[INTERVIEWER]: “Jen, you’re a wife, a mom, a friend, a daughter, a leader, a writer, a speaker, a CEO. Can you share with the audience: ‘How do you DO IT ALL?”

[ME]: “I don’t. Not at all once.”

I’m not sure that was the answer this gifted businesswoman was looking for as she questioned me on the professional panel. But it’s the truth. The truth as I have learned and grown over the past decade. Before then I might have given you some eloquent answer with a ton of tips and happy “how to’s” of handling it all so you could achieve it all and wrap that up with a pretty bow on top. But life and success mixed with more failure and time has taught me otherwise. You can have it, just not all of it and certainly not all at once.

This past week my sixteen-year-old daughter met with her school advisor and academic counselor to set up her courses for Junior year. She is a multi-passionate girl with a lot of gifts and a vision for where her academic and leadership achievements might land her in two years from now in college. Upon selection of classes, it became very clear that the ability to continue in advanced dance, be an executive in the student council, and enroll in the college courses she desired was simply not possible based on the times, days, and locations of this schedule. After both her dad and I, her advisor, dance teacher, and another teacher from a different grade level double-checked to do everything within reason to make it all happen—something had to give. She could do it all. She has even had it all. Just not all at once. This led us to a conversation about seasons, priorities, and what serves us best right now for the desired outcomes we have in the bigger picture.

Hard as we try, we cannot fit a square peg in a round hole. Often when we are pedal to the metal in every area of our life, trying to jam it all in, we end up in a crash and burn. Then nothing is accomplished. Perhaps we can do more by taking a look at where we want to go and then evaluating what’s in our hands and working and what will get us to what’s next, while letting go of what might not be for now.

For me, it has been helpful to take it a season at a time. It’s summer. And the truth is my kids take a bigger section of my schedule than what is typical. I do run a large business from the same space my kids are constantly occupying. So, what’s the long-term goal and what’s the season my business and my babies are in? (They aren’t babies, they are teens, but for the sake of the alliteration—go with me.) As I have grown older alongside of them, I learn how fragile and brief life and work is. And so, it is my goal to show up present and savor the goodness of them both.