Overwhelmed?

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Fall leaves in water
Mark the beginning for my
Spring reinvention.

Feel buried under piles of fallen leaves? Things started, not completed, sadness, regret? Spring and Summer seasons are invigorating, with plenty of warm sun and outdoor activities, many goals set, started, and dropped. Just as leaves drop in fall. 

If spring and summer are happy and lighthearted times, does it follow that autumn and winter must be sad and heavyhearted? Depressed and burdened by all those good intentions of completion and satisfaction that never happened? 

I challenge you to reverse your thinking! IT IS OPPOSITES DAY!

During my graphic/advertising career, I was handling many different jobs for many clients. From simple name changes on business cards to full color tourism magazines…gas station pump posters to flipboards for training. It wasn't unusual to have 30-50 "jobs" at a time. 

Each job had a folder, regardless of its complexity. A stack of 50 folders was daunting, and cause for feeling overwhelmed. I figured out how to switch from overwhelmed to a sense of satisfaction when the pile was reduced at the end of the day.

I would stack the folders with the easiest and quickest jobs at the top. In a flash, I could cut the stack in half! After a few hours I would be down to a handful of folders, and could put in a couple good hours on the biggest projects. On one side I'd have a few folders to be worked on over a period of time, and on the other side a large stack of completed jobs. As long as I could see each folder as equal in importance or time required, my feeling of being overwhelmed decreased! Just a little mind game.

Try this with other things…

  • Household Chores: make an old-school paper list of things to do in order of time required. Blow through the easy ones and you'll feel so accomplished as you mark through them! Just like my folders, each marked through item feels equal to the remaining big ones on the list.

  • List of Errands: Delegate as many as you can. If your partner has reason to be going right past a location, give it to him/her. Mark it off your list. Do the ones close to each other first…you will get more marked off ones than unmarked ones.

  • Time Management: Using my folder example, I place the thing that makes me happiest… and put that at the top of the pile. This way, your best hours will be spent on the thing most important to you and the things that are not as important can be done later. This does away with "I never have time to (paint, exercise, yoga, write a book, learn a craft). Do whatever creative thing you desire to do first, because the Zen you get from that practice will carry you through the chores. So often, we equate the creative activity as playing, so the work stuff (chores, etc.) must be done first…and you are too tired to enjoy the one thing that feeds your soul.

    With a few exceptions, I have always worked from home. In the beginning other stuff encroached on work time. I had to train myself to ignore any messes, laundry, chores during "work time". I got to a point where I could walk right by something that I could do "after work". What does this mean? When I retired, it was easy to keep that habit when it came to my new challenge of learning to paint. I saw painting as my "job" and didn't let anything interfere with that block of time.

    You see, learning something new exercised my brain, gave me the tool to block out my dark memories, and do something that made my heart sing! My days ended up with a happy finish. In my case, the chores would be finished by someone else…or just held over to another time. My art time became the most important thing in my day. The other stuff was a distraction and excuse to procrastinate.

When seasons change from warm and sunny to cold and grey, change your thinking. Sweep away the projects that dissipated in desire or importance. Keep the goals that are still viable and put them in a "new folder". Add new ones, always keeping the easiest or funnest to do first. Axully make a stack of finished projects (or a marked through list) to the side. You will feel satisfaction that you can see!

Maybe autumn is the real beginning of rebirth…sweep out the old, and plant the ideas to germinate until spring.

Colorful autumn
Creates opportunity
To start things anew.

xoxo

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You got this! Be sure to get my free "Axully Art Roadmap"and learn how I did it. Age 51, empty nest...hell, NO NEST to empty...daughter didn't make it out of our house fire on Christmas morning...and my entire life exploded. Art became my focus, my salvation, my burning desire to learn. Along the way, I discovered that the act of painting gave me peace.

Peace where I could heal. Peace I could laugh again.