Yesterday I fell apart. I've been having trouble dealing with all the conflicting pressures I've been placing on myself, to grow personally and professionally I've been challenging myself constantly since loosing my job. Yesterday, after a day of working on my art, pushing myself to complete pieces that have been waiting patiently behind my fitness goals, I cracked.
It's hard sometimes to put a value on the things that I accomplish. Weight loss and fitness goals are easily counted. "I ran for half an hour today." "I did half an hour of Yoga." "I ate 1200 calories." But in the rest of my life, progress is not so easily defined. Do I call a piece done? Do I celebrate the fact that I spent time sketching? What is the goal here?
The upshot of all of this was that I did not go to Belly Dancing last night, and instead spent some time cooking up a very tasty Tilapia recipe with the S.O. (which we accidentally modified heavily due to misreading the instructions.) I did do some Yoga yesterday, half an hour in the morning, so the day wasn't a complete write off, fitness wise.
I think I am in need of some more balance in my life. A way to fit all the pieces together without driving myself batty trying to keep up with everything I want to do. Unfortunately, the first thing that usually gets bumped off my "to dos" is "go to the gym", simply because I am horribly shy and would rather just hide out at home.
I am trying to celebrate the fact that I now consider doing half an hour of yoga "not enough exercise", whereas a year ago, half an hour of yoga would be enough exercise for me to put off exercise for another couple of days. Next week I will go back to Belly Dancing, and Sunday I still plan on attending the Boxing Class of Doom, plus regular gym workouts will resume this evening. Hopefully I can avoid overwhelming myself again.
How do you deal with feeling overwhelmed?
-Meg
4 comments:
Just want to say hang in there! Balance is hard....I am struggling to fit everything in, especially this week. I will say that I always try to make time for myself to workout, even if it is only 20 minutes. I no longer choose that to be the first thing to go! Now, I choose me first!
Oh wow, if you find out the answer to this question will you let me know????
It really is tough! Lowering expectations and cutting myself slack is my usual stategy.
When I feel overwhelmed, I tend to go back to bed and pull the covers up over my head. Not always a very productive response, especially when I'm late for work in the morning.
On the other hand, sometimes this approach works. Often when I'm overwhelmed I'm also short on sleep.
Good question. I think planning is an important element of ensuring that things don't feel like they are getting too much, sticking to the planning is another.
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