How to Create the Life You Deserve

Are you somebody who easily gets disappointed by others?
• Perhaps you have a family who seems to take you for granted and they never seem to put your needs before their own.

• It might be that you frequently find that your spouse is oblivious to what you want out of the relationship and you are tired of sounding like a broken record, reminding him that you would like him to help around the house. He never inquires about transporting the kids to their soccer games as opposed to him seeing that function as primarily your job as the manager of the family.

Unfortunately as a woman, you have trained people all too well, how capable you are at handling multiple tasks that involve a variety of activities.

So what is the secret to breaking the cycle, teaching people how to treat you and putting your needs on the front burner?

I must warn you the guidelines that I am about to give you may not seem related to the problem because they have to do with things that are solely your responsibility. You see, if you walk around feeling disappointed all the time, you need to set different priorities for your life.

So the following information has to do with you looking at what you can do to change the way the family functions.

Let's take the mom who is doing everything for her family and now she is experiencing burnout. She would like others in her family to start doing their share like picking up, helping with the dinner, cleaning out the car after a trip to the store and basically being responsible for the things in their life that they could help manage. To redistribute this division of duties requires that you forewarn your family that you will likely need to back off from doing it all and that "from here on out" they will need to ask you if you are available to take them to the store to pick up markers for the project.

Now here is the tough part...you must make sure that you say no as much as you say yes so that they can see how important it is to coordinate with you. Perhaps you can leverage your participation by reminding the kids that you won't be able to take them to the mall until their room is cleaned up and has met with your inspection. This means that in no way should you back down or else they will revert to doing little and expecting a lot which we know means that you will resort to lots of resentment mixed with a healthy dose of burnout. (In my business, we call it compassion fatigue, which means you care so much that you don't have time to care for yourself.)

The hardest part of this delimma is that you will either want to back down or you will give in to old behaviors because the family will seem so unhappy with your new changes. They will balk and squalk so much that you will wonder if it is worth the behavioral change, but let me assure you it is. When you stand strong in a quiet, unassuming way, they are forced to change their behavior to ulimately get what they want which in turn, helps the division of dutes and affords you more time for yourself.

Now how might you spend all that extra time?