Someone just told me that it's up to me to choose how I face the day.
I've got into the habit of starting off with an air of "anxious overwhelm". I'm not entirely sure why. It's a feeling I seem to have been living with for a long time. Every now and again, I get a real burst of positivity and enthusiasm which can last for a couple of weeks, but I haven't been near one of those blasts for a couple of months.
In the case of today, I've fallen into my usual trap and most want to crawl back under the duvet.
My habitual response to this is to give up quickly on the day that doesn't start well. In my head, the bad start condemns the rest of the day to the scrapheap. I quickly let myself off the hook of what I need to be doing and find a distraction to immerse myself in. I've failed at my work day before I've even started. What is going on?
Why should a day that start out with fear and dread? And then just because it started that way, does it really have to continue in that vein? What if I tried something to break the cycle? What if, rather than effectively doing nothing, I did just 10 minutes of something potentially revenue-generating from my work list? Just a 10 minute task. In fact, I bet I can break much of my to do list down into 10 minute tasks.
This might be the work equivalent of my run / walk marathon approach. For the 26.2 miles of the Berlin marathon, I only ran for only 3 minutes at a time. It was a neat little mind trick that kept me focused, injury-free and most importantly in a state of pure joy for the 5 hours or so it took me to complete the course.
So the experiment for today is to do a selection of 10 minute tasks from my list.
And the experiment for tomorrow is to choose to face the day with optimism and enthusiasm.
What an adventure into the unknown that could be!
Thursday, 9 April 2015
Failure to launch
And here we go again.
Am trying to bribe myself to get some tricky work done by buying cake and coffee and sitting in Nero's rather than in my home office. This is one of my more common avoidance tactics.
The cake and the coffee aren't helping my marathon training or my waistline either. Last summer's clothes are already feeling a bit tight around my middle and my 30 day plank challenge is considerably more challenging with the extra weight I'm carrying.
.... 40 minute chat interlude with student sitting next to me writing his thesis .... that's not helped either! I was trying to lull myself into work by writing about how difficult I was finding it to get started. Now I find that I've lost my train of thought for this post too. Must be time to hold my breath and batter my cuticles.
But, I've made a commitment not to do that anymore. Gosh I really do make hard work of my life. And there goes the inner critic, passing judgement again. Things are what they are - neither good nor bad.
I know, I'll update my to do list.
.... which has just left me feeling a bit sick and searching out a cuticle to attack ....
Talk about going round in circles.
A full two hours after sitting down to start work. The panic is rising and cheeks are flushed.
Another failure to launch day.
Am trying to bribe myself to get some tricky work done by buying cake and coffee and sitting in Nero's rather than in my home office. This is one of my more common avoidance tactics.
The cake and the coffee aren't helping my marathon training or my waistline either. Last summer's clothes are already feeling a bit tight around my middle and my 30 day plank challenge is considerably more challenging with the extra weight I'm carrying.
.... 40 minute chat interlude with student sitting next to me writing his thesis .... that's not helped either! I was trying to lull myself into work by writing about how difficult I was finding it to get started. Now I find that I've lost my train of thought for this post too. Must be time to hold my breath and batter my cuticles.
But, I've made a commitment not to do that anymore. Gosh I really do make hard work of my life. And there goes the inner critic, passing judgement again. Things are what they are - neither good nor bad.
I know, I'll update my to do list.
.... which has just left me feeling a bit sick and searching out a cuticle to attack ....
Talk about going round in circles.
A full two hours after sitting down to start work. The panic is rising and cheeks are flushed.
Another failure to launch day.
Wednesday, 8 April 2015
Panic, picking and world record marathoning
Do you ever find yourself holding your breath in a subconscious effort to stop time because you believe you have so much to do you can't see a way of getting it all done and you've got no idea where to start?
At some point during the day, I will find myself frozen like a rabbit in the headlights of my to do list. I notice I'm in that place when I realise that I've stopped breathing.
My automatic strategy for creating release is to pick at the cuticles on my thumbs. It makes me feel like I am doing something. "If I can just remove that stray bit of skin, I'll have completed a major task and will be making real progress on my day.Pat yourself on the back. Job well-done."
Really. That's how it feels.
Of course, there's no item on my daily to do list that says anything about completing a manicure with my teeth.
I hate to think how many hours of my life I have spent on this destructive habit. I hate to think how much more I might have achieved if I'd used that time more productively.
Like so many of us living with this kind of habit, whether it's skin picking, nail-biting or hair pulling, I experience a deep sense of shame about both the activity itself and its physical results. It makes me look damaged and feel damaged on many levels.
I've been doing it my whole life. When I hit 30 I tried hypnotherapy which actually did stop me from destroying my fingers; but it didn't work on my thumbs for some reason.
Anyway, I'm really tired of it now. So, I am formally committing to knocking it on the head once and for all. I've found this website on skin-picking which is a great source of information and techniques.
It looks like I've got a shed load of brain rewiring to do. That should tie in very neatly with my training for the Amsterdam marathon in October this year.
If I put the same time into training as I do into picking, I'll be on for a world record time!
Watch this space x
At some point during the day, I will find myself frozen like a rabbit in the headlights of my to do list. I notice I'm in that place when I realise that I've stopped breathing.
My automatic strategy for creating release is to pick at the cuticles on my thumbs. It makes me feel like I am doing something. "If I can just remove that stray bit of skin, I'll have completed a major task and will be making real progress on my day.Pat yourself on the back. Job well-done."
Really. That's how it feels.
Of course, there's no item on my daily to do list that says anything about completing a manicure with my teeth.
I hate to think how many hours of my life I have spent on this destructive habit. I hate to think how much more I might have achieved if I'd used that time more productively.
Like so many of us living with this kind of habit, whether it's skin picking, nail-biting or hair pulling, I experience a deep sense of shame about both the activity itself and its physical results. It makes me look damaged and feel damaged on many levels.
I've been doing it my whole life. When I hit 30 I tried hypnotherapy which actually did stop me from destroying my fingers; but it didn't work on my thumbs for some reason.
Anyway, I'm really tired of it now. So, I am formally committing to knocking it on the head once and for all. I've found this website on skin-picking which is a great source of information and techniques.
It looks like I've got a shed load of brain rewiring to do. That should tie in very neatly with my training for the Amsterdam marathon in October this year.
If I put the same time into training as I do into picking, I'll be on for a world record time!
Watch this space x
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