I’m normally quite a chilled person. Nothing phases me. Until…
- I take on too much work
- I get into my ‘yes’ mode and make arrangements and dates that clog my diary
- I volunteer my services willy-nilly
- My housework starts to mount
- My ‘to do’ list grows around the garden (especially as I’m trying to do the whole sustainability thing)
- I have awesome ideas but have to implement them (adding to the head clutter and time/schedule disaster)
I’m sure you can probably relate to most of the above. Then what happens is that chilled out person who thought they could take on the world in a heart beat starts to panic.
The Signs of a Meltdown
The walls of my diary close in and anxiety starts to rear its ugly head.
- Panic attacks
- Sweaty palms
- Emotional outbursts (usually involving tears)
- Temper whirlwinds
- Depression
- Feeling defeated and impotent
- Losing it over the smallest things
We can experience the above on a smaller or larger scale, depending on the level of anxiety and what looms ahead.
Okay, so what can be done?
Anxiety Be Gone!
Well, I’m trying to give myself a well-deserved pep talk here ’cause I suddenly realized the other day that I was slipping off the cliff of the ‘work’ I had piled up.
Amid my darkest moment, I came to the conclusion that it was going to be done whether I fretted about it or not. And what couldn’t be done was just not going to be done. It’s really quite simple.
So, on a practical level, try to:
- Get what’s in your head down onto paper (this works a treat!)
- Now you can make a priority list
- Schedule your time wisely and you’ll find you can fit a lot into your day
- Don’t stress about how much you’ve got to do by getting tangled up in the future tasks — concentrate on the task at hand
- Read no. 4 again.
- Yip…read no. 4 and 5 again!
- As Yoda said, ‘Do or do not’ — in this context, do what you must do and stop whinging about it. Have you ever stopped to think how much time we waste worrying or bitching about what we have to do instead of doing it?
Example: I have a mountain of clothes to pack away. Every morning I get up and look at this mountain and feel despair. It affects me greatly. I don’t like a messy bedroom — that’s where I’m supposed to go to relax, not stare at a heap of rags.
What not to do: Whine about the job. Look at the heap in deflated impotence. Complain about how much other stuff you have to do. Sit and have a cup of coffee and catch up on your Facebook feed. Or, in my case, write a blog about it, whilst — out of the corner of my eye — I can see into my bedroom and the washing pile is staring happily back at me.
Solution: Do it. A 5 minute rant could have you half way done by now. You can have that cuppa AND pack the washing away (what a novel idea!).
There is actually plenty of time in a day when you use it wisely. The above example is small fish compared to some of the whoppers we have to face in life and prepare for. However, inevitably, we are remarkable creatures with an ability to squeeze a lot into our lives when our minds are prepared well enough.
Let’s go back to no. 4, 5 and 6 of the tips list. This tip has helped me exponentially over the past few days. I’m a Virgo and a control freak. When my schedule starts mounting up and I feel like I’m losing control — it’s a blood bath! I have the tendency of looking ahead at what I have to do tomorrow, the next day and so on into infinity. This makes matters worse.
All we have to concentrate on is what lays before us today. You can deal with tomorrow, well, tomorrow! If it’s really a pickle, then set aside 10-15 minutes of today to work out a game-plan for tomorrow so you can at least get some sleep.
If there is ever something to remember about anxiety it’s this: one step at a time! You’re amazing and you’ll do it all, only if you tackle what’s in front of you now. As my dear mother used to say, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’.