I have been told many times by different people I need to say “No” or eliminate things that I am doing. What and how do I do that? First off, it seems that the people who are saying this to me seem to be the ones who want me to do something for them or that I’m not doing a good enough job for them.

I have 6 children who are highly involved in school and extracurricular activities, go to school full time pursuing my degree in Computer Information Technology with a Visual Tech emphasis, and a busy husband. My mom and her husband live here and my 18-year-old brother-in-law is coming to live here for the summer to play baseball.

Sometimes the things that I should eliminate are the things that I really want to do, like watching an occasional tv show (which happens to be the only time I fold the laundry.) Eating treats. Facebook.

I would love to eliminate 15-20 pounds, especially around my waist.

So, what should I eliminate?

Cleaning. Some of that has already been eliminated and I don’t like the results.

Yard work. That has actually been eliminated and needs to be put back on the To Do list.

Church. This eliminates a lot of things. No getting ready for church on Sunday. No callings to keep me busy. No activities for the family to add to the schedule. The problem with eliminating this one is that it also eliminates many blessings that I just can’t live without.

Six Kids! I’m not sure which one to get rid of. I kinda like all of them. But each one has it’s times when I’m ready to sell them to the gypsies. Now each of them are involved in many things. We could limit those but which child do you tell that they cannot have their lifelong dream. The one who wants to be a singing, dancing dental hygienist on broadway or the one who aspires to be a professional basketball player and his backup plan is to be a professional baseball player and mom makes him play the piano to help him be well-rounded?

School. My kids need to go to school. I try to convince them that if the science fair is not required, don’t do it. But they still want to do it. I also feel strongly about getting my own education. I started out 4 years ago with one to two classes. I then got a scholarship which required that I go to school full time. I try to keep it easier by loading up on exercise classes for those extra credits so I can claim full time status. It keeps me healthier and makes me sore and tired. I have one more year left.

Things I have eliminated:
Commercials, I DVR the shows I want to watch and skip through the advertisements.
Friends. I have a few of them. Not that I want to eliminate friends. It just happens when I don’t have time to do anything with anyone.
Traveling to visit family. That one is just sad.
A clean house = Total grumpy mom.

Recently I was recommended to read the article “Good, Better, Best” by Dallin H. Oaks, http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/10/good-better-best?lang=eng. I have listened and read this multiple times. The first line stands out to me. “Most of us have more things expected of us than we can possibly do.” Who is expecting these things from us? Family? Community? Church? Ourselves?

As I was exercising in a spinning class, the instructor says, “99% of the time, we can do more than what we think we can.”

These two statements are different and somewhat conflicting. One is saying that we can do more but the other is saying it’s not possible. Maybe it lies in what other’s expect of us and what we expect of ourselves. Do we expect little of ourselves while trying to fulfill what we think others expect of us? Where are our limits?

So, how do we find the balance of what things we choose to do? I’m still working on the process of this.