week ahead. Every once in a while, plan your month and your year.
And if there's a cancellation—if by the grace of heaven an hour opens up—grab it. Protect it. Live into it.
But whatever you do, don't "squeeze in" one more thing.
Take the gift. Say thank you. And notice what happens when you stop filling every space the moment it opens.
That's not laziness. That's the trailhead of the Second Mountain. And unlike the first one, you won't need to squeeze yourself to the top.
