Right now, I’d like to stop feeling overwhelmed. I’m still editing my book and finding myself frustrated and overwhelmed with the 40,000+ words. I’m well and truly married to this thing, so it’s hard to see the forest from the trees sometimes. I took a break this morning to try and regroup, and here’s how it went.
I wanted to try to look at my feelings and situation from a new perspective and shift my attitude and mood from being so down. When a character in a fictional story is low, you, as the reader, can feel it. I believe it’s the same with non-fiction. When the author is down, you, as the reader, can feel it. Of course, I don’t want my readers to be down; I want to inspire and bring them up to explain that there ARE ways to think more authentically.
In my book, The Want Mindset, I talk about how wanting is driven to gain a reward or alleviate pain, sometimes both. But if you’re in a difficult situation or a difficult mood, knowing what you want to feel can help to shift your perspective.
“Knowing that you want to feel upbeat only comes when you can label the emotional end state of feeling down in that moment. This is how the emotional values you place on things, places, actions, and experiences in the past will guide you in the future. It’s also a great coping skill to help get through a tough situation.” – Beth E. Lee, The Want Mindset
It’s time to take my own advice. I feel overwhelmed right now with the slow progress and the amount of work to do. I am feeling frustrated that I can’t be more productive. I feel down at the prospect of this edit taking me weeks to finish. I feel this pain right now because I still place high values on perfection, efficiency, and output with all my work. It’s these emotional values that are guiding my current overwhelmed emotional state. The negative thoughts and feelings are bringing about stress and sadness. So, I have to calm down and change it up.
I want to remove this stress and feel confident in what I’m doing. I want to feel these positive feelings, so I started to assess my situation with the two foundational questions of what’s most important right now and what’s happening right now.
When it comes to perfection, what’s important right now?
It’s more important that I get it finished. It’s not going to be perfect, full stop. Accepting that I would like it to be perfect is good awareness, but I have to remind myself that no one is perfect, nothing is perfect, and actually, it’s the imperfections that make me. So, it’s okay if it’s not perfect; I can fix things that bother me later.
When it comes to efficiency, what’s happening right now?
I am being efficient, very efficient, in fact. I am spending the time reading my words out loud, which is helping me find mistakes I wouldn’t have found otherwise. I have set aside chunks of time and turned off all distractions so that I can get this done. I am efficient.
When it comes to output, what’s most important right now?
I have already done four chapters and am halfway through the edit! It’s getting done; I just have to be patient.
So, here I am, actually feeling pretty proud of myself. I’m still editing The Want Mindset, but I’ve taken some time to assess and ask questions about my situation. It will take longer than I expected, and that’s ok. I am doing this alone, so I have to take care of myself by taking breaks when I need them. And then remind myself that small steps will eventually bring me to the top of the mountain. This is what thinking with CARE looks like, and I’m ready to get back to it.
Tell me, what do you find helps you reframe your situations? Can you think of a time when you felt negative but wanted to feel optimistic? What did you do? I’d love to hear how you handle these types of situations. Send me an email or connect with me on any of my socials.
Featured Photo by Christa Dodoo on Unsplash
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