slowing down...

I've come to the conclusion that I need to slow down. I mean slow down with everything in my life. I recently went to a session here at Corning Inc. called Strengthsfinder. It is based on a book and it is something I think everyone needs to do! Anyways, from this, I was able to take a quiz that tells me my top five strengths out of 34 themes that were identified over 30 years of research. My top "strength" is Displine!! This scared me at first! When I hear displine I think back to when teachers used to be able to hit kids with ruler when they were being bad in school! That is not something I want to be like. Then I read the description in the book on what it means and here is what I got.

"Your world needs to be predictable. It needs to be ordered and planned. So you instinctively impose structure on your world. You set up routines. You focus on timelines and deadlines. "

Ok so this pretty much sums up my life and is me to a tee. I can except that I am a planner and this is what I do best but sometimes it is really hard for other people to get that...especially the bf. I understand that sometimes it might feel like I'm suffocating others with my planning! I've decided that since this is one of my top strengths, I need to use it but not abuse it! I need to slow down! I am so busy planning all of the time I don't think I really take the time to enjoy life and what is going on in my life at that time. I really, really want to try and do this but I need some help understanding how. These are some of the questions that come to my mind.

How do people get things done if they don't plan?

Take this weekend for example. This is one of the first free weekends in awhile that I don't have a lot of things on my schedule. However, my to do list is constantly expanding. I look at it as though I have two options. A) I can take the weekend to relax and not worry about anything and then have to bust my butt all next week to get things done or B) I can bust my butt this weekend with hopes of relaxing later but knowing that later there will always be more to do! So which is the better way to do it? I really need to find a middle between being a crazy planner and always on the go go go and someone who just doesn't worry but doesn't always get things done.

If I don't plan something or worry about it, who will?

I feel like sometimes I have to be the one to take charge if I want to get anything done. I feel exactly like Holly in P.S. I Love You in the beginning of the movie where she is complaining how she would much rather be the funny irish guy instead of the one always worrying and planning! (I just watched that movie last night with a bottle of wine.....SO GOOD!)

I really, really want to work on slowing down and enjoying the life I'm in now instead of always looking to the future. Now if only I could figure out how to do that!