Q # 23 - 30 Days of Insight

Take a look at this small mason jar. 

Look at this larger one with greater capacity.

Here are your marbles. 

Now, let's pretend you have enough marbles to fill the small jar.  What happens when you try to add MORE marbles?  Your jar won't be able to contain them, so some will spill out.

Next, let's pretend you take the same exact marbles and put them into the larger jar.  They'd sort of look like, this, right? Notice ALL OF THE EXTRA SPACE IN THE JAR.

 This is my way of showing you what STRESS LOOKS LIKE and why some of you are handling the Covid-19 disruption with ease and some of you are not. (Again, don't judge yourself...)

Stress happens when DEMAND exceeds CAPACITY.  An overflowing jar of marbles feels stressful.

This is very true in the business world as well as your life. Notice what happened when the 'demand' for toilet paper/masks/Purell was GREATER than the supplier's capacity. It created STRESS. This same phenomenon can happen in your life, too, with any demand that exceeds your capacity to deal with it. 

In my example above, the marbles represent 'demands' and the jar is your 'capacity'.

We already know about demands, right?  These include daily responsibilities, your work, mental chatter, worries, obligations, family, relationships, personal goals, etc.

Lately, your demands might've INCREASED.  Are you feeling it?  

That's stress and there are two main ways you can deal with it:

1. SCOOP OUT SOME MARBLES - as more 'marbles' come in, remove some other marbles to make room. (This is what happens when you drop one project for another one since you don't have the bandwidth for anything new.)  Daily calming habits will help dissolve some marbles, too.
2. GET A BIGGER JAR - Increase your capacity to contain more marbles so you can hold on to the projects you like (such as personal goals) AND deal with new ones.

For example:

If you're swamped with work, worried about the future, or home-schooling your kids, you have MORE MARBLES right now.  If your jar is on the small side, you might be willing to put fitness or personal goals on the back burner since you can't handle it all.

The world we live in will likely require all of us to deal with MORE marbles now and in the future. It's time to get picky about the marbles you want in your jar, build a bigger jar, or both!  Effectively managing your jar & marbles will be a valuable superpower, moving forward. 

Tomorrow, I'll teach you HOW to build a bigger jar.  Stay tuned!

capacity to deal with anything that comes your w

JOURNAL PROMPT:

How much extra space do you currently have in your jar?  This is an intuitive guess, so just take a guess!