#makeyourbedchallenge

Hi everyone! I am just going to come right out and say it! I am struggling! I am so behind on what I feel I need to be doing, should be doing and what others expect me to do. I tend to jump into things head first with great intentions and then I suddenly feel like an octopus trying to juggle flaming torches, knives, and hand grenades. I am sure that I am a thousand blogs behind, and let's not talk about the unfinished tasks that I have had to get help on recently. I feel so defeated sometimes. I know that we can all feel this way from time to time, and I know this is a safe place to talk about it. I have a lot of exciting things going on in my life, too, so it can all be an emotional rollercoaster. This blog post has a happy ending, I can assure you that.

Me: feeling overwhelmed!

So, what have I been doing to help with the overwhelming feelings of stress? 

Listening to myself:

I opened a letter that came in the mail recently that was unmarked. I had this gut feeling that it was something terrible. That is probably an automatic response from getting so many bills and unwanted notices in the mail. I hardly ever get good stuff in my mailbox. Well, I started to open this letter, and as I do so, I am paying attention to my feelings. I have been doing a lot of shadow work lately and because of it, I am open to receiving messages from within. The message I heard today was loud and clear. My heart was saying, “My life is falling apart.” In all honesty, yes, I feel wound up and simultaneously over stretched, but surely my life is not falling apart! Part of me wanted to tell myself to not be so overdramatic, but the compassionate part of me reminded me that anything that can come by mail, can be handled. There is nothing that would destroy my family so much that I would truly feel that my life was falling apart. I have to be the voice of reason for myself, as well as comforting and accepting. If you are curious what was in the mail, it was some junk about my husband’s car warranty expiring, nothing worth my day spinning out of control over. 

Doing that one hard thing - and asking for help with it:

I had a daunting task that has been looming over my head for the past year. It has been something that I have been avoiding for various reasons. I start getting those excuses in my head for why I can’t do something or why I should do it later, and sure enough, it starts to sound like a broken record in my head. This is something that I have been working on with my therapist. I tend to associate social discomfort with physical discomfort, and it makes my life very challenging. I end up “punishing myself” because I have a self-limiting belief that I can’t accomplish the task, and then I punish myself for not completing it. This particular task is something that, because I was avoiding it, I didn’t allow myself to enjoy doing other things – that was my punishment. I had to do it though. And yes, there are some things that you don’t have to do, but this was one of those things that just needed to be done. I was tired of not doing it, and I knew that the only way it would get done was if I enlisted someone else's help. Thankfully that person obliged, I didn’t even have to explain myself. I know I will owe them a huge favor. But sometimes you just have to call your friend over to “kill the spider.” Now that this spider has been killed, I am ready to move on to the next one, I no longer feel paralyzed by it. 

Making space to enjoy my life:

I was starting to feel the walls closing in. I’m not really that claustrophobic, but I do start to feel like a bull in a china shop. When I feel like I can’t move around without knocking things over, or having to move-things-to-get-to-other-things-so-I-can do-things, I get really frustrated. I get overwhelmed, panicky, and spin out. I become useless and shut down. I will retreat into a book or television, and the rest of my day is toast. Since I was feeling overwhelmed one day, I decided to watch some videos on YouTube. I thought it might be relaxing to watch some organization videos. Sometimes watching other people clean can be really satisfying. I stumbled across some videos of people decluttering, and I was hooked. I found it so exhilarating to see people hold up a plastic cup from a restaurant and explain that they have 50 cups and they don’t need this one in particular and toss it in the recycle bin. It actually got me pumped. I then started decluttering while I was watching the video. This whole week has been quite refreshing as I have been inspired to do a clean sweep of many of the messy areas in our home that tend to get over-stacked. I went through the pantry and tossed a bunch of expired food. We decluttered the fridge. I ransacked Reyna’s room while she was at her grandpa’s house and threw away a lot of trash, and I even got a donation box with some of her toys and baby books put together. My motivation was even rubbing off on my husband, Travis. He was willing to part ways with some of the unused tumblers and Tupperware that was stuffed in all the nooks and crannies. Some of the most inspiring videos were from Cassandra Aarssen from Clutterbug. We blogged about what type of Clutterbug we were and discussed the quiz on the podcast last year. I was really planning to do my spring cleaning in the spring, but this year I just couldn’t wait to get started. I started out in the game closet and ever since I dumped out an entire box of hard playdough without a second thought, I have been a changed woman. I find myself decluttering everywhere I go in the house. I even decluttered my sewing case while I was at a retreat this weekend. I dumped a handful of miscellaneous buttons in the trash that I have been toting around with me for 20+ years, and it was so freeing! Another great vlogger that I want to share is The Minimal Mom - The Myth of Being Behind. This particular video reminds us that we are not behind, we are doing what we are capable of doing at the time. In the world of Pinterest perfectionism we need to be reminded that we are normal and it’s ok. 

I am feeling better about my situation in life. It is not actually spinning out of control, that’s just a mindset. Life is a work in progress. And, for real, if you read this far, I really appreciate it! There is just something so powerful about putting my words out there, speaking my truth, and hashing it out. I feel so much better now than I did 45 minutes ago. 

I encourage you to check out our podcast coming out on Wednesday. Motivation and life hacks are abundant. This week we are talking about the “Make Your Bed Challenge”. I don’t know if that is a real thing or not but we made it a challenge. Starting March 1st we are challenging ourselves and our listeners and readers to do the challenge with us! This is a productivity challenge. We go into detail behind the reasoning as to why it is important to start your day off by making your bed every day. So if you feel like your life is spinning out of control or you need a little more regimentation and order in your life, Wednesday’s podcast is for you. So start your day off by making the bed, and remember that intention is better than perfection. 

If you participate in our "Make Your Bed Every Day" Challenge, be sure to tag us on your Facebook and Instagram posts:  @ModernMusingsMMC and #mmcmakeyouredchallenge

Procrastination, Perfectionism, and Expectations

 

Yesterday on the podcast, you heard Christen introduce the idea of the 70% Method (or Rule) to help combat perfectionism and become more productive. Like Christen, I am a procrastinator. I can find all kinds of things to do to avoid starting or working on a project, and for many different reasons, including perfectionism. In fact, I’m writing this blog post at 12:42 A.M. and it is technically supposed to post at 9:00 A.M. That means I’m going to have to hope Amber can proofread it first thing in the morning, and I might get it posted sometime around noon. Oops….

This is not a new behavior for me. I may have mentioned my bookkeeping and taxes a time or two on the podcast; they’ve become a long-standing thorn in my side because I can never seem to get them caught up. As the tax deadline looms, panic mode sets in and I scramble as hard as I can to crunch all those numbers and get them handed over to my accountant for the tax prep part of it. Then, as soon as I get the previous year’s reports turned in, I slump into a “much-needed reprieve” from the stress – in other words, I drop it like it’s hot and move on to the next thing until tax crunch time rolls around again the next year. As time goes on, my dilly-dallying pushes me closer and closer to the deadline until…oops! Yep, I got my files turned in too late to make the extension deadline. Now what?

When Christen shared the info about the 70% Rule, she was talking about the problem of perfectionism getting in the way of starting on (or finishing) a project. It’s a valid point. As an artist and writer, I am as guilty as they come, and I often feel like I have nothing at all to say, create, or write, unless it is the perfect thing to say, create, or write. But what’s the deal with my taxes? I certainly don’t have any aspirations of perfection when I’m tallying up how much money I spent on office supplies and postage – it is what it is. So, why can’t I seem to get motivated to work on that bookkeeping throughout the year and keep that stress down to a minimum?

The answer is pain avoidance, another common reason for procrastination. Yep, those taxes are not what I want to be doing. I’d rather be doing just about anything else in this whole world than sitting down with my calculator and a whole stack of computer reports and bank statements. I look over at that ginormous box of receipts, and my monkey brain says, “Time for a snack!” Then, 10 minutes later, it suddenly remembers that I need to add mustard to the grocery list. Oh, and don’t forget to start a load of laundry! It doesn’t help that I have ADHD and have a hard time focusing on unpleasant tasks anyway. So, while the 70% rule is great for combatting perfectionism, it doesn’t solve my problem. Besides, I don’t think I want my taxes to be only 70%, no matter how quickly I complete them – the I.R.S. might frown on that.

Procrastinators, especially those of us who practice pain avoidance, are masters at coming up with reasons to evade the things they would rather not do. “I need to set up this cruise workbook…”, “the laundry needs to be folded,” and “Mercury’s in retrograde,” have all been an excuse at some time or another. Okay, maybe not “Mercury in retrograde,” but you get my point. My excuses always have something to do with time, and I’ve often claimed that I just have too much to do and not enough time to do it. That part is probably true, but it’s my own fault. I could set aside some things to focus on those taxes. Yes, the laundry will pile up, but I can still see all of that cruise group’s data on the printouts in a folder instead of a ring binder. The point is, the world won’t come to an end if I let those things slide and just get focused on the taxes for a time so that I can get them done. I just have a hard time letting go of how I think things should be. My expectation is that the laundry will be folded and put away on Monday after I wash it, and I feel like I should set up that cruise binder just as soon as I book the group so that it can serve as a handy reference tool while I add new reservations and other documents to it.

This idea of expectations came to me from Christen a few weeks ago. We were working on our One Little Word projects for October and we interviewed each other (along with another friend) on how we were progressing with our words this year. At one point, I asked the question, “What is the one thing I could let go of in my life that would make the biggest positive difference?” I was expecting answers like, “over-scheduling yourself”, “taking care of everyone else”, or “doing all the housework”, but the first answer I got was, “Let go of your expectations.” (Boy, do I wish she’d said, “Let go of doing all the housework!”) It took me by surprise, but it only took me a minute to realize she was right. I have this expectation that my day…my schedule…my life is going to be a certain way. That I will wash the laundry on Monday, and Tuesday I will run errands. I often schedule so much into my day because I feel it is expected of me to stay on top of all these things. In reality, I am so overscheduled that there is no way I could complete it all, and on top of that, it leaves no room for me to edit my plan or to work on something that is not part of that routine. The taxes and reporting part of my business happen only at certain times, so they defy my expectations of how my schedule will work. To further complicate things, I just heap on even more expectations by thinking I should be getting all these things done on my task list, but what happens is that the list is so daunting, I don’t even know where to start. My expectations are so unreasonable that I actually give up before I even begin.

Just this morning, I spoke with my therapist about the interview project and how I agreed or disagreed with some of the answers I got. And while I did agree with Christen on the issue of expectations to some extent, I did not agree with the assessment of my other friend who was part of the interview (more on that in a future blog post). It left me feeling like there was something they missed. Surely there is something I could let go of that would make my life easier. But what could I let go of that would make the biggest difference for me? As we talked it over, the only thing that came to my mind was the stress of being the responsible party for my mother, who (as I’ve mentioned before) has dementia. She currently lives in a memory care facility, but it is very expensive, and her money is dwindling fast. I’m now faced with the daunting task of moving her again, and it’s a task that I’ve put off for far too long (there’s that pain avoidance again). 

What my counselor helped me to see was that even though I can’t let go of the responsibility of moving my mother, I can break it down into smaller, more palatable chunks and then focus on it wholeheartedly until I get that chunk done. The key here is focusing on that one thing that is most important right now (remember the Eisenhower Matrix?) – what is the most urgent and important? In a way, it’s a lot like ripping off the bandaid; it only hurts for a minute and then it’s done. It also helps to keep the “why” at the forefront. Why is this task so important? 

This also plays into another percentage rule – the 80/20 rule, which states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. By using effective time management to prioritize and work on only the most vital few things, I can be more productive and it will have the biggest consequences in my life. If I can just spend 20% of my time working on those big things I’ve been avoiding, it will make a huge difference in my productivity because the most important things will be done. On top of that, I won’t have spent so much time making myself miserable by thinking about (and beating myself up over) all the things I’ve been procrastinating. That means less stress, and I like the sound of that! 

So tonight, I sat down to write this blog, having nothing to say (or so I thought), but I just started typing, and here we are at the end. Obviously, I did have something to say after all, and I’m glad I managed to prioritize this task and make myself do it. By shutting down that perfectionist in me and allowing myself to present an idea that was just 70% good, I managed to knock out two and a half pages about procrastinating, perfectionism, and expectations, and it’s only 2:48 A.M. And that, my friends, means it’s time for bed!

If you enjoyed this post, or you have more to add, please feel free to comment below or start up a conversation on our Modern Musings Facebook group: MMC Chat