It’s Friday. I woke up mentally and emotionally spent. It took everything in my power to respect the alarm clock this morning, and even once out of bed, it was a concentrated effort to open up my laptop. Dread.
In the past, I would have dismissed that feeling, chalking it up to a normal part of the everyday grind. But that’s not how I’m choosing to live my life anymore. So when that feeling crops up, I take it as a clue. Dread is an indicator that something needs my attention. I either need to reevaluate, adjust, or change something completely.
We’re often far too busy to do any kind of internal reflection–and then we wonder why we’re face down in a pillow sobbing so hard we can’t breathe. Listen to me when I say this; it’s really easy to fall into to a life you don’t want. And busy-ness is a major contributing factor to this epidemic.
Breakdowns don’t just happen. Burnout doesn’t come on like the flu. There are warning signs left and right. Symptoms. But we’re too busy to pay them any attention. We keep telling ourselves we’ll get to it later–but by the time it demands our attention, it’s so big that it paralyzes us all together. Cycle repeat.
If we pay these little nagging feelings the attention they deserve when they crop up, it’s ten times easier to identify the culprit and rectify the situation with small adjustments. Or, if you want to be like me circa 2017, you can let them all build up and then just set your whole life on fire. Seems like a no-brainer, huh? Right, that’s what I thought.
Boundary Check-in:
First, you need to give yourself permission to be 100% in control of your life. It’s important to recognize that your actions and decisions can and often will affect others. But ultimately, you need to embrace the freedom that you’re allowed to make adjustments as necessary.
- Take some time to sit with your thoughts. I like to journal things out, but if you’re not a pen and paper kind of person, you can opt for a nice walk or even just to sit outdoors for a few minutes, distraction-free.
- Run an internal thought check. I tend to think about my week, giving each thing my focused attention in order to determine how it makes me feel. If it’s something that doesn’t stir up any major emotions, I move on to the next. If it’s something that causes an anxious reaction, I jot it down.
- Once I’ve completed my internal thought check, I evaluate my list. Sometimes there’s nothing on it (yay!) but sometimes there are quite a few things that need my attention. For each item, I try my best to diagnose why it’s causing me anxiety and then I brainstorm a few solutions that could help eliminate the panic. System repeat.
It may come as a surprise to you to find out how big of a difference these little check-ins can make. A lot of times, anxiety can make something feel much bigger than it actually is. And when we stuff it down instead of paying it attention, it can rob us of our emotional energy. Many times, these little nagging anxieties can be easily resolved with a quick minor adjustment. But when we ignore them completely, things tend to spiral out of control and you’re left with a much bigger problem.
If you’re feeling all kinds of out of control today, take a few minutes to run a boundary check. Determine exactly what it is that’s making you feel panicky (spoiler alert: it’s probably just one specific thing that’s poisoning your entire day/week/month/outlook). And brainstorm a few actionable steps that you can actually take to solve the issue. I promise you’ll start to feel a lot better!
To help you out, I created an exercise to help you thought download! Get yours below!
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