“Hello and Welcome to Episode 6 of ‘Tuesday Choose Day’, my new inspirational weekly post.
My aim here is to inspire you to feel more positive and more confident within yourself to create the change you want to happen in your life.” I’m offering you here a healthy dose of positivity and fun every Tuesday straight to your inbox.
Today’s Inspiration To Brighten Your Day…
I wonder do you find it hard to say NO? Do you take on more than you can reasonably manage validating your inability to be assertive telling yourself well, ‘he’s a nice guy’ or ‘there’s not really that much to do.’ Have you considered that when you say Yes and don’t say No in some area of your life, you are saying No to what really matters to you.. By this I mean, if you agree to take on an extra role in the community or at work, you will have less time to spend on what you most love to do with your children, your family or your friends. In isolation this extra task may be manageable but when it keeps happening, you’re on your way to feeling overloaded.
There’s a popular saying – “if you want something done, ask a busy person” – perhaps you pride yourself on being busy because it makes you feel popular or successful or even needed in your life. The truth is when you take on too much, you spread yourself too thinly and you may begin to feel edgy and anxious that you might not have it all covered. Your friendships dampen because you just don’t have the quality time to invest, the quality of the work you produce gets watered down, you will likely get overtired and you may notice that you pick up more coughs and colds or headaches. You become anxious and disorganised and it can feel like you are simply losing control.
So how can you take a more positive approach and get a handle on your overload?
Here are my ten positive steps to feeling more calm and in control of your responsibilities…
- First, list everything you have to do in your day and in your week.
- Write next to each activity, the time it takes you then total up how you spend your hours in a week.
- To really see the visual impact of this, draw yourself a pie chart and in the circle fill the segments of how much you do.
- Notice how much is left – this is your free time and time for YOU! – As a minimum aim for an 80/20 split.
- Scrutinise each of these segments and ask yourself – “Is this the best use of my time right now?” if not, it’s time to make a plan.
- You’re not superhuman so stop pretending you are. In each area, list what you tend to worry about and then ask yourself – what needs to happen so that the worry is no longer there? For eg. if you have background worry about due dates on bills, servicing and policies, get organised with your filing so that you can quickly check and let that particular worry go.
- With your worries identified and an awareness of what needs to happen, set yourself a realistic time frame to get each particular task in order. Get creative in how you can set some time aside and stick to it.
- To get you motivated, just imagine how you will feel when you are back in control in certain areas of your life. Breathe into it and imagine it as already achieved. This feeling will help you to keep you focussed on what you want for yourself.
- Then look back over the steps you needed to take to get to this accomplished place. Chunk it down to bite size tasks and decide when you will tackle it.
- What’s the first action you can take today to get you started?!
Adopting this positive and pro-active approach, you’ll give your confidence a real boost to make change happen in other ways in your life too.
Until next time
With love and light x
Do you feel powerless, anxious and overwhelmed to make change happen in your life? I’d like to offer you an immediate opportunity to take a break from your stresses and anxieties. CLICK TO DOWNLOAD my FREE De-Stress Audio.
From the Wobbles and Worries Mailbox…
“Please can you help? A couple of months ago, I started getting nightmares and now to be honest, I am starting to dread bedtimes.
The dreams are different but always scary and I always seem to be being hunted or chased and then just as I am about to be caught or killed, I wake up. My heart is racing and I’m sweating loads. I even jumped out of bed one night and ran out the room and I think I was still asleep! It’s really starting to scare me as it feels like I’m losing control of my mind. It always seems to happen around 2am. Even though I feel relieved when I do wake up because I know it’s a dream, I can’t get back to sleep properly and toss and turn until the alarm goes off at 6.30. My job is very full on and I’m getting so tired at work and finding it hard to keep on top of everything because I’m tired. I’m drinking more coffee to cope with the stress of my workload. How can I stop these nightmares and get back to sleep?
A summary of my advice…
It sounds to me that you have anxieties playing on your mind that you are pushing aside in the day so that you can get on with your job. All the stuff and worries you push aside and ignore in your day get moved from your active and busy conscious mind and stored into your subconscious. When you sleep, your conscious mind rests so your subconscious can run the different programmes to renew your cells and process experiences of your day. This means that any worries you pushed aside and didn’t clear will bubble up as you sleep. The nightmares are representing the fears you are ignoring in your day. The scarier the nightmare, the longer you may have been ignoring. I always say – “If you are ignoring, you’re storing!” You are getting caught in a cycle of daily stress: nightmares – tiredness – stress – coffee – poor sleep – nightmares – tiredness – stress –coffee – poor sleep… To break the cycle, here’s what I suggest you try…
Firstly, before you go to bed, do a review of your day and write down any worries or concerns. Then, put them away in the bedside drawer and close the drawer. Alternatively, imagine writing them down and put them in a box in your mind. Shrink the box until it is small and move away from you almost as if you could place it ‘somewhere up over there’ on an imaginary shelf. By doing this, you are compartmentalising your emotions and signalling to your mind to set aside those worries whilst you sleep.
I’d recommend you create for yourself a ‘worry window’ of say 30 minutes in your day (or maybe at the weekend) when you can focus what is stressing you and look at what you might pro-actively do to help yourself manage and clear the stress.
Secondly, as you get ready for bed, begin to imagine yourself sleeping peacefully through the night. See yourself asleep and imagine the time on the clock changing through the hours whilst you rest deeply until your alarm sounds in the morning. Doing this tells your mind what you want for yourself and you begin to create a positive instruction which becomes programmed into your subconscious.
Thirdly, tempting as it may be, cut down on the coffee and definitely don’t drink it after 2pm. Don’t over-stimulate your mind with too much caffeine. It’s a short term fix but it negatively affects your nervous system and makes it harder for your mind to switch off at night. Instead, get some fresh air, go for a walk in the day and find some simple physical exercises at your desk to keep you alert.
If you feel you can, try talking to your boss and share how you are feeling stressed and tired at the moment so that you can perhaps ease up on your workload for a few days. Now that you have some great advice, it won’t be long until you get yourself back in balance!
Let me know how things improve.
If you’d like my advice with your particular wobble or worry, simply click here for how to get help.
Lisa Skeffington, Anxiety Expert – Anxiety Help Bournemouth