My blog last week was about potential. You may have something that you should just focus on and make it be more profitable and get its full impact and its full benefit before you start getting something else going. You can read the full blog HERE.

There's a big lesson that I've learned in the past few weeks. Sometimes, sadly, it does take an unfortunate event in order to learn lessons. About 10 days ago, my mother-in-law passed away. She had a beautiful life, and she passed peacefully. She was in top shape up until the last few weeks, so she did not really suffer long, which is good. Thankfully, we got there on time. We were there with her until the end, holding her hand for her last two days...

As you know, when things like that happen, we tend to rethink our entire life, but first, before we even have time to think, we have to cancel everything. That's what happened. About two weeks ago, I looked at my schedule and I canceled everything. We had to drive to Kelowna, which is a four-hour drive, make arrangements to stay there, meet with the lawyer and the bank, start the arrangements for the funeral... There are so many things to do, and you have to do them all the while you have to try and process your emotions and let them out. There was lots of crying, lots of good memories, and lots of things that were not on my schedule.

But as I canceled everything, I realized: I think I'm taking myself way too seriously. Most of the things that I canceled were not important anyways. My schedule was full, I had meetings and appointments from 5:00 AM until 5:00 PM... And now, fast forward two weeks later, I haven't done anything. I've canceled all my clients - and I profusely apologize to all my clients who are watching this right now, if you got canceled, or if I did not respond to your email, or if you're one of the people that got pushed aside - but at the end of the day, they survived even if I was not there for two weeks.

And it got me thinking, really. All the things that are on my schedule, do they really need to happen? Am I taking myself way too seriously? Is it really that important that I meet with everyone that's on my calendar, or that I do everything that's on my to-do list? Most of them were able to wait and were just fine.

Very often, we feel the urgency to respond to emails, or the urgency to finish a project. Of course, there's a difference between having a fire in your belly and feeling like you want to complete a project because you're excited about doing it, and doing things just for doing things, thinking that they are important while maybe they're not.

As of today, I look very differently at my schedule, realizing, as I'm trying to catch up (because I've got tons of emails to respond to) that some of them have already been solved while I was not responding to them! For example, I got an email asking for something. And then, because I did not respond, somehow, they sent me another email saying: "Oh, never mind. I figured it out." And that was that. I was not necessarily needed in these instances.

Is there anything in your schedule that is not that important? Because when things like that happen, you realize what really is. And I'm not looking for pity here, I don't even need people to email me with their condolences. That's not what this is about. It's about realizing what's really important, what really matters. 

When we came back, yesterday, on Monday (it's Tuesday now, I'm writing this in advance), we got home at about 3:00 PM and my first instinct was to think: "Oh, good. I still have about two hours to work!" And my husband asked: "Do you want to go for a walk? I think I need some fresh air." I was in between my computer and my husband, and I swear, I felt like my computer was sending some vibes, telling me: "Pick me, pick me. You must want to work." And I looked at my computer and I thought: "You're going to have to wait another day.

I'm going to start working again on Tuesday morning, because right now, I will go for a walk with my husband who just lost his mom, and that's important. And I want to get some fresh air too."

It made me realize that a lot of the things that I do may not always be that important. I don't think I'm that important anymore. My work is not that important anymore. There are things that need to take priority, and family comes first.

I thought that maybe I would like to share this lesson that I learned with you, because there might be a few things on your calendar that may not be as important as spending some time with your kid, or going for a walk with your husband.

This lesson may or may not apply to your life. You may already only do important things. It was not my case. There was a lot of things that I canceled that are not coming back on my schedule because really, it's not important that I do them. Hopefully, a few light bulbs have popped up in your brain from this testimonial. I've learned a big lesson myself, and hopefully it can be useful to you.

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Check out some of my previous blog posts...