Bite-sized living
Anybody else feel overwhelmed by the massive projects that have to get done by the end of the year? I know it’s not just me.
I am drowning in manuscripts to review, design projects to build, online courses to organize, and novels to write—not to mention the meal prepping, tax paying, church volunteering, social butterflying that makes up the rest of regular life. It can be enormously discouraging, especially when it feels like you’re standing still and not accomplishing anything.
But are you really? Are you actually not accomplishing anything? Or are you judging success by the wrong indicators?
Usually my to-do lists look like a seriously confused grocery list, scribbled in my mangled chicken scratch handwriting. There are domestic chores, business responsibilities, appointment times, and random reminders, but when I’m scheduling my day, I used to only count business responsibilities as being essential.
That’s not true. Domestic chores (like eating, for example) are essential to my health. But that means I need time to plan meals, grocery shop, prepare meals, and then eat the food I’ve made.
Domestic chores that preserve and maintain your health are just as important as business responsibilities that provide the finances you live on. You have to balance them both. So if you have a day where you only get domestic things done, can you honestly say you haven’t accomplished anything?
Not at all.
See, I look too far forward. I see ahead of me all the projects and goals and steps I will need to take tomorrow, next week, next year—and I get overwhelmed. I focus on tomorrow at the expense of today. And the fact is… well, I don’t even know what’s going to happen tomorrow.
Don’t brag about tomorrow, since you don’t know what the day will bring. Proverbs 27:1 NLT
Tomorrow is a mystery. We can guess. We can assume. But if you base every decision you make on what you think is going to happen, you aren’t going to building on a very stable foundation.
We just don’t know what’s going to happen. That doesn’t mean we give up. It doesn’t mean we stop trying. But it should affect how we schedule our time. That’s where bite-sized living comes in.
You’ve heard how it’s possible to eat an elephant? You can’t eat it all at once. You have to eat it one bite at a time. And that’s exactly how goal setting and future planning works in our lives, especially during this uncertain season in history.
You can’t live all at once. You can’t win all at once. Life isn’t a sprint where you cross the finish line and get everything you worked for instantly. It’s a marathon where you see small wins along the very long route you have to run.
Keep track of your small wins. Make your goals bite-sized, and then one day you’ll realize that you’ve accomplished something huge by accomplishing a dozen small things. It works in business. It works in relationships. And it works when it comes to following Jesus.
Live bite-sized. Celebrate your wins, even if they’re small. And never give up.
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