Okay. Back for realsies this time – in theory!
Turns out that last year took more of a toll on me than I’d thought, and I spent about four weeks staring at the wall, the ceiling, my bookcase, the floor – you name it, if I could stare vacantly at it, I did, for four weeks, until my brain felt like it was starting to tick over again.
2022 goal: NOT end the year massively burnt out like I usually do. HA.
Anyway, my brain managed to return about a week into January and I’ve been hard at work Getting Publishing Tasks Done since this is my peak time of the year to be able to do that before le Day Job recommences. I’m also trying v hard to clear a bunch of projects off my desk and not pick up new ones in their place, i.e. give myself more slack in my schedule so minor things don’t turn into scheduling disasters and my brain is not constantly drowning in anxiety. It’s, uh, a work in progress.
Actually, it’s now been a week since I wrote the above, and I have to say, I’m doing a lot better at this. There’s residual frustration there as ever that I have to return to the brain-eating day job and that I haven’t gotten as much done in the holidays as I wanted and la la la la la, but overall, I’m much calmer than I usually would be at this time of year, less frantic, less disappointed in myself. Not, like, calm, peaceful and not at all disappointed, :P, just less of these things than usual. Hopefully this bodes well for the rest of the year???
If you’re curious, the main tool I’m using to try to teach myself these skills – slowing down, doing less but better, focusing more on important instead of urgent, practising self-kindness along the way, creating slack and buffer in my calendar, life and mental health, etc – is the Elegant Excellence Journal by Hilary Rushford. 18 days into the year and using the journal (and having watched two of the accompanying workshops), I can already attest that it has had a positive impact, that I will gladly be paying for another one next year, and that – although I KNEW I was overcommitted, too busy, and needed to say no more and do less – I now can PINPOINT *where* and *why* this is happening, can watch out for the kinds of things likely to distract me or pressure me into saying yes that I actually don’t really enjoy or want to make time & space for, and have been confronted in a really uncompromising way with exactly HOW MUCH TOO MUCH I’m trying to do.
Like, I knew I was trying to do too much. I didn’t really know what to do about that apart from trying to say no to anything extra and idk maybe just feel sad about having to move a bunch of deadlines back and be patient? The journal has made me feel a lot more empowered in my decision making, though, a lot clearer about which opportunities to say yes to and which to say no to, which projects to work hard on closing out and which to put on hold for a while and why… And I think that’s the key: having a good WHY seems to be making a lot of difference.
Anyway, this wasn’t meant to turn into a promo for the EE Journal, but here we are! :’D I’m not affiliated in any way, I’m just really truly being challenged by it in so many positive ways, and I’m less than three weeks into the year and can already feel/see it making a difference. If it’s entirely out of your budget (understandable!!!), you can also check out Hilary’s podcast You’re Welcome, free wherever you find your podcasts. It has so much content I’ve found valuable (about 20 episodes in) and there’s a run of the episodes in the 80s that actually function as the explanation for what to do in some of the early pages of the journal.
So.
That’s me.
What’s getting YOU through so far, this early in this unknown-quantity of a year? <3