is it time to get off the sidelines?

In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can’t be done, then they see it can be done – then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.
– The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I am not athletic. I managed to crawl to the end of the yearly mile run in high school. I survived PE even though it wrecked my GPA. But now I’m a soccer mom, and this is our first year as a sports family. Trainings are an hour-and-a-half, once a week in the evening. Games are every Saturday morning.

For someone who doesn’t play sports, you would think I would be happily watching from the sidelines, taking photos, maybe sipping a coffee. You would be wrong. It turns out I’m a yeller. I was screaming out instructions one game early in the season, and the coach turned around and looked at me (out of curiosity, probably interested in hiring me as assistant coach). Most of us parents like to yell, “Spread out” and “Runnnn,” and other encouraging words like, “GET IN FRONT OF THE GOAL!”

Different kids become good at different things, and you start to see those who have a knack for dribbling the ball away from defenders, who can strike well and who are the fearless goalies. I can hear us shouting our ideas and sighing when another kid fails to pass to our son, WHO WAS WIDE OPEN.

Sitting on the sidelines of a game, with the full field in view, it’s easy to think you know what’s going on. Honestly, you would think I’ve played soccer my whole life if you listened to me. I am that good. At commentating.

But watching a game and playing a game are not the same.

For all of my strategic soccer input, my eight and six-year-olds run circles around me on the field. Let’s say I’m the goalie and I block his ball with my foot. I moan in pain and hop up and down holding my ankle. They get the ball off me within seconds. Even when I try my best, it’s not enough. My oldest groaned last week and told me I was a terrible player, and that I should go back to Pilates class (rude).

When you play, you have to trust your body, your teammates, your instincts. It is impossible to get it right every time because of what is not in your control. Commentators (real or the parental kind) have a full view of the field and use their “energy” to talk. We get up and walk away at the end of game.

I feel this in my own life. How easy it is to type a Facebook status criticizing a recent political decision. There are plenty of policies that should be criticized, but for those of us interested in change, we need ideas and actions, and we need actions that are consistent over time. It’s easy, too, to feel entitled to church being a certain way instead of thinking about what goes into the service and the work involved in providing it. We like to stand around and talk how school would be different if someone else were in charge, perhaps even if we were in charge.

There are people historically whom we relied on to give us critiques we trust. I think of opinion writers in newspapers, researchers and academics. These people are an essential part of a functioning community. But perhaps as our methods of communication have been democratized, we feel like those experts now. We believe that our opinions are valid (and they are), but we also believe that our opinions deserve a listening, influenceable audience.

I wonder though if of our commentating masks our own fears of creating new things. I wonder if people today are more afraid of trying new ventures because they are aware of how easy it is to be criticized publicly. You can see the Twitter vitriol aimed at an article you would write. You can see the negative reviews of a restaurant you want to start. You wonder if your photography or art will disappear into the curated walls of Instagram.

What do I do at every soccer match I attend? I wear a jacket, maybe gloves. I stand in my boots on the sidelines for about 50 minutes total. I chat with my husband and sometimes other parents. And I do some (appropriate) screaming.

What does this group of 8-year-olds do? They run, unrelentingly up and down a field. They push and shove against kids. They learn to trust each other. They know their pride is on the line at every game. They score goals, they dodge opponents, they miss goals, they fall down and cry. They do this in the sun, in the freezing rain and in the mud. They walk away exhausted and sore.

What do I have to show after a season of soccer sideline commentating? A truly solid understanding of the game that is going to get me absolutely nowhere unless the suburbs of Melbourne need a radio commentator for children’s matches. I get nothing for sitting on the sidelines.

But my son? He gets better at soccer. He knows that how he plays impacts his team. He learned a thousand lessons about work, reward, gain and loss. Everything these kids gain or lose is because of their effort. Yes, they’ve had some heartbreak. But their every win? It belongs to them. It is their glory. It is their great joy. Because they played. Because they tried.

Sports was never going to be in my future, but I often feel like I sit on the sidelines of my life, pondering my next move. Sometimes the best way to know I need to make my move is that I fill my time criticizing others. People who are in motion, in action become easy targets for my negativity. Maybe you are, too? Why don’t we channel our ideas and energy into work? What if we looked at what we need to try to build?

There is always a consequence to putting a hand up. It doesn’t matter if it’s to take a meal to a neighbor or entering a songwriting competition or volunteering for a school committee or starting a podcast. If you get on the field, there will be people on the sidelines yelling their opinions at you. Maybe the more tender we are to the idea of our work being visible, the more necessary the work could be. I’m not saying we should rush forward and do it. Good ideas need time, resources and trust to take root.

The question isn’t will there be criticism or not.

The question is how badly do you want to play the game. When it’s time to play, will we be on the field?

Will you show up for training?

Will you do the work?

Will you honor your teammates?

Will you try again after a loss?

Will you play to win?

Hi, I’m Devi, and I’m so glad you read this post today. I write about family and faith and every now and then, food. I post stories and images almost daily on Instagram – I’d love to get to know you better and chat, so say hi in the comments or send me a message.
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the one thing your child needs

sunset, mum and son, travel, Philippines

It comes like this – a student academic report, downloadable from the parent portal at our school, and I can feel it. The clench of anxiety. I’ve done the school mum thing for two-and-a-half years, the fear lessens every year, but I’ll never forget the first semester. What will it say? What will the grades be? Then arguing with myself, he’s a tiny child, who cares what this says. But it is a hard fight.

A midwife pulls a baby out of you, and the first thing they do is give your child an Apgar score, these are points, like the baby is seconds old and already they can win or lose. Within the first hour of their lives, the babies are measured again. Their weight, length and head circumference go into a book. It becomes a baseline for their first few years. And for the vast majority of us, the numbers will be fine. Normal, the doctor will declare at every wellness check, and you, Mom and Dad, you will breathe out the air you did not know you held. Relief upon relief because at every appointment you’re wanting to know the answer to the question you ask daily: Is my baby going to be ok?

Month after month, year after year, our children are eyed up and down by medical professionals. Soon they attend kindergarten where the measurements change. Social skills, verbal ability, fine motor skills. Can he hop? Can she stack blocks? There will be playdates and Christmas dinners where your in-laws and friends will observe them and remark about so-and-so’s child who does it differently. School comes swiftly and now it’s about their ability to read and add and subtract and sit still and pay attention.

It’s time to open the file with their academic report. Your kid just finished half a year of prep or grade 1 or kindergarten. One report down, 23 more to go, each one more important than the next. It is an unrelenting snowball of measuring sticks. You’re not converting from the imperial system to metric. No, you are negotiating the numbers and letters used to define your child.

Because everything in you wants your child to measure up. Upward toward glorious destinies. No culture in the world celebrates children achieving less than their parents. Western, Eastern, Southern, Northern, you ask a parent anywhere. They want more for their kids. We want our kids to excel where we excelled. We want them to excel where we failed.

We don’t have much patience for failure. These days even mediocrity feels like a dirty word.  

And we are 2019 parents – we are better educated about what kids need and how they work. We’ve got our time-ins, choices, positive AND peaceful parenting. We have speech and occupational therapists who can correct deficiencies early. And when all of that fails, we have the Internet with its vast storehouse of folklore cum research. You could diagnose your child before you ever take him into a doctor’s office.

We are informed. We are motivated. Maybe we are also stressed? We hold in our hands a variety of rulers and thermostats. Ready to take the measurements. Ready to answer our most fragile of questions: Will this child be ok?

Because isn’t this our question behind every weight check and report card? Aren’t we just wanting someone else to tell us, In this big, bad, broken world, your precious child is going to be fine.

quotation about failure and mediocrity

Bad news, Mom and Dad. No one can tell you that.

You aren’t prepared for that teacher who only sees everything your son does wrong.

I promise somewhere there is a coach who does not believe your daughter is a future Olympic athlete.

No one is ready for that call from the principal’s office.

You don’t know when it is your turn to sit in a doctor’s office and receive the news that will tear your world to shreds.

Nothing can prepare us for the disappointments inherent in loving our children.

Here’s what we get to do instead.

When the world comes for us with its instruments and measurements, gently put them down.

Turn to your beloved child and bear witness.

Watch her struggle. Listen to his fears. Tell them they can do hard things. Do hard things with them. Pick them up and drive them home when they don’t.

Stand on the sidelines of their life and cheer.

Cheer for them when you see them triumph over the thorns in their flesh. Cheer for the things only you could see. Cheer when they get it right. Cheer when they get it wrong. You aren’t cheering because of their behavior. It’s your child, because it is him, it is her, they are yours, you get to cheer for them no matter what.

Ignore the sheet that tells you they need to be here or they have to get there. Train your mind, teach your heart to see just him. Just her. Just this child who is yours who will be measured everyday of their life by the rest of the world.

But not by you. No. There’s one place where they will know the measurements don’t exist. When they come home and they know it is all love.

Hi, I’m Devi, and I’m so glad you read this post today. I write about family and faith and every now and then, food. I post stories and images almost daily on Instagram – I’d love to get to know you better and chat, so say hi in the comments or send me a message.
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37 lessons for 37 years

I turned 37 a few months ago, and I wanted to collect a “few” lessons I’ve learned along the way. Here they are in no particular order.

Just because you have a high pain tolerance as a child doesn’t mean you’ll have one as an adult.

Having a named, agreed upon, signed-on-the-dotted-line best friend isn’t a long-term guaranteed friendship.

Years of trust, being there for each other, telling the truth, laughing together, cheering each other on, connecting points: these are the marks of a friendship that lasts.

You don’t have to have a group of friends. You just need one person who gets you.

The more underwear you have, the less laundry you have to do.

Read more. Read everything. Read outside your faith. Read outside your opinions. Read good books. Read bad ones. Read poems and prose, opinions and news, analysis and plays. Words build your life.

Stand in the sunshine, not just because you have a vitamin D deficiency but also because it’s nice to be warm.

You need hobbies. Start one and see where the fun leads you.

Truth comes in layers. There is no way to know it all, but you can hold each piece at a time. You can be captured by its beauty, you can turn it over in your hands, you can let it sink deep and transform you.

It takes time to discover the lifestyles that make you anxious and fearful. But when you discover what they are and the people who represent them in your life, start cutting anxiety triggers out.

Therapy is one of your keys to living well, but therapy only works if you will tell the truth. Whatever layer of truth that may be.

You cannot expect someone to simultaneously diagnose what’s wrong with you and tell you that everything is fine.

Perfectionism is not your friend.

Failure is your friend. But only if you can see it as an invitation to move forward.

Marriage is good. Marriage is hard. Let it be whatever it needs to be.

You judge in others what you are most afraid of in your own life. Instead of judging others, examine your own life.

Never judge another parent.

Judging others achieves nothing.

The only life you can change is yours.

Pray. About everything. At all times. It is the only thing you can do about matters outside of your control.

You get to say no. About anything you want. For absolutely no “good” reason.

Listen to your body, she is your friend, what she has to tell you is important.

Women who put you down are not your friend.

Say you’re sorry when you do something wrong or make a mistake. When you can, find ways to right your wrongs. This is true repentance.

Listen to your hunger. Explore your hunger. Find the deepest thing that you are hungry for and feed it.

You don’t have to stay in therapy with a therapist you don’t connect with or like. You don’t have to give reasons for not going.

Trust is hard. It is supposed to be hard.

Your kids will drive you crazy.

Watching your kids grow will be one of the greatest joys of your life.

Motherhood is a close negotiation between who you are and who your kids are.

Getting older is a treasure, with every year you glow brighter, rough edges rubbed off, you are becoming more beautiful, wiser, stronger, better.

Go back to your doctor. The point of a general practitioner is continuity of care. The more they see you, the better picture they get of your overall health. Don’t just go when something bad happens, go for a follow up. Take their instruction seriously. Take their advice. But also know when not to.

Instead of worrying, look for what you can do. Act or put it aside.

Practice discernment by practicing reflection. Pay attention to what works over time and what doesn’t work.

Say thank you every day.

When you see something beautiful, when you feel something lovely, hold it in your heart a little longer. There’s no need to rush past.

Life is a gift. Your life is a gift. So live.

Now it’s your turn: What lessons have you learned this year?

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girl, i washed my face

In November 2017 I started washing my face. Ok I had always possessed a bottle of Neutrogena cleanser and moisturizer, but I found out that there’s a difference between a retinoid and retinol, and I paid attention to words like hyaluronic acid and vitamin C, not the kind you chew.

I started small with a bottle of toner and a pack of round cotton pads, then I added serums and acids. After a few months, I realized I stuck to a routine in the morning and evening. There were many things I did not do – wake up early, go to bed early, clean the kitchen before sleep, reading before bed, and on and on – but  every morning before I left the house I washed my face, and before I went to sleep I did it all over again plus a retinoid.

There was this small voice inside of me saying, You did it, you stuck to a routine. (The voice did not sound like Rachel Hollis’ just in case you think this post is about her or her book – it is not.) That was almost a year-and-a-half ago, but it was the first domino. The first habit that started the rest of them.

I’m no habit guru, and this blog isn’t a productivity blog. But I think you are a person in a middle space of life, navigating transitions and tensions, looking for stories of hope. And that’s where this story about finding helpful routines fits in my own life and hopefully yours.

Would you think I’m crazy if I told you that my life has more clarity and discipline in it because I started washing my face?

Well, it does.

And I think it could for you, too. Your small change may not be washing your face – it could be a slight adjustment in what you drink or eat, it could be a shopping habit, practicing piano, an evening walk, new ability to focus because of the Deep Work Challenge, meal planning, not checking work emails at home. Perhaps it could be something equally small, an “insignificant” part of your daily life like washing your face, but small changes have profound impacts.

The easiest routines I’ve built into my life in the past year-and-a-half somehow all tagged on to the face washing.

A year after I started washing my face with new dedication, I went back to one of my neglected journals. I call it a prayer journal, a place where I put the week’s worries and doubts. I started writing a gratitude list next to my weekly list of anxieties, and I did it every night before I went to sleep (it’s a similar practice to the Daily Examen).  I washed my face, and whatever time I went to sleep at night, I pulled the journal out and made a list of what I was grateful for in the day. Soon I started going to bed earlier. Not because I thought I should but because I wanted to. In February I started turning my phone off at 8pm, changing into pyjamas, washing my face, reading a book in bed, and writing my gratitude list. Now I’m offline an hour before I go to bed, a practice I’ve desired for years.

I feel peaceful when I go to sleep, I feel well when I wake up in the morning. You may read this and think it sounds ridiculous, but we all get to set the boundaries around what our lives look like. What would it look like for you to spend your time with intention in the evenings and mornings?

Don’t waste your time wondering why your life isn’t the way you want it to be.  You get to decide what works for you – you get to set the boundaries around the final hours of your day so that you end up with an evening that will work for you and the people in your life. Yes, you may have to negotiate with a spouse, kids or friends, but please do it.

(My Deep Work tools, I set them out every night on the kitchen counter and use them first thing when I get up to write in the morning.)

I’m on day four of the 21-Day Deep Work Challenge now, and there’s one thing I needed to make this work: Basic routines. Have you been joining the challenge? How has it been for you?

Whenever we want to make a change in our life – however big or small – there are supporting actions around it that need to adjust or change as well. When I started washing my face, it was not just about buying a product to use. It was also about making the time at both ends of my day to wash my face. I had to get up a smidgen earlier to make school drop offs work and use vitamin c on my face. It was a tiny adjustment because I only added one piece at a time, but those tiny adjustments one at a time took me in a new direction.

Here are a few questions to think about as you go about making Deep Work a lifestyle for you:

Where does Deep Work fit in your daily life? 

What needs to get moved around to make Deep Work happen?

Who do you need to talk to about helping you make this happen? 

Where do you need to take on more responsibility to free your time for Deep Work?

Where do you need to let go of responsibilities to free your time for Deep Work?

What is your face washing habit (the small thing you can do daily that may become an anchor point for future habits)? 

Now it’s your turn: How’s your Deep Work practice going? Are you encountering resistance? What helpful routines could you add to your life to help you stick to your deep work plans or just life plans in general? 

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deep work tips and tricks

So you’re in. You want to try Deep Work out for yourself, March 11 is almost here, and now what? How do you get ready? How do you know you’ll be able to do this? This post is a practical one, full of ideas and tips. Read on, Deep Worker. We are only beginning this journey – treasures await.

What work should I pick?

Choose something you want to do. It’s going to be very, very hard to do something undistracted for 21 days if it is the kind of thing you don’t want to be doing anyway.

Choose something that has the possibility to create mental strain, meaning something that is slightly harder than what you’re used to. Here are a few examples:

Crafting (knitting, crocheting, sewing) – pick a pattern or a stitch you don’t already know or one that is slightly harder than what you’re already about to do

Practicing an instrument – pick pieces of music that’s at a higher level

Reading or Bible study – choose books (novels, poetry, non fiction, studies) that are harder for you to understand

Work-related projects – pick a complex one, maybe something that’s had you stumped for a while

Design – learn a harder software or technique, you know your ability, work to express your ideas in a better way from before

Art/painting/drawing – try a new technique for 21 days, pick a style you typically struggle with

Photography – find an area of it where you need to grow, do you need to get better at using light? Or a particular editing software? Do your compositions need work? Where do you need to grow as a photographer? Make your deep work pushing into that space.

Teaching – study a new teaching style, one you don’t already know. Develop a new set of lesson plans. Read in your area of study, but harder reading that what you normally do.

What is deliberate practice and why is it important?

In Deep Work one of the things Cal Newport says is, “to learn requires intense concentration…to master a cognitively demanding task requires this specific form of practice – there are few exceptions made for natural talent” (p34-35).

Newport also references the work of neuroscientists on page 36-37:

These scientists increasingly believe the answer includes myelin-a layer of fatty tissue that grows around neurons, acting like an insulator that allows the cells to fire faster and cleaner. To understand the role of myelin in improvement, keep in mind that skills, be they intellectual or physical, eventually reduce down to brain circuits. This new science of performance argues that you get better at a skill as you develop more myelin around the relevant neurons, allowing the corresponding circuit to fire more effortlessly and effectively. To be great at something is to be well myelinated.

By focusing intensely on a specific skill, you’re forcing the specific relevant circuit to fire, again and again, in isolation. This repetitive use of a specific circuit triggers cells called oligodendrocytes to begin wrapping layers of myelin around the neurons in the circuits-effectively cementing the skill. The reason, therefore why it’s important to focus intensely on the task at hand while avoiding distraction is because this ist he only way to isolate the relevant neural circuit enough to trigger useful myelination.

from “Deep Work“

You and I need deliberate practice in our life to master anything. Anything. This is how you learned how to ride a bike, this is how you learned how to write. Myelination. So wouldn’t it be great to get better at something we want to get better at?

How do I do this in a formal workplace? 

I’m assuming this means your Deep Work is related to your work (please don’t use work time to work on a personal project for this challenge).

Look at your schedule – where can you block out 30 minutes to an hour a day in the same place? Can you book a solo meeting room if you’re in an open plan office? Can you wake up earlier in the day and get to work before anyone else is there? Talk to your boss – explain that you want to try distraction-free work daily to see if it will impact your productivity. My guess is they will be all for it. Train yourself to keep work email, work chat or anything else that pings turned off while you do your work. And no Facebook.

Why do I need to achieve anything at all? I’m happy with my life. 

The 21 Day Deep Work Challenge is not about achievements. This is about training your mind to think without distractions, it is about changing our day-to-day operations from multi-tasking toward a deeper, focused way of living. For some of you, there could be a tangible achievement at the end of it – for me I’m hoping that this will lead to long-form writing that will one day be published. But you may spend the next 21 days reading daily – the achievement isn’t in how many books you read. It’s in the treasures you will find from reading without thinking about anything else, it will be the exercise of allowing your mind to engage with harder topics. Our brains are meant to be stretched past the point of mental strain. If we achieve something as a result, that’s great, but it’s more about giving our minds a chance to do what they were created to do.

But Devi, I’m already a deep worker. 

Good for you (and please leave comments about how you do it, we want to learn from you). But can you stretch your deep work time? Instead of 30 minutes, can you work with no distractions for one hour or two? Cal Newport says that more than four hours is a waste of brain space, so don’t push yourself past that. You can make this challenge whatever time limit would be a challenge for you – you do not have to stick to 30 minutes a day.

I’ve got small kids at home with me, I can’t do this. 

I wrote a post just for you – head over here to read about why Moms of littles should do this and how you can.

I can’t live without my phone. 

What are you worried about? Identify that and you’ll know how to proceed. I know that the kids’ school has my hubby’s contact information, so they will call him if they can’t reach me about one of our kids. They also have two other (trusted) emergency contacts. Try going without your phone for 30 minutes several days in a row, I promise, you will be ok.

How do I know I can discipline myself to do this? 

You don’t know, but the rewards of doing something you thought you couldn’t are enormous. For me distraction number one is my phone, so I’ve started leaving in the car when I come in to do my work. I go get it when I’m done or if I need it for something. I’ve learned to stop clicking to different browsers when I’m on my laptop. When I struggled to even do that, I close the laptop and write by hand. I’ve turned off the wifi in our house. I’ve gone somewhere with no wifi to work. You know what your distractions are – find ways to eliminate them slowly.

Your brain can learn new tricks, you can acquire new habits. You are stronger than you realize. You can do this.

Also, a quick reminder, this is 30 minutes. Allow yourself to be distracted the rest of the time. See which one you prefer (wink).

Can I do this for longer than 30 minutes? 

Absolutely. The recommended time is one hour to 90 minutes and no more than four hours.

Now it’s your turn: What other questions do you have? Please put them in the comments – I’d love to hear them. 

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