I’m going to try to focus my writing here around topics related to coaching, themes and issues that I see play out in my work, that I want to link to things I see out there happening in life. Today’s topic - what do tomato plants have to do with work/life balance? I’ll tell you – it’s about trimming the suckers!
For the first time ever, I’m growing tomato plants. A friend who is a gardener took care of the early stages of the plants and then gave me 4 little tomato toddlers to grow. It’s been fun to look after them, water and feed them, make sure they’ve got what they need to thrive. I’ve had to take a few trips to the garden centre for different size stakes but generally they’ve just been doing their thing, growing in the heat we’ve been having in the UK.
I’ve eaten a few ripe tomatoes off the plant which has been incredibly satisfying, and it still is this magical surprise to look at the plant and see that there continue to be new tomatoes bursting forth into life, almost every day.
One thing that I didn’t do, however, was to pay attention to the suckers. Tomato plants grow in a pretty unbridled way, continuing to produce new shoots, known as “suckers”. While there’s nothing inherently good or bad about suckers, one of the downsides is that they can take energy away from the tomato fruits in order to keep growing more shoots. Energy is then redirected away from the tomatoes and instead goes to producing more. Many gardeners trim the suckers so that the process is more focused and efficient.
What feels so relatable here is that as people we don’t have energy to do everything. For some portion of my life, I resisted believing that was true. Instead, I ran myself into the ground by trying to be and do everything – an employee, a manager, a wife, a mother, a friend, a volunteer. Suckers were everywhere, and I wasn’t clear enough about my boundaries or accepting of my own limits in terms of time and energy. The result was that I was perpetually exhausted, feeling like I was on a treadmill but one where the speed was turned up way too high for me to cope. My own blend of this was around perfectionism – feeling that everything I did had to be 100% in order to be good enough; people pleasing – putting other people’s needs in front of my own in order to feel acceptance and approval; and seeing the bright side of everything without seeing the downsides – an unintended negative by-product of having a natural optimism and a glass-half-full spirit.
At some point, I had to ask myself, what’s important here? Where are there things sucking my time that really don’t matter? Some of these questions helped me get an overall better balance where I’m more aware of my energy and my needs around rest and not being constantly on the go. Being more able to say no to requests of my time without feeling guilty. Resisting the urge to volunteer when I’m not clear where I’d find the time to fit that activity in.
My invitation for you is to get curious and consider where you have suckers in your life. Maybe it’s always saying yes to volunteer projects at work, that take a lot of time but don’t provide enjoyment or reward. Maybe it’s recognising that you’re doing activities that you used to once look forward to, and that now you dread.
What could you trim so that you’re focused on the best and most meaningful use of your energy?
How can you water and nourish the parts of you that you want to flourish and thrive?
What might life be like without the suckers?
