Gemma If you haven’t completed Part 1 and Part 2 you will need to go back and complete them first. This will help you understand what’s on your plate and what you want your future family meal times to looks like.
In part 1 we made an extensive spider diagram of all the moving parts in your life. You can still go back and add to that. In part 2 we visualised the future, what it looks like, feels like and the benefits it brings.
This next part of getting unstuck in the kitchen is about determining what is getting in the way of progress. If you’re noticing a lack of alignment between how you want to live and how you are spending your time it can help to bring clarity. From there we can focus on the small, sustainable changes that will move us toward our goals.
Priorities in conflict with our responsibilities
The spider diagram from part 1 should be a fairly accurate representation of all the things you have on your plate. Some of those things are going to be in conflict with you goals and some of these things are going to align with your goals. It is important to say that we are not looking to remove everything that conflicts… that’s likely not sustainable. We are looking to understand how things align and conflict.
For example if your dream is to have more time in the kitchen cooking homemade food but you work full time the solution isn’t to quit your job. This process helps you to see the three way connections between: your reality, your priorities and your dreams.
Step 3:
Take a fresh piece of paper and create a table. You will need four columns.
The first column is: activity,
The second is: goal
The third is: priority
The forth is: feelings
You are going to populate the activity column with all the activities on your spider diagram. Add a new row for each activity. Everything from your most basic life tasks to your biggest priorities.
When this column is complete you will work through an activity at a time asking yourself:
Does this activity align or conflict with my goals for the future. You will use a tick to represent align and a cross to represent conflict.
Then you will ask does this activity align or conflict with my top priorities. Using the tick and cross in the same way as above.
And finally you will give this activity a feelings score:
0 = this activity makes me feel miserable 10 = this activity makes me feel alive.
The bigger picture
Once you have worked through all the activities from your spider diagram you will start to see where there is alignment and where there is conflict. What you choose to do with this will be unique to you and your personal circumstances.
Listening into our own needs, dreams, goals and priorities is often overlooked for more short term strategies like: how to meal plan, how to batch cook, why you should freeze all your meals for a month or the benefits of weekly online shopping. These are all great and worthy subjects to google. If you ask me though, they aren’t going to solve a problem on their own. These tools are just that, tools to help you get to where you want to be. First you have to spend sometime thinking meaningfully about where you are now, where you want to be and why.
If you have been through this process and you want to reach out for a chat please drop me a message gemma@familyfeed.co.uk
