• Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact
  • Book
    • Email
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter

Brittany L. Bergman

Savoring motherhood, building marriage, and living simply

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

10 Personal Policies that Make My Life Simpler

Jan 23 Leave a Comment

Last spring I completed my third Whole 30, and while the first two I did felt super restrictive, this one actually felt freeing. So of course I wondered, Why is that?

Before this Whole 30, I hadn’t felt totally in control of my eating habits. I used to be a lot more disciplined about saying no to treats in the middle of the week and saving my indulgences for the weekends. For the past couple of years, though, I’ve struggled to walk by the break room at work without picking up a snack—even a snack I didn’t particularly care for—just because it was there. Sometimes I would try to hold out, debating in my head all the way to the bathroom and back whether to eat the brownie/cookie/muffin, and I’d usually end up eating it anyway.

But when I started doing Whole 30, I had a reason to say no; it was a policy I could not violate. Suddenly I didn’t have to waste any mental energy deciding whether to indulge or feeling guilty afterward. Because my options were limited, so was my decision fatigue (and my beating-myself-up fatigue).

I do this in other areas of my life too: I don’t hem and haw over whether to try to attend that event during Selah’s nap time. I just don’t do it. I also don’t think twice about how to use her Sunday nap times: I sit down, open my laptop, and write. (Actually, I usually grab coffee first.) I started defining these types of decisions back in 2014, when I decided to start pursuing a more simple life. It was my way of learning to say no without having to feel intense guilt each time I did. I also found that I could avoid expending mental or emotional energy making these decisions over and over again; I made these decisions once, and then I followed my own precedent after that.

Several months ago, I read a blog post called “Two Words that Will Make You Happier, Calmer, and More Certain.” Those two words? Personal policy. As I read the post, I realized that this is exactly what I’ve been doing but didn’t quite have words for.

The writer’s point was that by defining our own personal policies, we can minimize decision fatigue, stand up for ourselves, and not feel guilty about it:

When we create personal policies, we remove a lot of those gray areas that trip us up. We give ourselves the structure and support we need to do the things we say we want to do.”

So in a throwback to the days when I used to do list-style blog posts (and get ready, because I think they might be making a comeback here as I learn to minimize my creative fatigue), here are some of the personal policies I live by. (I also want to acknowledge that many of these personal policies are a direct reflection of my privilege to declare them in the first place and have the resources to follow them.)

  1. We are at home for nap time. This is partly because I want Selah to have a good nap and partly because those nap times are my only chance each week to be alone in my house. Only for very rare, very important events will I let Selah take her nap in the car, and that’s a recent development because for the first two years of her life, she wouldn’t sleep in her carseat.
  2. I do what I want during weekend nap times. On Saturdays, I read or watch Netflix (usually The Great British Baking Show or Gilmore Girls for the 1764th time). On Sundays, I draft new essays. No chores allowed.
  3. I don’t schedule more than one weeknight and two weekend obligations. Any more than that and my whole week feels way too frantic.
  4. I don’t do kids’ birthday parties. I make exceptions here occasionally for family and super-close friends, but mostly I have this policy just to release myself from guilt when I choose not to attend.
  5. I don’t attend online or in-person MLM events. I used to feel so much guilt about not going, and guilt about going and not buying, and guilt about going and buying and spending money on things I didn’t want. Now I just say no across the board, but if I am truly interested in the product, I’ll request an online catalog to peruse on my own time.
  6. I don’t stay at hotels whose doors are accessed from the outside. I’m too much of a scaredy cat.
  7. If I can pay to outsource it, I will. I pay for a cleaning service to deep clean my house once per month, and I keep up (barely) with wiping down counters and sweeping the floors in between. We recently did a ton of home renovations, and by “we did,” I mean we hired a bunch of people to do those renovations. Yes, it was more expensive, but with me working all week and Dan working all weekend, our precious hours of overlapping time was worth more than what we paid.
  8. If I am offered a treat that is topped with streusel, I will always eat it. Unless I’m doing Whole 30.
  9. I always get popcorn with extra butter at the movie theater. Because I’m human. If I’m doing a Whole 30, I just don’t go to the movies. It’s not worth it to me if there’s not buttery popcorn involved.
  10. I always check Amazon Prime for an item I need before going to the store. Because I can (almost) always wait two days for it to arrive, and running errands is my very least favorite thing to do.

These personal policies really do help me preserve my time and my physical and mental energy for the things that are most important to me—family, writing, and self-care.

What are some of your personal policies? Are there any new ones you think you might need to adopt?

P.S. These are the things I do, and these are the things I don’t do.

Photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash.

Personal policies help me to make decisions once, minimizing guilt and decision fatigue the next time these same decisions come up. Because of my personal policies, I can make time for the things I want to do. #simpleliving #minimalism #decisionfatigue #mentalhealth #selfcare

Share the love:

  • Share
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Intentional Living, Simple Living & Minimalism Tagged With: choices, habits, intention, self-care, simple living, whole 30

« Freedom from My Own Expectations
Armchair Chats // Life with a Threenager »




I'm so glad you're here. This space is all about encouraging women to live simply and intentionally, savor motherhood, choose gratitude, and find sacredness in the everyday moments. I hope you'll grab your cuppa choice and stay a while. I'd love to get to know you.
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
Do you want to be more intentional about how you mother and how you care for yourself?
Subscribe today for encouragement and support!


brittanylbergman

Brittany L. Bergman
✔️ Kamala shirt ✔️ Kamala pearls ✔️ Ka ✔️ Kamala shirt
✔️ Kamala pearls
✔️ Kamala mug 
✔️ Kamala curls

It’s a great day to witness the shattering of a glass ceiling, to embrace empathy and decency, and to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

The work is only just beginning, but today, we celebrate. Congratulations, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris! 👏🏼🎉💙
What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaki What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaking, cozy, chaotic-but-strangely-quiet Christmas we had. ✨🎄✨

That’s a wrap for me on 2020—I’ll be off social media until sometime in January. May you be filled with peace and hope as we close this year but still wait for the close of this chapter in our history. 💜
I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; d I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; depression and rage; exhaustion and loneliness. But I can honestly say this is the weariest Christmas I can remember. I say that not to shine a spotlight on me, but to say that I have a feeling this might be your experience too. I’m with you.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
And so the words to my favorite Christmas hymn hit me different this year. They resonate in a place much deeper, more tender and true than ever before. I rejoice in the giggles of my meltdown-prone child. I rejoice in stolen moments alone in the dark, the room lit only by the glow of the Christmas tree. I rejoice in every video and every social media post I see of a frontline worker receiving the COVID vaccine, our ticket out of this nightmare. I rejoice in the vision that next Christmas might look more familiar than this one does. I rejoice in the hope of Christ, whose universal, creative, motherly love holds the whole universe together.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
On this Christmas Eve, I’ll leave you with this quote from Howard Thurman. I hope these words bring a slant of light to your day.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“The symbol of Christmas—what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when the clouds are heavy with foreboding. It is the cry of life in the newborn babe when, forced from its mother’s nest, it claims its right to live. It is the brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked paths straight, rough places smooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stir with newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil.”
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Whatever and however you celebrate at this time of year, I’m sending you all my love and peace. 💫
I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in the nick of time.

I baked cookies with Selah without getting frustrated (first time ever?), took the kids on drive to see Christmas lights, and wrapped a bunch of gifts.

But here’s what I think did the trick, and please do steal this idea (because I stole it from someone else but have no idea who): Magical Movie Night™️.

On Saturday night, I stealthily placed a golden ticket under Selah’s pillow (which I printed from the internets and colored quickly with a yellow marker; good enough is good enough for Magical Movie Night!). We put Eamon to bed and got Selah ready for bed too, going through all the normal motions of brushing teeth, putting on pajamas, picking out a book. When we climbed into bed, I told her to look under her pillow.

She was confused when she found the ticket, and I told her it was for a Christmas movie night. “When?” she asked. “Right now!” I said. “What do you mean ‘right now’?” When it dawned on her that she was going to stay up past her bedtime to have a special movie night with Mommy and Daddy (sans Eamon), she lost her mind with excitement.

Bonus: Gramma was waiting downstairs with a bag of popcorn and Swedish Fish!

We snuggled under blankets, turned on Elf, and laughed our festive butts off. (This was her first time watching Elf, and it felt like the dawning of a new era. It’s such a big kid movie! And she loved it! Hold me. 😭)

Deck the halls, bring on Christmas, fill my mug with holly jolly goodness. 

I also acknowledge this has been a crappy year in so many ways, and I know many of you are not going to be able to access Christmas cheer this year. That’s okay. The real spirit of Christmas is light breaking through the dark, love making a way, and the beauty that can’t help seeping through the dirty, messy, horribly human moments of our lives. So you’re covered.

(And if you want to fake it ’til you make it, give Magical Movie Night a try. It’s the actual easiest.)
In which I couldn’t come up with a clever captio In which I couldn’t come up with a clever caption. There are signs of life but my brain is dead. 💀
“This is what I find most mystifying about Adven “This is what I find most mystifying about Advent: the period of waiting ultimately ends in great joy, but we can’t get to that great joy without intense, active, unbearable pain. In Advent we sense the mingling of anticipation and anxiety, excitement and disappointment, joy and pain, hope and fear.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“On this side of history, we have the luxury of waiting with great hope, great joy, and great expectation. We know Jesus will be born, we know he will save us and redeem us, we know he will die and rise again, and we know he will set all things right one day.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“But before Christ came, Advent was dark. It was lonely and unknown, as the Israelites waited in faith to hear from God, and all they got was… nothing. Silence.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“Isn’t this more characteristic of the waiting we usually do? The waiting seasons of our lives are less often marked by joy and hope and more often marked by pain and fear. They are not often cozy or comforting but difficult and dark and even laborious.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“We wait as a pregnant mother waits for her child to be born—there’s a vision of the joy to come, to be sure, but in the throes of gut-wrenching labor pains, we think we might actually die before we see that joy fulfilled. After a long season of pregnancy, when the fullness of time has arrived, the advent of labor ushers in the real period of waiting—and it is active and painful and raw.”
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
// From “In the Fullness of Time,” a new blog post on @first15. There’s a link in my bio to the whole piece, with thoughts on pregnancy, Advent, and waiting well in an exceptionally hard year. 💜 Thank you so much to @first15 for publishing this post!
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Disclaimer

Brittany L Bergman is a for-profit blog. Any company that I collaborate with is chosen by me and fits the theme and readership of my blog. At times, posts may contain affiliate links or sponsored content, which is never at any charge to you.

Archives

Copyright Brittany L Bergman © 2021
Blog Design + Development by Grace + Vine Studios

This website uses cookies to provide you with the best browsing experience.

Find out more or adjust your settings.

Brittany L. Bergman
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognizing you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

You can adjust all of your cookie settings by navigating the tabs on the left hand side.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.