My family took our first kids-in-tow international trip last month— and my targeted Amazon ads knew it.
I was getting ads for luggage adapters that morphed suitcases into scooters, snack packs that made a game out of popcorn storage… and the controlling perfectionist in me wanted them all.
I put together a digital cart of stuff and Vanna-Whited my husband through it. I thought he'd be impressed, but he surprised me.
“Do you really think we need that stuff?” he asked. “We can get it if you want… but I think we have enough.”
Luckily, he used the word “enough”—one of my 2023 keywords.
Because sometimes, I go all out when I want to control, manage, perfect—as an attempt to shield myself from things that might be messy, scary, vulnerable, or new.
I picked “enough” as a keyword this year because it reminds me that I don't have to over-prepare for everything; instead, I try to prepare enough (and then trust that I have enough skills and experience to navigate whatever else comes along).
- Dr. Sarah Glova, Co-Editor of 8&21, Mom of Newly Stamped Passports
Replacing “could” with “enough”
This week, I am giving myself a gold star for something I did NOT do.
As part of a grant that I received last year, I am required to present my work at an upcoming poster session at a conference. As I prepared my abstract for submission, I started thinking—instead of a poster, I could do an interactive workshop. Wouldn't that be better?!? My presentation could include lecture, self reflection, group work, drafting time. I could create handouts for each activity…
Without stopping to consider the substantial difference in the effort between preparing a poster and preparing a workshop, I excitedly started rearranging my abstract. I even opened up Google slides and began planning the flow of the presentation.
That is until I heard a little voice in my head saying: “Enough.”
Providing my best work in the less complicated and less time-consuming format of a poster is enough.
And by doing enough, I was making sure that I wasn’t overloading myself.
So, I wrote my poster abstract. Verified that I met the criteria. Submitted it. And I knew that what I did was enough.
- Dr. Sarah Egan Warren, Co-Editor of 8&21 and Life-Long Learner
Trusting“done”
“Finishing a record can be tricky for me. There’s always something that could be arranged better, or played better, or mixed better…
But at some point you just have to stop. Deadlines, whether label or self imposed, are good for that reason. In a vacuum I could see myself reworking a record forever. But then you really have to throw it out there; show it to people you trust and hear out their opinions about it.
At that point, you’ve heard the record one hundred thousand times and you’re not hearing it like a human anymore, you’re hearing it as an analyst, picking apart every aspect.
You have to step away and let it be what it is.”
- American musician Mikal Cronin, quoted in, "Enough is Enough: How do musicians know when an album is finished?" by El Hunt in DIY Mag
More isn't alwaysbetter
Sometimes “enough” or even less is all we need, since “more” too often equates to more stress, more problems, and more responsibilities in both life and business.
- Entrepreneur Paul Jarvis in his book Company of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business
Great job!
Way to take a pause and give 3 minutes to your practice of pursuing awesome
by exploring this issue's theme. You rock!
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