Who are you trying to impress?
I hope it's you.
Last weekend my friend told me to wear black sock when I came over. A bunch of us were meeting for a looooong lunch catch up, each of us bringing a dish so we could pick at a variety of food while we picked apart our lives and the world and put it all back together again. Inevitably, we’d be kicking off shoes and getting comfy and so “No white socks” was the advice given as she had a sore back and wasn’t going to be washing the kitchen floor in advance. I smiled with the perfection of that admission of imperfection.
We’ve all reached the merry age of realising impressing people is better by being happy and chilled not sterile-clean and stressed. Hallelujah for your 50’s!
This is a perfect example of choosing your sanity over standards.
As a western woman, every day of your life is often an existential battle between reacting to all the external demands, expectations and outdated patriarchal posturing on who and how a woman should be, versus an internal connection to self to support, soothe and satisfy your own needs, capacity and ambitions.
Admittedly, you likely don’t wake up and immediately start journalling under the heavily scored heading “Existential Battle” each day, pencil pondering against your lip whether you can be a warrior or weary woman today. But the battle beats on nonetheless.
Women, especially those of us with a few decades of life under our belt, grew up in a system that socialised us to see our value in our output towards, and for, others - from how clean your house was (what will the neighbours think?) to how much time and energy you devote to caring for those around you (don’t be “selfish”, give it all).
So we run around like our hair is on fire, spinning plate after plate, tick, tick ticking the To-Do list like a ticking time bomb of urgency without ever connecting in to ask: what’s my capacity today? What is actually important, what is just to be done where done is good enough, and what can I let go of, hand over, drop a standard level or two?
I wrote last year in detail about choosing sanity over standards - here’s a clip:
And whatever “standards” I adhered to (and where did they come from other than an 1950’s American ideal where the housewife stays home and dusts, while waiting for hubby to return and hold his hand out for a drink), they were still easy enough to maintain [when it was just me in a flat].
And then the shit-show began. Suddenly I ended up with three kids under five, a career on life-support, a husband whose job was '“very important” but the standards still needed to be kept despite 10 times the work.
It never occurred to me to adjust my standards to my capacity!
Why did it not occur to me? Why was I not given that message… to match my standrds to my capacity? Why had that not become the standard??
And then the shit-show got shittier and I became a single parent… now one pair of hands and 20 times the work. I thought it was just normal to be so overwhelmed I would cry at the end of the day, like my mum had done.
In order to survive, I started to adjust. It’s something that comes up a lot with my coaching work with women who are trying to find more balance, direction and joy in their lives.
So every day, you enter this existential battle between responding from your internal remote control and not reacting to an external drag. You have to do battle every day…. you have to choose your energy over expectations, and ask; what’s my capacity, what’s important, and who am I trying to impress? The answer should always be your sanity.
And you know, it’s a balance. Some days will sway into reaction or response depending on the circumstances and your capacity. The key is that you are in charge of the thinking, and now on default mode.
It means you can be still be working hard obviously and doing the laundry but you’re doing it with a pace of your making, and a choice over what standards you adhere to.
You choose the things that matter and you really want doing well, and realising the things that aren’t quite as important in the grand scheme of things and tell your guests to wear black socks. Remember what I suggested last week - What if instead of building on a never ending To Do list, you reframe it as a Keep-Doing list? You take away the urgency of getting to the end of the To-Do, and pace yourself through a Keeping-Doing list, building in breaks because you will never be done, and there’s no point in rushing to get to the end.
Happy battling and remember you always have the remote control. I was thrilled to recently be back on Sile Seoige’s fabulous Ready to be Real podcast where I get discuss this and lots of practical ways to live freer! You can listen here on
I’d love to know where you can choose your sanity over standards that aren’t even yours so please join me in the comments below (if you’re reading this in an email, please click on the link below to go through to the website to join the conversation.)
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