I once heard a story about a woman who went to the grocery store. There were no more carts, so she would have to carry whatever she needed. Since she only needed a few things, so she thought she would be fine.

Walking through the aisles picking up this and that she quickly found that her hands were full, but she still had a few more items she had to pick. As she got to her last few items, she found that as much as she tried she just couldn’t hold anything else. She moved things around but things just kept falling. She just could not carry another thing. So she looked at what she had, decided what couldn’t wait, walked to the register and decided to visit the store another day.

What is the moral of the story? Sometimes you have to decide what you need, and you have to let the other things go….

I have been this lady in the grocery store, but I have also been her in life, and I am sure you have too. I pick up things that I can’t handle. I keep things that I should of let go of, and I find myself dropping important and necessary things because I am trying to balance everything, and I just can’t. The real lesson here is you have to figure out what is important and let the other stuff go!

If you are stressed, overworked, feel underappreciated, or are just plain old tired, I have a question for you. What do you need to let go of, put down, or release? I believe that we can have it all, but I am pretty sure you can’t have it all at the same time, and if you did, would you even appreciate it. Just like in the story, you have to make choices that let you function where you are, with what you have in your hands. When you try to work outside of that reality you are more likely to be burned out, frustrated, and stressed.

YOU WILL have busy times in your life, where work-family-life responsibilities just seem like more than you can handle. Balance is about choosing what you need right now and being willing to put the rest down. In order to make it through those busy, and difficult times, you have to learn to protect and support yourself by making good choices that work for you. Remember, there is nothing wrong with bowing out gracefully when things in life are crazy. Give yourself permission to let go, and have enough faith to believe things really will be just fine without you.