How do you celebrate your wins?

When you’re juggling so many balls at once, it can be hard to stop juggling long enough to notice that you’ve managed to pass one of those balls on to its next handler. Know what I mean? You finish a task, a project, a responsibility, and you pass that sucker on to its next destination and immediately move onto your next task. You don’t even draw breath, do you, before you reach for the next ball lobbing into your view?

And then you wonder why you’re so exhausted.

As any skilled circus star will tell you, juggling is exhausting. It requires intense focus for a sustained period of time, lightning-fast reflexes, consistent rhythm and flow, an eye always on what’s coming next.

How would it be for you if, from time to time, you were able to put all those balls aside for a moment, flex your tense shoulders, rest your tired eyes, let your breath go? Just for a minute?

How would it be for you if, from time to time, instead of passing those balls from hand to hand, you stopped to notice that you’d managed to offload a ball?

What if you stopped to acknowledge that you’d invested in that ball, cared for it, polished it, and sent it onwards in great round shape?

What if you took a moment’s pride in how long and how successfully you’d juggled it?

What if you took a moment to comfort yourself about the ball that came in so fast and so hard from left field that you couldn’t quite catch it as well as you’d have liked?

Here’s the thing. As women we are constantly juggling, constantly on guard for a slip-up, holding our breath until the next ball lands as it should, and wondering why nobody appreciates just how many balls we’re juggling and just how well we’re keeping them all in the air. But it’s hard to justify resenting others for not noticing, when we don’t take time to notice ourselves. To notice, and to celebrate.

Your mission today, should you choose to accept it, is to notice when you’ve successfully juggled a ball — when you’ve successfully soothed a child or landed a decision or made a tight deadline or made somebody smile. Before you reach for the next ball, take a moment to notice what you feel in that moment. It might be relief, or pride, or triumph, or satisfaction, or gratitude, or even anxiety. Notice what you feel in that moment, feel it, breathe it in, and decide when and how and with whom you’ll celebrate it.

And then you can reach for the next ball…