In This Episode…
Last night I got agitated as a consequence of allowing overwhelm to creep up on me. If you want to experience the same, then follow my recipe that I lay out for you step by step.
Episode Show Notes…
Here’s My Recipe Overwhelm
Yesterday things started to get on top of me a bit. The magnitude of the task I have set myself to develop and grow my business started to rest heavily on my psyche. A number of things happened. First of all my mind surveyed the scale of things I have set out as my goals for the future. Then it fired up all of the little things I needed to do to get each one in place.
Unfortunately those ideas came thick and fast in an unconnected and completely random stream of consciousness – this, and that and another and another and another and what about that and this and that….
Now at times when it is needed I am blessed with a very quick and creative mind (despite my proclivity for detail, system and process). But at other times, when perhaps I need to be a little more focused, that ability to generate a random stream of ideas is not helpful.
So having created an overwhelming stream of ideas to try and sort through I have to deal with a growing sense of anxiety about not capturing them as they come hurtling past my conscious mind.
But to top it all, my brain starts getting into a bit of a loop by trying to work out what to do first. It seems to relish in creating and a circular situation where one thing has to be done before another which has to be done before another which has to be done before the first thing.
Then having set that in motion I find myself unable to choose what to start first because it seems like EVERYTHING is important.
This thought process seems to creep up on me unawares but when it does leap out and take hold it takes over pretty damn quickly and swamps my mind with alternatives.
And throughout all of this an agitation builds that puts me in an ever declining un-resourceful state.
It’s a recipe I’ve mastered over the many years I’ve been cooking it.
But the old me would have succumbed to the feelings of overwhelm and growing angst in my body and mind.
Not any more.
Last night I took myself off to bed early with a clip board an pen and started mapping out the basics of what I am trying to achieve. It helped. I was able to sleep ok and this morning when I got up, I was in a much better state.
Dissatisfaction
Maybe I just want things now. Maybe I am just overambitious. Maybe I am just impatient. Maybe I am just being hard on myself.
It doesn’t matter which.
I am very dissatisfied with my progress at the moment.
It feels that despite my best intentions and certainly my best efforts, I am not making progress. I don’t mean the work I am doing, because I am getting stuff done. I mean the growth and development of my productivity skills.
I feel I have plateaued. I don’t feel the efforts I am making to change are having the effect I want.
I keep auditing my progress against my declared intentions and there’s a disparity.
I keep thinking back to the episode I did about identity in episode 256.
