The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

Stephen Covey

I’ve often used this quote with my clients, it’s a whole week’s topic in my coaching group starting this autumn, and today I’ve been using it myself.

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the spinning plates analogy, and in recent weeks a combination of circumstances has meant I once again found myself spinning plates and attempting multi-tasking. One of the benefits of having been ill is that I can no longer manage multi-tasking. I have to have a single focus for a short period and then rest. It’s either frustrating or growthful depending on your perspective!

I am opening my business again in October, on a very limited basis, and this has involved working on my website, my booking system, my accounts, my mailing lists and up dating my banking details with my new address and name. It is, of course, much more than that, as a deeper process has to be undertaken also, that of being open to, and aware of, my own process. My internal system is updating too.

If the relaunch was just happening in a vacuum then it would be a lot, but there are other personal plates spinning and other people’s needs too. Fitting work relaunch around my long awaited holiday and taking my daughter to university, and so on, has given me lists-of-lists and a colour coded calendar, just as I used to have before, but I am not as I was before. Not being as I was and stepping into the unknown of who I am now, is one of the updates currently ‘uploading’.

‘The main thing, the main thing… what is the main thing?’ I mutter to myself.

During my meditation today I became clearer that the main thing is to take one realistic step forward and then to rest. The drive to do it all and get packed for holiday at the same time isn’t a deep seated wish to be frantically busy, quite the opposite. It is a wish to get away from it all and get it all away from me so I can rest.

The main thing is movement then space and rest, this came to me as I meditated on what the main thing is. I want to take one reasonable step and then rest. I long for completion for end, for stopping. I don’t want to spin plates at all. My habit tells me I can rest when I have tidied up and done the washing and got through my things to do list. My habit tells me to race around quickly so I can sit down sooner. However, I am wiser than this, aren’t I? I won’t be able to complete the tidying or the lists, or the jobs to do. The plates will fall. Things I wanted to do I won’t get to do. But the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. The main thing is resting when a reasonable movement has taken place. To stop in a good place, not in an exhausted heap.

Yesterday, I cancelled my hair appointment, I rearranged a massage for a couple of months time, I cancelled meeting a friend. I’ve shelved two important writing projects to deal with things closer to home (the people I love) that are more important than my work. They were things I wanted to do but I couldn’t do it all, I had to keep the main thing the main thing. I have learned to sit down half way through unpacking the dishwasher, hanging the washing or getting dressed. The rush to complete so I can rest brings me the opposite result to the one I want. Guess what? I can rest right now and the plates can fall (hopefully not all of them!).

I had already let go of writing this blog and thought I’d just repost an old one, and then after my meditation I felt that I could dash off these words in the moment. Maybe I will just post this as it is, without faff, and photo, without subheadings and further pondering. Maybe, I will rest this evening with my partner instead. Because the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

Do you know what the main thing is for you? If you want to take this exploration of the main thing deeper, then have a look at my new coaching group. It is all online and easy to join and manage and the beauty of it is that you can do as much or as little as you like at any time of day that suits you. You will receive a lot of regular support and all for less than a monthly therapy session. More details on www.blue-skies.org.uk