Life-Building vs. Life-Sustaining Activities
LIfe-Sustaining Activity: necessary, valuable activities that support life. My general view is that Life-Sustaining Activities should be minimized in one’s life. I believe that Life-Sustaining Activities should fit around our lives. I do not believe Life-Building Activities should fit around Life-Sustaining Activities. Examples of Life-Sustaining Activities include Cooking, Cleaning, Laundry, Organizing, Schedules, Shopping, Finances.
Life-Building Activities: an activity that supports your larger purposes in life. I believe this should be the focus of our lives. Examples of Life-Building activities are activities that support Relationships, Learning, Growth, Creating, Discovery, Adventure, Rest and Fun.
I think it’s easy to let the Life-Sustaining Activities crowd out the life-building activities if we aren’t intentional about it. Life-Sustaining Activities are like a gas; they expand to whatever space you give them in your life.
This is why I’m trying to fit the Life-Sustaining parts of my life around Life-Building. If we build our lives and our schedules solely around Life-Sustaining, you will find you don’t have time and energy for Life-Building.
Have you ever heard of the analogy of the big rocks and the sand in a glass jar? If you fill up the jar with sand and then try to put the big rocks in, they won’t fit. But if you put the big rocks in first, then pour in the sand, it all fits. The point of the story is: if you prioritize the big things, you’ll have room for the little things.
This can be analogous to the way we think about our lives. The rocks being the Life-Building Activities and the sand being the Life-Sustaining Activities.
So far I’ve been talking in terms of analogies. What are some concrete ways that I try to do this in my life?
Put structure around life-building activities: I want to play my violin more because it is something that I’m passionate about and I love the challenge of progressing technically and artistically. It is very good for my mental and emotional health. It is a part of me. So, I joined a local university orchestra that allows community members to audition to be a part of the symphony. We practice every week and play 4 concerts of demanding repertoire each season (September through May). To keep me playing in the summer months I formed a quartet with 3 other musicians and we get together every few weeks to play. I also have a teacher and schedule a lesson every few months. External accountability is great structure for me and most humans. I also love the social aspect of it. I get to know and spend time with my quartet friends regularly and I even recruited one of my friends to audition so now we see each other regularly during the school year. Other examples include: exercising with friends. Having a standing dinner group rotation.
Plan for it. Schedule protected time to do things. I plan in weeks and months and that helps me to make sure I’m getting enough quality time with my family members and friendships I want to keep up.
RESET Life-Sustaining Activities. Maybe you actually just have too much life-sustaining activities on your plate. Maybe the sand really won’t fit because you just have so much of it. My RESET model, along with my proven process, helps people figure out how to spend less time and energy on life-sustaining activities. This is what I LOVE to do! I think it’s worth your time and energy to critically consider your current processes and find solutions that will make life-sustaining more manageable for you. Check out one of my workbooks, come to a workshop or book a call with me to get started!
Separating time-sensitive from not time-sensitive life-sustaining activities. Doing the laundry is a great example here. Most people would agree that running out of clean underwear or clothes in general would be pretty disruptive to your life. So actually cleaning the clothes is more time-sensitive than folding and putting away the clothes. You can live out of a laundry basket and it’s very annoying and not very efficient to rummage around for what you need but is it as disruptive as not having clean clothes? No it is not. So knowing what you can push when you need to to make time and space for life-building can be helpful.
