The tag line of my business is, “For women wanting more.”

And while I come by those words honestly and stand by them wholeheartedly, I do feel they need a bit of explaining.

“Women wanting more” speaks to the non-apologetic, chronically aspirational, possibility chick that lives in me. She is the stand on her tippy-toes, get-up before the alarm goes off eagerly empowered part of me that yearns to clear her plate as well as her bucket list before all is said and done. And she is the full-throttled champion of the desire for more when it shows up in her clients, friends and family even when uttered as a faint whisper or throwaway comment. She can’t help herself. She gets lit up by the possibilities and wants to spread the fire.

That said, there is another, equally feisty but much more dour part of me that sometimes emerges to tamp down the vigor of the possibility chick. It stems from my deep ambivalence about wanting. As I’ve learned, many of us deem our wantings as selfish (God forbid!), impractical, or something to be ashamed of.

It has taken me almost a half century to legitimize my wantings—whether they are for a chocolate ice-cream cone or a six-figure income. Dawna Markova, in her book Wide Open, beautifully describes some of our deepest wantings such as the desire for meaning and connection, as “sacred hungers.”

These hungers are what women in my coaching circles come to legitimize and learn how to feed.

There is nothing wrong with wanting more except when we tell ourselves it is wrong. Wanting is fuel. Wanting more makes us feisty, fun to be around, and focused. I’m grateful for my hungers (the same way I’m grateful for my overflowing to-do list)  as they speak to my aliveness. And more than anything, I want to live from a place of aliveness, wonder and gratitude.

Now, for the caveat: For any one of you reading this and thinking, “Gosh, Cheryl, I don’t really want any more. In fact, I’d like a heck of a lot less,” got it, thank you. Of course you do. I debated making my tagline “For women wanting more…or less” as I am 100% in the corner of those of us who are pleading for less. Less stuff, less incessantly squawking gadgets, less pressure to be something or someone we’re not, less self-criticism, and less listening to voices not our own. And ironically, in having less we hope for more. More peace, more balance, more time to ourselves. So I honor and welcome the parts of all of us that want and deserve less.

The best example of this comes from a client who said in our first meeting, “I love my family. I love my job. I hate my life.” This woman didn’t want more. She wanted less guilt, less busy, less stress. And she got it, and more.

So, dear ones, tell me:

• What’s your relationship like with wanting?
• What is it you want more of for yourself these days?
• What is it you want less of?
• What would it be like to know that even as you hold the space for more and less you can also bask in the grace of enough?

How about you?

I love my to-do list.

I hate my to-do list.

I love/hate my to-do list. Yes. That’s it!

And I know I’m not alone.

Just last week three different clients spoke haltingly about their to-do lists as if they were confessing a painful addiction.

I get it. I, too, was under the punishing thumb of my never-ending, always-taunting, hand-written list. I hated it as much as I thrived on it.

At my worst, I would sometimes add a task to my list that I already accomplished just for the thrill of crossing it off.

I had fallen into the culturally reinforced “we are what we accomplish” trap—only as good or bad, worthy or unworthy, as our to-do list proclaims us to be at end of any given day.

Enough, I say.

It’s time and it’s possible to make peace with our to-do lists and reclaim a bit of our freedom in the process. And in case you are starting to hyperventilate in anticipation of my telling you to shred your to-do list, rest assured that’s not what I’m suggesting.

It’s not the to-do list that hurts us; it’s our relationship with the list that causes our suffering.

Here are some ways I’ve improved my relationship with my to-do list.

• Name your list! I named mine Gloria. Don’t ask me why. Now I can talk back to her any time—especially if she’s getting overly rambunctious.
• Decide what kind of relationship you want with your list. I no longer wanted to be bullied by my list. Instead I want a collaborative, supportive partnership, sprinkled with a dose of fun (like writing with a purple crayon) every now and then.
• Remind yourself how rewarding it is to have enough activity in your life to even warrant a to-do list. I hope I never get to the point where I don’t have one.
• Instead of just scratching something off your list, try to take 10 seconds to actually feel good about it. Sometimes Gloria will say, “You Go Girl” or “Great job—that was a tough one!”
• If you end the day with items still on your daily list, ask yourself, “Did I do my best today given all that was happening in my inner and outer life?” And if you can say, Yes, then it’s enough.
• If something stays on the your list for more than two weeks without being attended to, then it either doesn’t matter and should come off to make room for what does, or it matters so much you may be procrastinating and need to break the item down into smaller tasks that you can act on.
• If you want to feel less overwhelmed and more joyful about your to-do list, imagine the to-do lists of others. (I think of my 17-year-old daughter’s list: pre-calculus homework, ACT prep courses, high school drama or the president of the United States or a single mother living in the inner city.) Immediately I feel more compassion for others and more grateful for my list.
• Set a “to-be” intention at the top of your to-do list each day that declares how you want to be as you do. For instance, today I wrote ‘Frisky” at the top of my list. This is a way of staying present to the quality of your life, not just the doing of your life.
• Take a break! Once a week, usually on Sunday, I give Gloria (and me) the day off of list making. At first I was terrified of what I’d do without my list but now I have found those days, in small doses, quite liberating.

How about you? Write to me and tell me how you navigate your relationship with your to-do list!

photo credit: jking89 via photopin cc