Defining sustainability

Tiffany: I'm your host, Tiffany Sauder, and this is scared, confident. So the subtext around this living a life of ant is how do you passionately pursue? And then like in parentheses a sustainable back to the sentence life event. And we have a little bit of a, like, um, maybe like internal fight around this, on this like production team for scare confident about whether or not the word sustainable fits.

Cause it's not a very cool. Actually not very cool at all, but I'm really passionate about this word sustainable, because that is the goal of my life is to get to a place where the things I've committed to. I can do it sustainably that it is not dislike rev up, rev down, rev up rev down like just power through and the next week will be better.

That's a Mirage that we're all chasing. I think we want to get to a place where our lives are sustainable. Not only for ourselves, I'm yelling, it's like I'm scolding everybody. Sorry, not only for ourselves, but for the people who are like, have to live around us that sustainable, that you can deliver on the relationships you can deliver on the expectations you can deliver on the commitments that you've made.

Like most of the time. And I think a lot of times we get to the spot where we like, say yes, all this, and it's just unsustained. And then everything collapses, you get mad, you cry. And then like in your head, you quit everything that you've ever committed to in all of your life. And you went to go live in a tiny hole by yourself for a year.

I know this because I've been there before. So living a life of ant is about also saying, how do I structure the systems around me so that it can be done in a sustainable way that the things happen all the time. So we're going to be unpacking that together. But before I just start launching into like all these things, I wanted to take a minute and define what I mean by sustainable.

It means that the commitments, the people, the expectations, the relationships that are depending on you are serviced most of the time and that you're not so overextended that you become, it's like, you know, like that playing that gopher game of like whoever's screaming, the loudest gets you, but you're not able to actually maintain and sustain.

The things you've committed to. So I got this question like about a week and a half ago for somebody where they said, Hey, it really seems like you pull a lot off and like you're happy most of the time. How do you do it on the weeks where everything stops? What does it look like in your life on those weeks?

If you could give us a glimpse in how do you prioritize? And my response was this to keep my life sustainable, even on the weeks where it's kind of a shit show, I have found when I prioritize the people, the things will catch up over time. So what do I mean by that? That means things like there are seasons where our house is very cluttered.

It is not my preference. I hate it when their stuff on every loving surface in our house, but there are seasons where that is how it has to be, because there's a lot of travel. There's a lot of coming and going. There's maybe some transition that's happening. And so the things just have to be kind of chaotic for me to have the energy, to put into the relationships.

So what does that mean? That means I have time, like I said, After dinner for like 20 minutes and listen to all the stories that need to be told to me, what I actually want to be doing is like a busy body cleaning up barking orders, like a monster in getting the place cleaned up. But I've learned that doesn't serve the relationship with the girls very well when I don't sit and listen to them, or this morning is a great example.

The kitchen. With sicky, Ivy needed to do some reading. And so we just put her book on the counter and for 10 minutes she read and we talked about how good she's doing it, her reading and how she's starting to read faster. And like some of the words like her sight words, she's really sick. And I like to sat with her.

On the stickiness and we read her book. I really want it to be wiping down the counter while she was reading because of the, my kitchen counter would be cleaned. But I knew the right thing to do was to sit by her, give her my attention, use her little pencil pointer if you've done that and like point to each little crazy word and just give her my time for a minute this morning, it can be easy.

I think in high-performance households to just be like sucked into the tasks of existing. And I have found for whatever reason, having a fourth kid sorta just pushed it over the edge of babies and toddlers are super messy. Everything is never in its place. And there's a perpetual conveyor belt of things that need to be put away.

But when I sit in that space, I don't actually experience my kids. And so on weeks when Jared's traveling or it's kind of crazy, I have learned to kind of let this stuff go. And really cleaned to the relationships because there will be a Saturday where there's not a lot going on and we'll get caught up and the house will look just the way that I love it and it will catch up.

But the relationship part cannot be postponed is the most important thing that we're doing in our houses, in our home. And our businesses and all of it. And so let's make sure that we're not living in tidy spaces, but our relationships are messy. My mission for scare confident is to help women confidently pursue a life of ant.

And I want to be available to you. I'm passionate about vulnerably, stepping into my stories so that it can help women. This is about creating. I wish I had as I was going through this journey. So if you have questions, comments, or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. Text me at 3 1 7 3 5 0 8 9 2 1.

‍