Lately, I’ve been seeing the word “vision” all over my world. People often comment on my ability to accomplish a lot in a year. I remember people even saying to me that I seemed to have lived multiple lives, but I haven’t even reached my 40th birthday yet (it’s coming up, though – this year!).
I spent a year in Brisbane, Australia, learning how to install soil sensors and climate stations to monitor water movement and climate in Australian reclaimed mine soils. This led me to do my master’s degree in civil engineering, which involved living in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for 4 months over the summers of 2 years. I’ve worked as a golf course front desk attendant, as a sales associate in Merle Norman (a make-up company), a crop scout in northern Alberta, a research assistant at the University of Saskatchewan, an environmental auditor, a research and development scientist for an engineering software company, and finally a global marketing specialist for a larger international software company. In the last year, I’ve added owning 2 businesses to my list, including becoming a radio show and podcast host, a published author, a coach, and a trainer. Now I get to add “book publicist for hire” to my experience.
On top of all these things, I’m also a mom of three boys, aged 8, 11, and 13 years old.
A question that I get asked a lot is how I “do it all.” A question that I honestly struggle with answering.
Before starting this journey to harmony, I was just going with what my gut told me. If I saw a job that would take me to the other side of the world, pay me, AND let me travel, I just said, “Sure.” If that job got dull and I was tired of doing the same thing day in and day out, I’d go on to the next thing. I didn’t have a plan for my future. I was just enjoying the moment and finding ways to travel the world without paying for it.
I know – the days before having children. What freedom we had!
Once my boys started coming along, I had to be more “responsible.” I took jobs that paid well, seemed to have an interesting premise, but DIDN’T require a lot of travel. I still traveled when I had to, but I wanted to be home as much as possible when my babies were young. This was also when I first started working from home full-time – almost 10 years before COVID made it a common thing.
After my third son was born in 2016, something in me exploded. Perhaps imploded is the better term. I realized I was climbing a ladder that I didn’t want to be on. I was a hamster on a wheel going nowhere fast, or at least not in a direction that I necessarily wanted to go.
And, I HATED the word “passion.”
At that time, everyone was saying to go find my passion. Follow your passion. Create your business in your passion. It won’t feel like work if it’s your passion. I won’t get started into the word “purpose”, but I can guarantee it gave me the same reaction – a sudden impulse to dry heave.
What I didn’t realize at the time?
That visceral response to those terms was actually an important indicator of where my problem was. I didn’t know what my passion was. I didn’t know who I wanted to be or where I wanted to go. I was just going with the flow, where the next person demanded I was needed. I wasn’t thinking about where I would end up in 10-20 years on the path I was currently on.
At first, I simply focused on finding things outside of my day job to make me feel happier. I tried getting into running 5 Km runs, swimming clubs, art clubs, and book clubs. I was in so many clubs! On top of that, I started volunteering for everything I could think of.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the greatest way for me to start. I spent a lot of time hitting burnout, trying to rush from one thing to the next. This included traveling around the world periodically for work, as well as making sure my kids were involved in activities to help them socialize and proceed in their development. It turned into survival mode.
Did I look successful on the outside?
Of course, I did. I was working hard to make it seem like I had everything together. I was the breadwinner of the house, I was the primary caregiver since I was working from home full-time already at that point. I was exercising constantly, trying to hit those milestones in running, spinning class, swimming – you name it, I was pushing my body to do it.
Then, the pandemic happened, and we were all forced to remain indoors. My kids could no longer go to school, let alone to their extracurricular activities. I could no longer travel or attend any of the clubs I was involved in (unless it was over Zoom), and it was hard just to see family. The pandemic was terrifying and awful, and my heart goes out to everyone who lost family and friends during that horrible time. However, in my life, there was at least a sliver of silver lining.
It made me pause.
Suddenly, I was stuck at home, thankfully still with a job, but it required me to be at a desk every day for at least 8 hours, sometimes more. I was now also helping two young kids go through remote schooling while also caring for a toddler. I was trying to find outdoor activities we could do as a family to get out of the house, but that wouldn’t break quarantine recommendations. It was stressful!
But it was also when I realized that there was something I was shoving down inside of me. Something that was festering, and it was related to my reaction to the word “passion.”
It wasn’t until I was forced to stay home, to slow down, that I realized it was even there. That was when I really started to pay attention to work/life harmony and what it meant to me. I was no longer trying to be super productive or involved in many different clubs, sports, and activities. Instead, I was forced to look inward.
Thankfully, since COVID, I’ve been able to spend more time looking inward. It helped me realize just how miserable I really was. It helped me figure out that I do have passion! I am sure it will change with time, as I fully believe in seasonality and the cyclic nature of our passions, just like our entire lives are involved in cycles in some way. The weather, our age, parenting life, careers, and even our monthly rhythms, and hormone levels. Cycles and seasons are all around us.
So, what helped me find my passion?
I talk about this topic all the time on my platforms and with my clients, but honestly, it first came with taking the time to slow down and reflect. Reflecting on my past – what excited me, what did I do in my spare time when I had the freedom and lack of responsibilities that I had before leaving high school.
For me, creating, writing, drawing, and painting were some things that started to come to my mind. I realized that I used to write all the time. Whether it was in a journal, diary, on a blog, as poems randomly in notebooks, or in the margins of my papers at school. I constantly thought of story ideas, jotting down notes and drawing little cartoons of potential characters. Of course, I was also a massive reader. It’s funny that we now track how many books we read. I can only imagine how many I read back then when I didn’t have to work, run around to kids’ activities, etc.
Again, I didn’t quit my day job to start looking into my passions. Although, wouldn’t it be great to get paid a living wage to just sit at home and read?
Instead, I focused on writing and joining new clubs, this time clubs related to what I enjoyed when I was young. Until one day, I can’t remember if I was meditating or dreaming, but I had a vision. It was a vision of me in Italy, writing at a desk while my children were playing outside with their dad. We were there for summer break, spending weeks in the Italian countryside while I was writing a manuscript. I didn’t have to rush off to a day job. I had the freedom and flexibility to work from where I wanted and when I wanted.
I still see that vision when I close my eyes. Whenever I consider my goals for the quarter or my daily priorities, I close my eyes and consider that vision. That is the future I am striving for. That is the outcome that continues to pull me along.
Of course, I have dug deeper into this vision over the years. Not all methods have worked for me when it comes to time management, productivity, and goal setting, but I’ve finally found a way that works for me. It helped me become a published author in 2024. It is still helping me now, as I pivot my first business to be more aligned with that future identity I’m striving towards. I feel more motivated and confident, even though I don’t always know where the journey will take me.
I could likely go on about my goal-setting method and how I use vision in my systems to help me find the motivation and time to achieve my goals, but that might have to be for another article.
These methods and systems keep me going every day. I know my priorities, and I make sure to put them at the top of my list no matter what else comes up. I’ve realized that has made the biggest difference in how much I accomplish each year compared to that younger mom in 2017. Back then, I didn’t know my priorities. As I said, I felt like I was in survival mode. I didn’t know what identity I wanted to become in the future – I just wanted to get through that day.
It’s amazing how clarity and a simple list of priorities that actually mean something to me have changed my entire planning system for a day, a week, and even a month. To me, it doesn’t seem like a miracle to achieve my goals – I put in the work every day, and I have the systems, habits, and rituals in place to keep me on track. I have a vision for my future, and one way or another, I’ll get there. The exact outcome might not be exactly the same, but the feeling and person I want to become are what I’m working toward every day.
This is what brings harmony into my life. This allows me to release the societal pressures and “shoulds” that weighed me down. I no longer am working toward someone else’s goals. Don’t get me wrong – I still have clients and work for a paycheque, so I still have to give some of my time away. However, I’m more intentional about it and aware of how it might impact my priorities.
And I definitely am not perfect at it every week. Some weeks, I let myself get caught up in things I think might help, only to realize I spent an entire week on something in the wrong direction. That is the beauty of the journey – it has ups and downs, obstacles, and clearings – you never know what you’ll get. It just makes it that much more interesting along the way.
I feel like I went off on a bit of a tangent with this article, but hopefully, you found it helpful! I may turn some of these lessons from my life into a podcast at some point… but stay tuned on that!
Let me know in the comments if you have any questions or want me to create content on a specific topic! I’d love to hear from you.
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