Caroline's blog: Thriving or surviving?

So – the Advent countdown is well underway, with lots of school activities keeping us busy – practising lines for the Reception Nativity and the Infant Choir concert, and raiding the craft cupboard to make a stocking and a Christmas-themed badge for various school festivities.  These all seem to have passed off well, but seeing my pale little princess in her concert - stricken by a cold, semi-slumped against the wall, yet trying her best to keep singing - reminded me of the inevitable equation that plays out this time every year - that’s to say the direct correlation between how far we’ve got into term and the level of coughs, colds and general exhaustion. Looking at my tired little tots, they have definitely entered the twilight of the “surviving” rather than “thriving” zone.

The coughs and colds may be a sign of the season, but I’ve been thinking recently a bit more generally about signs as to how things are going. How can we tell if we are really thriving or merely surviving? For example, if you were to wander around our house at 7.41am on a school day, there would be very clear signs as to how that morning had gone – the distance my boy’s duvet lies from his bed shows how hard it’s been to rouse him from his superhero slumbers; the amount of unfinished cereal in my daughter’s breakfast bowl shows the extent to which she was still semi-comatose at the breakfast table; and a school blazer forgotten on the hall floor (or even an uneaten advent calendar chocolate) tells of the mayhem there has been to get all people and belongings out of the front door on time.

Our house might be a blatant illustration of struggling through the last few weeks of the winter term, but what about how to feel like I’m thriving rather than merely surviving in juggling my various commitments? I think that for me, at least, the answer lies in action and acceptance.

Firstly, in terms of action, it was quite easy to see how my own schedule had become the poor relation to the wealth of activities that the tots pack into their little lives, relegating much of my spare time to playing the role of their driver or event organiser. Realising this, I have re-joined the local gym and organised some personal training sessions. An hour focused purely on me felt initially like a novel luxury, but I’ve been able to feel the benefit of being pushed to my limits by someone who is more focused on my fitness goals than I am.

Secondly, I’ve resolved to be more accepting of the fact that it’s ok to drop a ball occasionally. Now, when I realise that we’ve forgotten or missed something, I try to react along the lines that we get things right about 80% of the time, so the current situation is not of catastrophic magnitude, but simply one of the other 20% of occasions. This has also made me try to be a bit kinder to myself and see the funny side of things a bit more easily – like the moment I discovered mid-morning that my son’s reading book, message book and snack pot were in my handbag; and the confusion when the signed and decorated stickers that I had sworn had been returned to school for the class Christmas cards made a magical appearance in the kitchen drawers.

It might not quite be time for New Year resolutions yet, but, especially at this particularly busy season, I’m making a daily resolution to make sure I build in a bit of time for myself each day, and not beat myself up when I drop a ball – which all of us trainee jugglers will inevitably do from time to time.

Caroline is the proud mum of a 7 year old Disney Princess and a 5 year old Superhero. She is also a senior associate in the pensions team at a magic circle law firm where she tries to balances work and family life by mixing office and home-based working for four days over five days each week.