In a coaching session last week, I worked with a client who noticed that she was helping others at work. This is normally an admirable quality but my client, in the process of helping others, wasn't able to finish her own projects and had to add more time onto her day to accomplish what she had set out to achieve. This pattern reflected the one she had woven at home - taking care of what everyone else needed done and then falling behind, not only with her own projects, but with taking care of herself.  

Helping out others before addressing your own business is like flipping to the back of the test to answer the extra credit questions first and then running out of time to finish the exam.  No matter how well you do on those extra credit questions, if you don't complete the test, your grade will suffer.

I liked working on this puzzle with this client because I recognized an old pattern in myself.  I wove, sewed, embroidered, and even beaded the fabric of my life in such a way that  I had a very hard time saying no.  My "personal religion" was that I was responsible for taking care of others and this was a heavy quilt to carry everywhere.

And then I found the Brave Girls Club and their online courses, daily emails, and messages of love and support for women.  I took the Brave Girls Club's Soul Restoration class followed by the Life Restoration class.  A lesson I learned in Week 5 of the Life Restoration class, "Making the Rules for your Beautiful Life," was that when I say yes to a project that feels like an obligation, I lose the time that I could spend on another activity that lights me up.

"When we don't make rules and boundaries for our lives, all sorts of situations, relationships, and problems make their way into our lives," says Melody Ross of the Brave Girls Club. "And instead of living the life we really want to live, we are constantly managing all sorts of things that we really don't even want." 

The art project/introspective exercise for Week 5 was to decide on rules to help guide my life and then to create Decision Making Cards for each of them.  (I've listed My Personal Rules at the end of the blog at Touch Blue Sky if you're interested in reading them.)

So what are your rules?  Do you have solid boundaries so that you have time to cherish yourself, the people you love, and the projects that excite you? Head over to my blog for a few questions to help you to create your own Personal Rules.

Click here to go to Kathleen Harper's blog.

See the coupon for 35 percent off life coaching at the bottom of this email.  Offer expires September 6th!