Have you seen that object lesson with a big glass jar filled with big rocks and sand?
Well, there is a big glass jar with big rocks inside and sand filling all the empty space.
Can you picture it?
I think the first time I saw this visual was in a church lesson and I will fess up to the fact that I’m not sure what it was trying to teach. I could make a pretty good case for it being about Jesus. But today, let’s pretend like it’s not.
One of my clients was telling me last week something that I would guess 99.8% of us can relate to. It was this: she doesn’t have enough time to get all the things in her life ‘done’.
We talked about what things weren’t getting done and maybe why they weren’t getting done, and then I told her about the jar of rocks and sand.
The rocks and sand all fit very nicely in that big pretty jar. But here’s the thing.
If you dump out the jar and then try to refill it by first putting in all the sand, the rocks won’t fit. Some of the rocks could fit on top of the sand but not all of them. The sand has taken too much of the space.
The rocks have to go in first.
The rocks. have. to. go. in. first.
Now, before you think you know where I’m going with this, stick with me.
The rocks are NOT, as some time management people will tell you, the things you “have” to do – the appointments and commitments and obligations in your life.
The rocks ARE – for you and for me and for my client – the non-negotiables. YOUR non-negotiables…. taking care of yourself and your dreams and the things that make you feel whole and like, well, YOU.
And that’s where we get it wrong.
As Tami Forman says, “If you are waiting for the requests for your time to let up so you can squeeze in the things that matter to you, you are going to be waiting a long time.”
We fill the jar with all the sand – and then the little and big minutiae of those bids for our time soon make up our days and our weeks and our months and our years. And the rocks, the things we really, REALLY want to believe and feel and understand and achieve about ourselves get left out of the jar completely because we don’t put them in first.
We think if we take care of ‘our’ things first, the other things won’t fit. We don’t know that it’s the other way around! The other things will fit better! That sand of every day duties and obligations will still fill the cracks and spaces and let those rocks have their place.
My client had three non-negotiables in her life that she was not fitting into her jar. This week, for the first time in a long time, she put those things first. And she still fit the other stuff in. Happily.
I can’t wait to see how you’re starting with the rocks. The sand will still fit. I promise.
