*sigh*
So I sorta, kinda lied here last week. Forgive me.
Well, Working Angel is a truth, but not the truth. Meaning it is something I believe at this point in time, but the story is I wanted to write and didn’t want to discuss the real issue. Of course I have the option, on what I discuss here or do not discuss, but…. this was probably something I should discuss, because that discussion may help others, and at this point in time I am curious how many more times I can mention discuss in this particular sentence.
See I am more honest about how my mind works and how it rambles along on it’s own path, but that’s not the issue at hand.
98% of the time that I am awake I am thinking about things.
How to do I get this site to talk to that site. What will make Mike’s site look better? How can social media be made easier for Sarah? Wonder what SN needs to improve sales? Can I write a book in a month? What will that book cover to really help people? Am I helping people right now? Have I eaten? Have I emailed Barb? Scott? Sarah? Mary? Lee? Karen? Thomas? Can my readers tell I have an issue with emailing people when I should? Has Tony emailed me back? on and on and on and on….
So I am trying out two different task programs to hopefully alleviate the “have I done this or that” questions. This will need to be made into a daily habit and a lifestyle change.
Lifestyle change… there is the other issue. See the truth is I nearly had a major meltdown last week. Fortunately I realized that I was losing this war and wanting to shut down. Also while wanting to shut down some wonderful people reached out, asking was I ok. This meant more than I can tell them, but sadly in my minor meltdown everything from last week is blurred together.
As it is, I spend a full day crying. A few days later I spend the day with a major migraine that had me sleeping with my head on an ice pack. Sad, because the night before I had a wonderful time with classmates. And while some said a hangover, I woke up early and spent an enjoyable morning walking 2 miles in the cool rain. Then by lunch could not eat or drink anything.
What caused this meltdown?
MY FAULT! Mia Culpa. 4x my fault
1) I became obsessed. A client had major issues with a site I created. This problem seemed incredibly simple and seemingly familiar. Yet seeing so much hard work broken, and not working as it should, I beat myself up about it horribly. I also became CrAzY Obsessed on finding the problem and fixing it. This meant not sleeping, and constantly running scenarios in my head.
2) I was not balancing my life. I really wanted to make something great for a client and allowed it to consume WAY TOO MUCH time. So I was upset that I was not working with my other clients as I should, I carved time out of my chores for them. My chores suffered because I didn’t have enough time for them. So that meant I sacrificed time to write. But I still needed to write so I carved off some of my time relaxing. Because I was tired my creativity suffered. Because so much time was spent on other things, I was getting far too little sleep.
3) I denied my creative outlets. Yes I got in a few paintings lately, but writing, painting, and other things are part of what I need to be me. This does include some graphic design, and site set up, but creatively not for others. I do love a good site destruction. (The point of destroying a site is seeing at what point it breaks, then going backwards to find how to make it better.)
4) Well, that’s one I choose not to discuss. (See above paragraph about discussion) Besides, it would take a novel to explain this one… and you didn’t come to this blog to read a novel… Or did you? Please tell me if you did, and I’ll start writing…. and uh… what would this novel be about???
After the day long crying and the day long migraine, the solution appeared for problem 1. An amazing problem that I have not seen in years which is why it looked familiar… yet foreign because it had been years.
What is the lesson learned?
Take a break. It’s not enough to try to do something different to find the solution, you must mentally, physically and emotionally leave a situation to find a solution. Balance life. If this means creating a to do list and dedicated x number of hours to each task that must be done, do it. If one client is taking up more time than they should then they either need to pay more, or wait more.
I need to take more time for my creative outlets. Speaking of I am going to sell my paintings soon so I can have more money for paint, I want it to be self-sufficient.
Anyway this is turning into a novel, so I had better say adieu!
Live, Laugh, BE HONEST, Love
MJ
PS I love dragonflies. If you ever want brownie points with me … remember that.
