Boots That Fit

By Ruth Amos

Are you tired of living a life that doesn't fit? 

Find your place and serve others in a way that is truly yours.

Without a clear sense of identity, we find ourselves squeezed into jobs and activities that are not right for us. Our days are filled to the brim with things others want us to do, things we feel we should do, and things that just happen across our paths. We are bored, busy, strung out and just plain weary.

As you journey through Boots That Fit, you will learn to use your unique gifts and callings to serve God and your community in ways that suit your personality, your values and your life situation. Ruth Amos gives practical advice that helps you say no to the activities that are not yours, and to organise your life so that you can make the time and have the energy for pursuits that bring you joy. 

Author of My Year of Saying No, and creator of A Quiet Life, her blog and podcast, Ruth Amos has spent the last five years helping others simplify their lives and live more peacefully and with more purpose. Her wisdom has been appreciated by people aged 20 and 80 and everyone in between.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ruth Amos
• Release date: Mar 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224149469

Book preview

Contents

Dedication

Boots That Fit

Foreword

Introduction

Are you doing too much?

You have enough time

Just to be clear

Part 1: Who

Personality types

Who are you?

Activities

Values

What do you hold dear?

Activities

Your life now

What does your life look like?

Activities

Not just a brain

Do you look after your body?

Activities

Limiting beliefs

What do you believe?

Activities

Should

What do you feel you should do?

Activities

Seasons

What season are you in?

Activities

Doing what you love

What do you want to do?

Activities

Rhythms

Have you built rhythms in?

Activities

Part 2: How

Attack gardening

The Everything List

Write it all out

Activities

Time budget

Plan your time

Activities

Rest

Not a reward, an essential

Activities

Day-to-day strategies

General organisation

Activities

Rewards

How do you motivate yourself?

Activities

Review

Past, present and future

Activities

Farewell

Want more?

To Sophia, who helps me to understand grace.

BOOTS THAT FIT

Who am I?

My sister remembers that when we were growing up, all I wanted to do was get married and have children. I was sure that I was the kind of woman who would have at least half a dozen children whom I would homeschool with great joy and purpose. I was blessed to find Moz as a teenager, we were married when we were both 19 years old, and a year and a half later, our daughter was born. Jess was such a wonderful blessing, and at the same time, I found that motherhood left me completely disoriented. I did not enjoy being pregnant at all. I didn’t even really enjoy being at home with my beautiful extroverted child. I couldn’t understand it. I didn’t fit my picture of myself. There was no way I was doing this six times!

After our son Caleb was born, I attended university in an attempt to combat the depression I was experiencing. I remembered feeling totally at home as I walked up the stairs to the chemistry building. ‘I will be here forever,’ I thought. ‘I have found my true home.’

I completed my degree and continued studying until I had a PhD in chemistry. I found a sense of identity as a chemist, an academic, a lecturer and researcher. I lectured in chemistry, I researched, I supervised students. I enjoyed it all to a point, but once again, something was not right.

When I look back at my personal journals from those years I can see that I was feeling overwhelmed, overloaded and exhausted. Between work, church and family commitments I felt like I was going 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And somehow, simultaneously, I was feeling lazy and unproductive. Every morning I would start my quiet time with the words, ‘Lord, help.’ I didn’t want to face the day. Something had to change. But I had a problem. If I left my university position, I would also lose my identity as a rushed, busy, hardworking lecturer. If I wasn’t that, then who was I?

I really wanted to find my identity.

I was told to ‘find my identity in Christ’ but that didn’t really help. I knew that God loved me and that I loved God. I knew that I wanted to serve him for my whole life. But I didn’t know how. I needed boots-on-the-ground advice on how to serve God in a way that suited my personality and contributed to the community. How did I do that?

I was pretty sure that God didn’t want me to work myself into a nervous breakdown. I was pretty sure that he had made me with a purpose and that there was a way that I could please him in what I did without grinding myself into dust. I just needed to figure it out.

It’s been a process. Some changes have been large, like getting medical help, and leaving my job. Some have been smaller, like using a calendar app and spending some time each day in silence. Gradually, my life has come more into focus, I have found my identity and purpose, and I have become much more peaceful.

I believe that God wants us to live in his peace – his shalom. Shalom, according to Google, means more than just peace. It means peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, welfare and tranquillity. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? An overarching all-round flourishing.

I feel that many of us could do with a few pointers about how we can find the thing God wants us to do with our lives. How we can build our identity on him and how we can serve others in a way that is uniquely ours. How we can figure out when and why and how to say ‘No’ to even just a few of the many, many requests that come our way each day. And how we can do that with peace and without feeling crushing guilt.

As we move through the seasons of life, each of us can have a time where we wonder, ‘who am I?’ It can happen when we leave school, or when we get married (or don’t get married though we want to), or when our children become more independent and don’t need us as much, or when we retire from a fulfilling career and now don’t know what to do with each day.

I’m not pretending that I’ll be able to solve all of your problems, but I have learned a few things in my own struggles to find boots that fit. In this book, I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned about finding a way to serve that is congruent with your personality and temperament, your values and your energy levels. About finding your identity and doing what is yours to do.

I’m no longer in the place where I start every day with an anguished cry for help (though some days I still do). Most days I look forward to what is ahead of me. It took a lot of learning, and some of the lessons I found particularly hard. I’m writing to you in the hope that it will bring you some peace and that we can all move into greater shalom and a more abundant life.

There are two sections in this book.

Section 1 will help you find identity and a purpose for your life. A reason for living that fits you, that belongs to you, and that gives you motivation for each day. It will help you to clarify what to say yes to, and what to say no to; what is your responsibility and what isn’t. It will help you to simplify your life.

Section 2 will then help you to live that simplified life in an coordinated and graceful manner. It is a ‘how to’ section, full of tips and strategies that can help you to organise your life and achieve what you’re going for.

It could be tempting to head straight to Section 2 but I think Section 1 is even more important. You see, if you are going in the wrong direction, it doesn’t matter how fast, efficient and streamlined your progress is, you’re going to end up somewhere that you don’t want to be.

Your life has meaning and purpose. I want to help you to find that purpose and then work at it ‘with all your heart, as working for the Lord¹’. In the process, we will simplify your to-do list, cut away activities, and bring more peace and joy to your life.

Ready?

Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction. – John F Kennedy

INTRODUCTION

How do you really know if you’re doing too much? When you compare yourself with others you can feel like you’re doing too little compared to some people, and too much compared to others. You can talk to one friend who will tell you that you deserve to take a whole month off immediately, and while another friend says nothing, you can feel the judgement streaming off them like a cloud: ‘What is she whinging about? Her life is so easy.’

What are the signs that you may be doing too much? I found a really handy list of things to look out for²:

Irritability or hypersensitivity (even if you’re not expressing your irritation outwardly)

Restlessness – an inability to sit quietly or fall asleep

Compulsive overworking – and this includes a restless quality to your work

Emotional numbness – the inability to feel anything, either good or bad

Escapist behaviours – Candy Crush, anyone?

Disconnection from identity and calling – just going through the motions

Not being able to attend to human needs – needs like exercise, eating well, sleep or even getting the car washed

Hoarding energy – being overly self-protective in case people use up your last drops of strength

Slippage in our spiritual practices – like prayer, self-examination, and caring for the body

Even if we put a tick next to just a few of the things on this list, we might be pushing against our limitations and doing too much with too little. If this is the case, we need to take stock and change things.

Idolising overwork

When I first read this list I realised that I had a problem. The problem was that I felt like these were signs that I was working hard enough, not that I was working too hard. It’s a symptom of the age we live in that we idolise those who are workaholics, over-workers, busy people.

I enjoy watching The West Wing, an American political drama TV series. Lately, I have noticed the long, long hours that the characters work. They stay at the office until 3 a.m., go home for two hours sleep and then head in again for a 6 a.m. start. Or they just sleep in the office.

‘Were you asleep?’ a colleague asks. ‘No, no. I was just reading up on some documents,’ comes the reply. As if sleep is a luxury that real workers can’t afford.

The characters don’t have enough time for relationships. Their marriages suffer. They don’t eat properly or exercise. And these are the good guys. The ones we are told we should aspire to be like.

This is not a picture of shalom. This is a picture of overwork. A picture of burnout in process. And our lives don’t just last for two television seasons, or even five or six seasons. For most of us, our lives last for three score years and ten, and a few more if we’re blessed. We are in this for the long haul. We are running a marathon.

We need to slow down and get a better picture of what a healthy, peaceful life involves for each of us individually. We are each unique. Each of us has different needs and energy levels. We need to stop idolising overwork and start figuring out healthy limits.

Imagine a life that is not filled with irritability. A life where we can really turn off from work at the end of the day and spend time rejuvenating. Where we’re not blocking life or hiding from it or escaping into numbing behaviours. Where we have energy to give to others, and energy to give to ourselves. Where we spend enough time in our spiritual practices that we know why we are doing what we are doing, and even have the time to exercise and cook healthy meals.

It sounds like paradise. But that’s the basics. That’s what life was intended to be.

So why and how does life become too busy? Why do we end up attempting more than we can possibly achieve in a day?

I had a dream the other night (bear with me, this will be relevant). I dreamt that I was employed to tutor a student at the university. She met with me in a classroom and we started to work on her questions. Just then, students began to file into the classroom. The new students also had questions, and they were questions I could answer. I felt important and worthy; I ran from student to student, helping them with their questions. I was so busy going to and fro that I decided that the best way to deal with this was to stand at the whiteboard and teach the whole class. Look how helpful I was being! Look how many students I could reach!

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my original student. She was quietly packing up her bag and walking away.

I realised that I had let the calls of the other students distract me from what I had been employed to do. That my one student, my priority, had been neglected because of all the other calls on my time. I left the classroom, caught up with the original student, sat with her in the hallway and helped her with her questions.

Our lives can be very much like this dream. We have a mission, a task, an assignment that is ours. But we can let other worthy causes drown out the still small voice of our own mission. We can get so busy that we don’t even take the time to wonder if the things we are doing are ours to do.

Often it feels good to be busy. It feels like you are important and valuable. But it can also feel stressful and harrowing and exhausting.

Do you believe that God has given you