This week for me, in the whirl of back-to-school for two children at two different schools, my life seemed to be filled with endless little rocks:  piles of laundry, gifts for last-minute parties, orthodontist appointments and other drudgery.  In the past, I made the mistake of thinking that the goal was to take care of all those endless little things, and only when they were finished attend to the big things that matter, like getting in shape, building my business, and singing.  So many of us are perfectionists who feel somehow even now as adults that we are still being graded on how we live our lives.  We want to be good and do the right thing and respond to emails within the hour and be all things to all people.  But we’re tired.  And after a certain point, if we’re lucky, we realize that the little rocks don’t fill our spirits; they just crowd our to do lists.  It’s the big rocks that matter.

This week, if you had come by my house unannounced, you would have found laundry that was partly folded for days and kids digging through it to find their soccer uniforms.  You would have seen very strange meals of leftovers for a few nights since my husband and I had evening commitments and no time to cook.  You would have seen our kids eating way too much ice cream, not to mention the backlog of emails and the ongoing clutter in my office. But you also would have seen lots of snuggling with my kids, lots of talking and listening, time for walks, lots of laughter, and connecting with family and friends.  This week I noticed the leaves were turning into a brilliant red and delighted in a bright orange sunset, went on an evening flashlight walk with my son through the neighborhood, and spent extra time talking with my teenage daughter about life before I dropped her off at school each morning.

To find your world stage, identify what your big rocks are.  For me, it’s family and close friends, music and writing, coaching, travel, and spending time in nature. One great way to identify your big rocks is to make a list of what matters most and keep it where you can see it. In addition, watch out for your small rocks, because they will flatten you and steal your joy if you try to do them all.  Take time to enjoy nature as it enfolds each year, and take the time to really be there for your friend or spouse or child.  The less time we spend on our phones and on social media, and the more time we cultivate our inner spirits, the better.  Once we start focusing on our big rocks, we give permission for the people around us to do the same.

Henry David Thoreau, even in the 1840’s, felt that he needed to simplify and get away from the hustle of Concord so that he could think and write. It did help that Thoreau did not have to do a lot of chores, since he regularly walked into town for dinner and conversation with friends (he was not in fact a hermit) and that his mother did his laundry!  (One way to simplify definitely is to delegate chores to others if possible.)  But he realized how important it is to slow down, spend more time in nature, and have time to reflect on one’s life: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

How many of us are so scheduled that we are doing a lot but not really living?  The fact is that our in boxes will still be full someday when we die.  Do you really want people to remember you for how much you jammed into a day? All of us want meaning in our lives and yet, in the day-to-day hustle, it’s easy to forget.

In order to clear the path to your ideal life, one important step is to build in time for silence and reflection, even if it’s just a few minutes per day.  Make time to be outside, to play with your kids, to do something creative.  These are the moments you will remember, not plowing through your to do list.  Every day, ask yourself, “What can I let go of?  What doesn’t really matter to me?” Doing this clears a path to what does matter.