Today’s card says: Choose to stop and pay attention when they ask a question. Whatever else you are doing can wait. Everything else can wait. It seems urgent but it is NOT.

Well this one is mostly about my kids. I want to choose to stop doing the other things and really focus on them when they talk to me. Not always. Sometimes it’s ok to do other things. But enough times that they remember how much I love them, how much I valued them, how I made them feel.

I want to pay attention to the moments. With Jake, with my parents, with my sister, my nephews. My friends. My boys. Even myself. I want to pay attention and listen to the people around me the way I listen to my coaching clients. With curiosity, openness and rapt attention. I want to know more, dig deeper, connect.

I can’t think of any better way to show love than to gift people with my most precious item: my time.

I feel especially in this day and age, time and attention are the most valuable assets we have. And it’s something I want to choose to give to the people I care about the most. (Not to the loudest, most annoying or the most urgent.) Work will never end, worries will not stop, my thoughts, my brain, CNN and all the other noise in my head is endless. So there will never be the perfect time to give my attention to those I love.

I have to choose to make the time.

None of us have time. We all make time for the things we care about. Choosing to listen to people is also about making time. About showing them that they matter. That they are worth your time.

That I am choosing them.

Choosing Means is a Monthly Project for May 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.

Today’s card says: Choose to see the magic in the ordinary. These little moments are the ones you will miss the most when it’s all over. Sitting together, laughing together, holding hands. Be grateful.

Oh the loveliness of the everyday extraordinary.

Years ago, when I first started scrapbooking, it became quickly obvious to me that what I loved the most was preserving the tiny, ordinary moments of our lives. I liked holidays and birthdays just as much as the next person but I also didn’t forget those ever. I did forget the fleeting moments of ordinary life. The particular phrasing my kids used when they were little. The way David said destruction instead of construction or the funny crawl Nathaniel had before he walked were all moments that would have come and gone if I didn’t take the time to somehow capture them.

The taking of the photo and writing down the words allowed me to etch these moments deeper into my memory. I feel like life, especially my life, passes by so quickly, so fully, that it’s easy to miss these magical ordinary moments.

And, by definition, today’s ordinary moments are so different from tomorrow’s because life’s constantly changing and along with it, our definition of ordinary changes. This is the same reason I do a week in the life or other similar projects that capture the ordinary. It’s one of the reasons I chose this word this year. To remember to choose these little moments. To remember to choose to create opportunities for these moments. To spend more time together being in the ordinariness of everyday life so that these moments are more likely to happen.

I am so grateful for my ordinary life. I am deeply grateful to get to spend moments with my amazing husband, my wonderful kids, my growing array of friends and my one and only family. So here’s to choosing the everyday. Here’s to not taking those precious “ordinary moments” for granted. Ever.

Here’s to the extraordinariness of ordinary life!

Choosing Means is a Monthly Project for May 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.

Today’s card says: Choose to create moments with people you love. Life’s moments are slipping away and the people you love are growing up or growing old. You will miss these moments so very dearly.

Oh near and dear to my heart. I think I definitely do this in small ways. I try to make sure I am there for my kids’ life events. I spend a lot of time with them. Less so with my husband and even less so with my parents, etc. But I try.

The part of this that resonates with me is that I am doing this even less so with big things. I am not good at taking vacation. I often worry too much about the expense or the timing for work. I worry about my body during the summer. I worry about planning and I worry about traveling logistics. So much unnecessary worrying gets in the way of creating more memories.

This is not to say that I need to travel far and widely to create memories, it’s just that I am less good at this particular type of memory creation. So it’s important to me to do better here. What are the choices I can make to make this less painful? What choices help me make sure I do these vacations more? What choices are getting in my way? What new choices can I make to get out of this mindset and/or work around it?

I want to choose to create both big and small memories. I want to look back on my life and have moments to smile about with my kids, my husband, my parents, my sister, my nephews, my friends. All of it.

While I love my job and find it intellectually stimulating and challenging, I am definitely one of those people who work to live. I don’t want to live for work. I want more in my life. I want to focus on my family, my loved ones, I want to spend time doing art, reading, etc. So to ensure that I make those moments in my life, I need to choose them. I need to make them easier for myself.

First step, see if I can make a plan for this coming weekend! 🙂

Choosing Means is a Monthly Project for May 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.

Today’s card says: The only way people know what you stand for is by the choices you make. If you say one thing but choose to do another, which one do you really stand for? Have your actions in line with who you are.

Ah what we believe in and what we do. It’s so easy to say things but so very hard to actually do them. At least certain things.

I find that for many of us there are life’s willpower-related convictions, do I eat this, do i exercise, do i read more, sleep more, etc. These are just to make us better versions of ourselves and people we strive to be but they are choices you make all day long and require your willpower along the way.

Then there are those fundamental things that we “say” or “believe in” but don’t do. This is what this card is here to remind me. That what I say or think in my head is irrelevant and what matters is what I do. Out here in the world, the actions make the biggest difference. How I choose to behave, what I choose to do, who I choose to be ends up being who I am.

There are certain areas of my life where I really feel like I am very aligned with my values and my actions reflect my values. I choose what I say I care about. But then there are just as many where it’s just not the case. Sometimes it’s because I feel an unnecessary sense of urgency in some less-important areas. Other times it’s due to laziness or because choosing to do the right/better thing is really hard and requires energy I don’t have.

These are the things I want to remember. That if it takes energy, I need to save my energy for the things I value and not for whatever happens first. I need to remember that urgent and important are not the same thing. And I need to make my choices accordingly.

Like most things, if I don’t actively make the choice myself, it ends up being made for me. And not always in the direction I might have chosen. So I need to remember to choose.

Choosing Means is a Monthly Project for May 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.