In recent months, potentially the last couple of years, I have been struggling. I’ve been struggling emotionally and mentally and finally I’ve taken a step back from myself and taken stock of what I have allowed to happen to myself.
Without really realising it I have found my ability to cope with everyday annoyances or mishaps harder to achieve without the angry feelings starting to bubble up and more often than not spill over (not pretty and very unproductive).
Without realising it my soul had got more and more tired until the other day I felt positively exhausted and not in the physical sense, mentally and emotionally I had to admit I was exhausted. Initially I thought “why am I so tired? This is very sudden.” A few days a later I thought something more honest “I should have seen this coming. I knew I was tired. I knew I was struggling and I kept on going, pushing myself, thinking things would just sort themselves out.” But of course they hadn’t because I hadn’t done anything to sort how I was feeling out. What I had done was allowed myself to get stuck and stay stuck. I felt horribly stuck, I felt that I couldn’t change any of the things that I knew I wanted (if not needed) to change and so remained stuck. I repeated the same behaviour, I did the same things, and kept wondering why I still had that stuck feeling. The reasons are pretty clear, I didn’t alter a damned thing or make any changes to stop myself being stuck. I wallowed in my discontent and wondered why things stayed the way they were whilst all the time getting unhappier and more tired.
I’m not sure how I began my forward momentum. It might simply have been due to having an early night and a good sleep – I certainly felt better after it. But begin my forward momentum I did.
Getting organised again
One of the main things I was unhappy with and that was draining me mentally was my complete dis-organisation in running my own life. As a naturally organised person this slide into dis-organisation had taken some years with only little glimmers of realisation occurring as it happened.
So the first thing I did was start writing appointments in my week to view family diary, then I added jobs that I wanted to complete this week, I wrote in the days I was going to go for a run and the time (I hoped this would help me to stop putting it off). I’m at the end of that week now and whilst I have ticked off most of my jobs there are some that I didn’t achieve and have had to reschedule – I’ve noticed that usually the things I don’t achieve or have time for or simply put off are things that I will enjoy doing or will be of benefit to me. These aren’t necessarily things for me personally but projects that I enjoy – for instance I am making my parents their Christmas presents this year and on two of the days I wrote “Finish Dad’s present” on neither of these days did I even get this project out. Now I could look at this and decide one of a few things:
- I scheduled too much on that particular day,
- By the time the kids went to bed I was too tired
- I keep putting this off because I have to get all the gear out,
- I procrastinate.
The 4th is the truth but I will readily choose one of the other 3 to avoid accepting that I procrastinate.
Procrastination
Procrastination is defined as the avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished and I think I do an awful lot of it in all different areas of my life. My running, my little projects that make me happy, my relationship and stuff for my kids, stuff round the house and so on, I invariably put doing them, off. So, back to the diary, how is writing my to do list down going to help with this. Well if I give myself 3 to 4 jobs to accomplish each day I stand a good chance of getting them done, and if within that list I include projects and the odd thing for myself I will also get these things done too (that is the theory). I also have a terrible habit of living in my head. I think about stuff, and plan things, and decide things in my head which then never become reality because they all stay in my head. This is again where my diary comes in, if I write these ideas or projects down I stand a better chance of getting them done.
Projects and Goals
Feeling stuck can often mean that you have no goals in life, nothing to aim for. This is true for me. The more stuck I have felt the more I’ve lost touch with myself, my desires, my goals, my hopes and my dreams. In fact I have no goals. I don’t really know myself anymore, I don’t have things I really like, I struggle to see my future, I have no passion for anything. I don’t know how to set goals because I don’t have dreams or hopes. Well I didn’t until I gave myself a kick and decided that even small goals were better to have than no goals at all. Here they are:
- Lose weight
- Run 5k in one go
- Get my kids to help around the house more
- Stay organised
- Make my parents their Christmas presents
- Make Christmas a little more climate conscious this year.
- Get enough sleep
See I do want things, deep down I still have my values and hopes. Looking at these goals, my next step is to break them down into manageable elements so that I can achieve them, set time scales, give myself real reasons in wanting to do them and detailing the steps I need to take to achieve them.
I am on a journey to beating this “stuck” feeling and this first step of getting organised and setting myself some very simply goals has felt really good. I already feel lighter and the very simple reason is that by organising a few areas in my life I now feel a little more in control of my life.
