Oh.
Right?!
.
:
I may have asked something similar before, but even if so, sometimes learning and growth work in spirals.
How do you overcome a mental block to create intentional, sustainable change in your life? Particularly when itâs more about something you need to do, but what you WANT is at least a week in a secluded cabin away from EVERYONE to nap, read and watch movies until you regain a semblance of humanity again.
That sounds a bit like burn out. Is there a way you can carve out any time for yourself to fill up your own cup? Not a week away but regular recurring âme timeâ? Then longer term it feels more doable to take on âshouldâ tasks on a regular basis.
Hmmm I think meerkat is right, but also I am in a phase where breaks and rest arenât where they will be. I test different tweaks and cycle in pieces that worked and cycle out pieces that donât.
i.e. yoga before bed feels great. But 8/10 nights there is no option to add anything before bed, and when there is, there are a lot of competing pieces. So when I do yoga 1/100 days, I see it as choosing yoga 1/20 days and am happy. So yes, from daily yoga to 4 days a year. And being at peace with that is harder than doing yoga daily when I had time.
The way I eat often makes me feel not good. So I found a few ways that make me feel good. Most of those either donât give me enough feel temporary joy hormones or take too much time or money. So I thank myself equally for choosing a smoothie or veggies and rice or for eating chips and halloween candy.
If it is one big thing⌠then I figure out what has to move to make it happen. Something else has to leave your plate
So number one would be to figure out a way to do this for at least a day/until your brain starts functioning again. Take a vacation day and go swimming (thatâs what I needed to do so I shall recommend it to everyone).
Then try to figure out why your brain thinks you canât do it and if itâs a real reason. For example, my brain thinks I canât exercise unless I was going to wash my hair that day anyway. After about 6 years of thinking this, I realized this is silly: I own dry shampoo. For counter example, I havenât figured out how to go to the gym after work but still have time to make/eat dinner much less do literally anything else that evening because thereâs only 4-5 hours and I donât want to eat too early or too late or before working out and ???
But also doing the easy version of whatever thing is still doing the thing. I donât know what your thing is, but I had to tell myself that restorative yoga is ârealâ yoga and after 4 months of going to that Iâm ready to start exercise yoga again. Low key things are good for your brain and will help create space for high key things.
Oooh I remembered advice that I hate but also love (from the Fixable podcast which is about work problems). If this is Important, then you need to prioritize it. Prioritizing means saying no to a lot of things. For me that means: being sane/not frazzled with an agenda and also space for empathy in an important meeting means that I have to limit the other work I do that week. It doesnât matter if I âhave timeâ to do everything, I donât have emotional energy to do everything. And to have enough energy for the Important thing, I need to push back other things, even urgent things, even if I donât want to.
The vibe of this reminds me of âtranquility by Tuesdayâ.
I have had that on my holds list for like 4 months but not read it yet!
I saw that earlier today, and, yep.
Sorry for the random kindle page, but I thought âCruel Optimismâ was a really useful term.
(From âStolen Focusâ)
I think anyone who reads productivity, time management, etc books would enjoy/benefit from reading the intro to âfour thousand weeks: time management for mortalsâ. I canât speak to the rest of it, Iâm only just past the intro, but it was a good and fresh take on things for me.
i get the authorâs newsletter and itâs really great!