SISTER WISDOM

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10 things to do when you feel overwhelmed Comments Off

Filed under take ten
Written by Annie on 21st Mar -11

(untitled)

1. Sit down with a piece of paper and write down everything you can think of that’s stressing you out,

weighing on your brain, waiting for your action, refusing to leave you alone. If you’re overwhelmed and don’t know why, this will help you figure out what’s bothering you most. And the simple act of writing is both cathartic and helps you to see things in perspective.

2. Call someone you trust

- or send an email – and just talk about what’s on your brain. We females do have a tendency to over-analyze, yes. But some situations need to be processed, emotions need to be aired out, and the simple act of talking things through relieves a lot of the mental and emotional pressure that makes us feel like we can barely hold our heads up.

3. Do the next thing,

the one thing you know that’s making you feel the most dread or anxiety. Read this if you’re not sure how to do the next thing.

4. Go outside and take a ten-minute walk.

Or twenty minutes. Or thirty. However long you can manage will help. Let your mind wander. Look around. Breathe. Push yourself to walk a little faster. Listen to some music. Listen to the world around you, and let your brain do its own processing while you occupy yourself with other things.

5. Get out and around people.

If you’re overwhelmed with stuff you can’t do anything about – situations that have no “next action step” next to them – then being by yourself is the worst option for you. Go be where people are.

6. Do something that gives you immediate, tangible results.

The big projects that make us feel like we can never accomplish them are overwhelming because it takes so long to get to completion. Take a break from ongoing projects and tackle a small task that gives you immediate results.

7. Ask yourself what will happen if you don’t accomplish everything you’d like to in this day or week or month or lifetime.

What can you let go of? How can you limit your to-do list? Let go of some things that don’t matter. If you don’t really care about how things might change when you say no, or if it’s obvious that the world will carry on without your 39 item list being completed, then hack that list down to something reasonable and breathe for a while.

8. Get away from negative people.

Even if they don’t know what’s going on in your brain, even if they’re not speaking directly to your situation, their general negativity will make you feel discouraged before you even begin. Move on, get some space, and find some happy, positive, encouraging, upbeat, unrealistically optimistic people to be around. It will help balance things out.

9. Take a break from information consumption: Internet, blogs, (Yep, I said that), Facebook, email, phone calls, television, books, magazines, so on.

The sheer amount of information we take in makes us feel like we are somehow responsible for doing something about it all, in one way or another. Give yourself time to process all that information that you already have floating around in there before you add more.

10. Do one thing at a time.

Set a timer. Don’t multi-task. Force yourself to focus on one item, however small, and focus on it fully.

Image: (untitled) by QueenAmparo

how I learned to quit feeling guilty (or at least quit caring about it) Comments Off

Filed under self
Written by Annie on 15th Mar -11

Guilt is, apparently, a problem for a lot of people. Especially people of the female variety.

But overall, regardless of children’s age or marital status, women reported both more guilt and distress over work intrusions into the home. - USAToday

Women in both the adolescent age group and the 25-33 age group reported a higher level of expected guilt than the men. - NY Daily News

There have been studies that show that “problems in interpersonal relationships tend to evoke guilt (interpersonal guilt) and moral dilemmas more often in women.” This is labeled as “interpersonal sensitivity.” -  FYI Living

We could spend some time talking about where the guilt comes from, why women have more of it, etc., etc., ad infinitum.
Whatever.

We know without analyzing further that guilt is counter-productive, a waste of time, an unnecessary burden.

Oh wait: do we know that?

If we really did know that guilt helps no one, wouldn’t we quit allowing it to influence us?

Here’s my point of learning, and maybe it will help you:
Took me some 27 years, but I finally realized that

guilt and conviction are not the same thing.

Let me ‘splain.
  • Guilt is a vague, overwhelming, horrible, nasty, burdensome beast of cruelty that can never, ever, no matter how very very very hard you try, be appeased.
  • Conviction, on the other hand, is a specific, definite, action-oriented, encouraging, motivating thought that tells you how to make your life better.
We often avoid conviction because it is spurring us to action, and action is difficult. Instead, we wallow in guilt, on the premise that simply by feeling so bad about so much we’re paying our dues, making our life better, or at least justifying all the things that are wrong.
What an enormous waste of time.

May I pose a suggestion, peoplings of the women variety?

Do something about that latent conviction you have. Take action on something specific you want to improve.
And tell guilt to beat it like a Michael Jackson song.

Try it.

For reals. Let me know. Work for you? (You can tell me if it doesn’t, but, um, I’m not going to feel guilty about it.)

3 common causes of failure Comments Off

Filed under self
Written by Annie on 7th Mar -11

Through a window

This morning I was reading Arnold Bennett’s book Mental Efficiency. Kind of a slog to read through, but some gems in there.
Like this:

…no wound is more cruel to the spirit of resolve than that dealt by failure.

True. Solomon put it slightly differently:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick. [Prov. 13:12]

On one hand, failure isn’t a thing to fear or to be avoided. If we see failure for what it is, simply a step on the road to our goals, it becomes less intimidating, less cruel. But when we fail over and over in reaching our goals or resolving our problems or simply moving on, it wears us down. Before long, we begin to see only the pattern of failure in our lives, and it makes us want to quit trying.

Bennett names three common causes of failure:

  • unrealistic expectations: “you undertook too much at the beginning.”
  • peer pressure: “the disintegrating effect on the will-power of the ironic, superior smile of friends.”
  • impracticality: “you did not rearrange your day.”

unrealistic expectations

I do this all the time.

It’s a problem with me forgetting that I am, after all, not SuperWoman. Which is fine, if I realize this and set realistic goals, i.e., goals that a normal person can actuallyar achieve in a given amount of time.

Goals like write a novel this year, not write a novel today. See the difference?

Do you overestimate yourself? It’s good to set our expectations high. Most of us can do far more than we think we can. But we also need to be realistic about the demands of the day (which won’t simply disappear because we have a lofty new goal to pursue) and what we can accomplish with those demands still intact. We can also work on reducing the demands so we can focus on what is most important to us.

peer pressure

Mediocrity, interesting part of our culture. It’s like a big, lame party; nobody’s really having fun, but everybody’s acting like they’re happy because everybody else seems to be having a good time…
If one honest person would just step up and say, this party is lame, I have better things to do, there would be a lot of agreement. But since nobody says that, everybody just keeps smiling and making stupid comments and eating the cold appetizers.

You’ll get a mixed bag response if you set a high goal or demand more from yourself than the inane level of mediocrity in which most of us settle. Some people will encourage you, push you on, be inspired and become an inspiration to you.
Others will, because of their own unmet expectations and failed goals, make light of your resolutions, predict failure, and generally hold you up for mockery, either implied or explicit.

Simple Solution: just do your thing, set your goal, and start achieving it without talking about it. While accountability can be a powerful help on the road to reaching your goals, you need to be accountable to the right sort of people, not the public in general (in most cases). If your group of friends tends toward the snarky side, don’t expect them to suddenly veer into warm, empathetic encouragement to help you on your way.

impracticality

Maybe you can set realistic goals:

  • run a 5k next month
  • read a book a week
  • write a blog post every day
  • eat more salads

Whatever they are, if you don’t actually plan in the time and stuff you’ll need to do the work to reach those goals, you won’t reach them.

To train for a 5k, you need to start running on a regular basis. When will you do that? Do you own running shoes?
To read a book a week, you need a book. And you need to pick the book up instead of turning the tv on, or sitting in front of the computer, or going to the mall.
To write a blog post every day, you need to set aside the length of time it takes you do produce a post. Otherwise it will be shoved aside, shoved aside, and eventually forgotten.
To eat more salads, well, you need some lettuce in the refrigerator, right? And you need to make it part of your meal plan. Don’t go eat at fast food joints 5x/week if your goal is to eat more salads.

Do you set good goals but then fail to give yourself the resources to achieve them?

Don’t set yourself up for failure.

As you review your goals, make some changes and adjustments to the ones that are causing you grief. Go through the checklist:

  • Are my goals actually achievable in my life?
  • Are my peers encouraging me or discouraging me in these goals? [you can always get new friends. maybe you should...]
  • Am I planning in the time and getting myself the resources I need to make regular progress toward my goals?

Image: Through a window by Muffet

2 keys to help you reach your goals Comments Off

Filed under self
Written by Annie on 3rd Feb -11

success

Let’s jump right in here. What’s the toughest part about reaching your goals?
Not defining them, usually.
Not figuring out how to reach them.
The path to even the most difficult goals is usually obvious. Action 1, action 2, action 3, acgtion 4, and so on. If you want to write a book and get a great book deal, that’s difficult to do but not difficult to understand how to do.

The difficulty is in the doing, the action, the day-to-day continued commitment.

Why? What happens? It isn’t usually because the work is so hard. It’s because we lose the vision, and then we don’t remember why… and we’re basically lazy… and old habits are strong. So we give up.

Answer? Put something in place to take the place of that rush of vision.

1. Accountability

Accountability means saying in some public way or another, “Hey, I’m doing this! Everybody watch and see!”

It’s almost a dare. It’s exposure. It’s bold. It’s unnerving. And it makes you want to do whatever you said you’d do, because now you’ve got an audience and they’re going to know your failure if you give up.

“Everybody” doesn’t have to be a big group. It could be your spouse, a couple of friends, a small group of folks with the same interest. It could be your blog readership, which might be very small or very large depending. It could be your entire social network.

The size of the group doesn’t matter; what matters is that in some public way you make a commitment. You share the vision and you share the plan, and you say, “Dare you to watch me accomplish this.”

And then you don’t want to quit, because you’ve got a person, or people, or a group, watching you. You don’t want to disappoint them. You don’t want to be embarrassed. And that motivation, of pleasing and impressing people, can be enough to keep you going even when the vision is really vague.

2. Tracking

Tracking means specific actions and deadlines and then keeping track of how well you do at achieving those actions by those deadlines.

Tracking also means collecting information related to your actions or ultimate goals. Keeping a food journal, for example, and recording your daily weight is a way to track your progress on a diet or fitness program.

Tracking can be as simple as writing stuff down on a piece of paper or the calendar and scratching it off once you’ve achieved it.
Of course, there are lots of other more tech-savvy ways to track your progress, too.

  • You can get goal-tracking software or use an online goal-tracking system, such as Joe’s Goals.
  • Join a goal-tracking group, which could be “real-world” ( Weight Watchers, for example), or based online ( 43Things).
  • Put a goal-tracking app on your smart phone: I use Trak for iPhone. It’s free.
  • Or get any other type of system you want in place (calendar, notebook, etc.).

The point is, you track your day-to-day progress and you grab the information that helps you become more aware of your pgoress, your habits, and then obstacles you need to overcome to reach your goals.

And that information can be powerful motivation, a new awareness that keeps you going even when you can’t remember quite why you’re pursuing this goal.

Work It Together

For any challenging goal, the smartest move (if you want to succeed, that is) is to use both tracking and accountability. Tracking can be as detailed as you like, as simple or complicated as you need. Just keep up with it. Look at how far you’ve come. Get the information. get a system in place for it.

Add the tracking to some kind of accountability. Start a blog, join a group, join a forum, take on a challenge with a friend.

Achieving your goals is difficult because it requires you to stretch out of your comfortable boundaries and create new spaces, new habits. You have to stretch, you have to lose old habits, and you have to gain proficiency at unfamiliar and difficult tasks. Don’t set yourself up for failure. Don’t be a loner. Share your vision and it becomes stronger.

If one fails to develop goals that give meaning to one’s existence, if on does not use the mind to its fullest, then good feelings fulfill just a fraction of the potential we possess. A person who achieves contentment by withdrawing from the world to “cultivate his own garden,” like Voltaire’s Candide, cannot be said to lead an excellent life. Without dreams, without risks, only a trivial semblance of living can be achieved.

Image: success by charliedayartist

3 Steps to Successful Goal-Setting for Moms Comments Off

Filed under self
Written by Annie on 20th Jan -11

No. 3 (Washington, DC)
You can have anything but you can’t have everything.

So you have to choose:

what constitutes success in your life right now?

Don’t limit yourself because of fear, but do limit your goals (the ones you are actively pursuing) to as many as you can focus on. I’ve found that I max out at about 3 big goal chases at a time.

What’s wrong with traditional goal-setting

I’ve seen lots of recommendations; the most common among women’s advice circles seems to be to go through the basic areas of your life and set goals for each one. Depending on what you define as a single area, you can have from 5 to 10 areas, and thus, 5 to 10 goals, happening at a time.
For example, a typical area-of-life breakdown might look like this:

  1. - marriage/relationships
  2. - kids/parenting
  3. - home
  4. - work/career
  5. - health/fitness
  6. - personal
  7. - social
  8. - educational/intellectual
  9. - hobbies…

If you take the traditional route of setting one goal for each area, then actively pursuing each goal, you’ll be simultaneously trying to fix your life in 5, 10, 12 areas at a time.
That’s a lot of pressure.

a better goal-setting method

I suggest a different, simpler, and infinitely more effective route; this works for anyone, but it’s especially helpful for Moms who are juggling their own needs along with those of husband, kids, house, job, social life, etc. When your life is complicated, your goal-setting should be simple.
Basically, you need to ask yourself three questions:

Question 1. What in my (current) life bothers me most?

Not just that nagging tooth ache you need to make an appointment for, though certainly you should go see your dentist about that… But what is happening, or not happening, in your life that bothers you on a daily and deeply?
Goal #1: Fixing/eliminating the problem you identify in Question #1.

Question 2. What do I dream of pursuing someday?

For Moms, maybe you’ve put your career on hold until your kids are in school; or maybe you dream of what life will be like when you’re financially able to quit your job and stay home; or maybe you have a career and kids and you’re loving both but you’ve put off some other dreams, like traveling or learning a new language or learning to cook or getting in shape or volunteering. What are you putting off, waiting on, putting on hold while your life continues around you?
Goal #2: Taking action to reach that dream you identify in Question #2.

Question 3. What can I do to simplify and de-stress my life in a practical/logistical way?

You want to keep your life above the survival level, but you can’t fix everything all at once. That’s where most of us mess up; we get inspired, motivated, frustrated enough to declare war on the way things are. We’re going to fix the kids, fix the husband, fix the finances, fix ourselves, fix the house, all by February 15, so help me God.

And that just doesn’t happen… so we give up, right? The point is, it’s simply too much to try to fix it all. The point of Question #3 is to help you figure out one goal you can reach to simplify your life, thus reducing stress (and improving the quality) of all your life. Maybe it’s declutter the closets, finish the kitchen remodel, join a gym, get a new wardrobe, or get a regular babysitter. Maybe it’s quit your job, get out of debt, or simplify your social life. You decide; what rings truest with you right now? You can tackle the other stuff later.
Goal #3: Simplifying/reducing stress in your life by tackling one practical/logistical area you identify in Question #3.

Printable Goal-Setting Worksheet

I’ve put together a down loadable, printable worksheet so you can sit down with these three questions and your purple Sharpie (oh, is that just me?) and set some goals that you’ll actually reach. Download it by clicking here.

Image: No. 3 (Washington, DC) by takomabibelot

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