The world needs you to feel less frazzled and more focused. Tips inside.
I don’t know about you, but lately I’m feeling scattered and lost.
I’m making dinner less. I’m working less. I’m cleaning less. I’m connecting less. I’m procrastinating everything more.
Wandering aimlessly is my new past-time.
I wake up most mornings at 6am to write with my Australian writing buddy who lives in Atlanta (accountability is hugely important when a task requires me waking up when it’s dark outside…and hearing an Australian accent first-thing isn’t so bad) and as I hopped on our Google Hangout Jetsony video call I realized I have not a frappin’ clue what I’m going to write about today.
That’s rare.
As I was saying all of this out-loud to my writing buddy I realized I’m feeling a little bit paralyzed by all of the current events: keeping up with all of the changes, listening to the swirling outrage, educating myself, forming opinions, figuring out HOW on EARTH people’s opinions could differ from mine, reading about what everyone’s doing, about what I should be doing, deciphering what Joe Schmo on my Facebook page thinks about the current events through all the grammatical errors (I’m just asking for a big grammatical error in this post by writing that…if you find it, you win a prize!)
…and I’m forgetting to breathe.
I’m forgetting to notice what’s good.
I’m forgetting to look within.
I’m forgetting to reach out for support.
I’m forgetting about how powerful I am.
I’m allowing myself to become overwhelmed and overstimulated and frazzled by a never-ending barrage of information that I have control over.
And it’s taking its toll.
The world doesn’t need us to be overwhelmed, overstimulated, frazzled, and under-productive.
I’ve never heard of any great change or leadership or well-being coming from a frazzled and overwhelmed human being.
The world needs us to be clear, focused, and collected.
I believe this lies somewhere between what I’ve been doing lately and burying my head in the sand and never watching or reading another news source again.
Here’s what I’m going to try:
Limit information intake: I’m going to do this by time and by source.
I think we need to ask ourselves a few questions about the information we’re consuming:
- Is it addicting?
- Am I learning something or is this just confirming my opinion?, and
- Would this article NOT do a damned thing to convince others of my opinion?
If the answer is YES to any of these questions I believe these articles or programs are a waste of my time, energy, and resources and I’m pretty sure that 90% of what I’ve allowed myself to consume falls into this category.
Limit social media time or filter your feed: Jumping on Facebook is no longer the destresser it used to be. I haven’t decided yet, but I’m either limiting my time there and/or filtering political posts or posts from known not-so-great-sources from my feed. More on that HERE.
Come up with doable action steps: There are so many ways to get involved it sends my brain into a tail-spin. If I choose one action item per week it will be about, rouuuuggghhly….my math could be really wrong here…51 more ways I am consciously being involved than last year.
And I have to REMEMBER: no amount of caring is too small. I can send $2 or $200 to organizations and causes I care about depending on what feels good to me that week.
Get Some Accountability: Know someone in the same boat?…I bet you do. Come up with your own guidelines for yourself so that you can harness your energy and VOW to send a despicable organization of your choice a check if you veer off course. EEP! This one hurts.
We might as well be sending the other side an energetic check when we allow ourselves to be drained, overwhelmed, and paralyzed, right? Why not just double-down to keep yourself on track?
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Originally published at www.mikaross.com.
Originally published at medium.com