There are two types of momentous occasions: those that mark periods of your life with in-the-moment profound emotions like joy or sadness, and those that edge in obliquely, slowly, and whose momentousness is only recognizable in retrospect.

I had one of the latter this past spring.

After a whirlwind spring and summer (loss of a long-term, full-time contract; surgeries and hospital stays; full kitchen renos; spring and summer which-way-am-I-turning activities on the farm; and a difficult emotional development stage with my daughter), I had a visual epiphany:

My life pyramid was upside-down.

Things felt precarious, wobbly, off-balance.

My pyramid was top-heavy because some of my “priorities” were in the wrong spots.

But those priorities weren’t the biggest in terms of importance, meaning or positive impact. They were simply the biggest ones in terms of time blocks required in a day.

For example, that full-time contract took up most hours of the day (placing it squarely at the inflated top) – which would have been exciting or satisfying if it had been meaningful. Over the last few years, however, the work had gone from meaningful and impactful to redundant, unimpactful, and meaningless in the bigger picture of how it aligned with my personal or professional values and goals.

Structurally speaking, this type of building engineering is a disastrous idea.

When it comes to the structure of one’s life, this type of engineering is no less disastrous. It doesn’t take much to knock the wobbly pyramid flat.

I had to ask myself: why was this enormous block of non-aligning/pointless time placed at the top of my life pyramid while the people and projects I am most passionate about stacked up underneath in smaller and smaller pieces?

This upside-down pyramid prompted me to re-open my assessment and coping toolbox. Over the past decade, I have learned and developed several lessons and mechanisms for better balance – for right-siding my pyramid, if you will. They have been so transformative that I thought I would share them with you.

• First principles: First-principles thinking helps you break down a complex problem into its most basic elements so that you can identify the real issue and re-build its foundational components back up to a better version (solution). Or, as Shane Parrish puts it in his blog, “First-principles thinking is one of the best ways to reverse-engineer complicated problems and unleash creative possibility.” Taking something apart helps you see the mechanics of what makes it work – or not. Once you identify what doesn’t belong, or what should be there to make it work better, you can “cut through the fog of shoddy reasoning and inadequate analogies to see opportunities that others miss,” says Parrish. An interesting and entertaining read on this topic is Ozan Varol’s book Think Like a Rocket Scientist.

• What I have the power to control: There are many things in life that I can’t control. For example, people’s emotions or reactions to me, the future, or what’s happened in the past. What I can control are my reactions to a situation; how I choose to stay or walk away when I don’t like how I’m being treated; negative thoughts; weighing my options; and the choices I make based on the [best] information I have at the time.  

• Everything is figureoutable: This was the title of Marie Forleo’s hit 2019 book. The frontispiece includes this quote: “The power isn’t out there, it’s in you.” By training our brains to think more creatively and positively, especially in the face of setbacks, we can figure out a solution to a problem. Not always the best solution, maybe the only solution that’s available at that moment, but a solution, nonetheless. Like an Olympian, I’ve worked hard over the last several years to train my brain to pause, assess, analyze, and choose solutions to the best of my ability and/or information at that point in time.

• Do one thing different: Also the title of a book, published by Bill O’Hanlon in 1999, I’ve been repeating its simple mantra for years whenever I feel stuck. Einstein is attributed as saying “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” So, what happens if you remove or change one piece of a problem no matter how small? You get a different result. 

• Lean management: Originally intended as an approach to managing and organising work to improve the performance of a company, lean principles can be applied to individual work processes or to how you organize your life. Lean management approaches help define value from the standpoint of the end customer – you. These processes help you eliminate waste (time, expense, attention, etc.) and continuously improve all processes, purposes, and people.

• Practicing mindfulness: To me this means staying in the present, not ruminating on or reliving the past, especially things that went wrong, that I chose or did wrong, or that were out of my control. Until someone invents a time machine, there’s nothing I can do about the past and the wasted energy of anxiety and looped thoughts could be put to much better use. Take the lessons learned about how to do better in future and move on. (Easier said than done until you practice a lot and for a long while.) As for the future, I try not to worry about it too much outside of broadly planning events or career and personal goals (and even the best laid plans can quickly go awry 😉). Out of this list, this has been by far the hardest one to develop. In fact, because I find it so hard not to ruminate on the past and/or stress about the future over which I have almost no control, a few years ago I came up with my personal mantra “I am here”. Whenever I’m stuck in a decision or a problem, I say to myself, “Ok, I am here. I am literally here in this moment; this is my current reality. So, what can I do about it? Wat actions can I take?”

It takes committed effort and time to learn how to use the tools that have saved my sanity on more occasions than I can count.

I have learned to pause, breathe, recenter, reassess, reconsider, and then act.

I have learned to welcome an emotion, figure out if it can be useful and either leverage its power or banish it.

I have learned important resiliency skills. 

I’ve learned accepting versus confronting.

Mostly, I have learned to let go of moments-ago or moments-yet-to-arrive and figure out the best way to optimize and enjoy the moment right now.

I’ve flipped my life pyramid right-side up – and you can, too.