261. More Less How

Nora shares a practice she started with her family this year that has helped them support each other and connect to each other better.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

It’s still a New Year, and it will be until I stop writing 2023 at the top of my journal. I’ve already shared my opinions on the pressure to optimize and my theme for the year, but as I was cleaning up the living room the other day, I was reminded of the best part of New Year’s Eve 2023.

No, it wasn’t when I chased after a speeding car that tore past our kids, sprinting as fast as I could in ballet flats after months of what I call a sedentary phase (not a lifestyle!!!), only to catch them at a stoplight and find I didn’t even have the breath to give them a good talking to! 

Before we lit the fireworks and I engaged in a physically taxing and definitely stupid form of confrontation, I sat our family down, passed out clipboards, and asked them to quietly answer these three prompts:

• I want more:

• I want less:

• You can support me by:

The hushed sound of pens scratching at paper was interrupted only by our 7-year-old asking for spelling help, and when everyone was done, I asked who wanted to share.

These are simple things I had never made real, intentional space to talk about, and when the conversation was done, I felt like I knew the people I know best in a new and truer light…myself included.

We only know what we know, and we’re only as helpful as the information we have. I want to keep that in mind when people miss my own expectations, and when I fail to meet others’. 

I find it easy to put myself and my relationships on a sort of emotional autopilot. I ask questions. I think I’m a good listener. But I heard things that night that I’d never heard before…simply because I’d never made this kind of space for the answer.

And the answers will change! Before the next New Year. Maybe before the next month. So I’m keeping these three thoughts at the front of my brain for as long as possible, a way of opening the doors between us and welcoming our unstated hopes and needs:

What do you want more of?

What do you want less of?

How can your people support you?