Don't try to Make a Bad Thing Work

Rosie sleeping peacefully while I was on a call this morning.

A tree in South Park was felled by lightning during our crazy storm on Friday night.  I guess God read my blog post complaining about the lack of seasons in LA?

Jason has been very into "baby Osie" lately.  If she's not in his sight, he's asking where she is just to make sure she's OK.

I was stoked that my favorite Sesame Street parody came on the other day - Game of Thrones became a game of musical chairs with so many awesome GOT puns.

Rosie is starting to get out of the newborn "I look like an alien" phase.  You can't quite tell from this photo but she definitely has blue eyes like her siblings.

Rosie is 1 month old and I've been back to work for about 3 weeks now.  I'd like to say I'm in a rhythm, but it's still a bit touch and go.  Last week we forgot to take Lily to her piano lesson.  We weren't doing anything special or having a chaotic day; just plain forgot...  That kind of stuff just happens when you have a newborn.

I've never been very kind to myself but it's something I'm always working on.  Having kids has helped and something about this 3rd one has really helped.  I'm learning to give myself a pass on things by sheer necessity.  

It's also helped for me to keep a phrase in mind that I've always liked - "Don't try to make a bad thing work."  I've used this for years as a barometer for personal decision-making and now I'm trying it for work too. 

If Rosie is fussing and I need to feed her and I've got a call scheduled, I've started postponing the call rather than try to do everything at once. I hate appearing flaky but I think that's better than stressing myself out by trying to make a bad thing work.

As a result, work has been much less stressful for me after Rose's birth than before.  I'm not really taking on less per se, but I'm taking things on a more realistic timeframe.  For months I worked almost every night rather than tell a client that it might take me a few more days to get to something. I've learned the power of "Yes, but..."  I still have that fear that all of my clients are going to disappear on the same day (I think everyone who is self-employed probably has that fear) but whenever I have that thought, I remind myself that I built a business from nothing once and I can do it again (but I really don't want to, so clients please don't all dump me on the same day!).

Career wise, I've also separately started thinking about making a career change in the next few years (something in the professional organization space).  I'm still thinking everything over so I don't want to share thoughts yet, but I am interested to hear if any of you have made a mid-life career change and whether it's something you recommend or not.