How To Cope When Things Get Out of Hand
This is a diary of the healthy lifestyle goals that my son, Chris, and I are making together each month. Since it takes 21-30 days to develop a new habit, making a goal for the month ahead is an effective strategy.
The buddy system is one of the main ways to get motivated. I’ve always found that if I say out loud to someone what I plan on doing, I’m more likely to do it. Because if I say I will, I feel responsible to follow through.
Age doesn’t matter. It’s never too late. You can always make progress and even reverse the signs of aging!
Two months ago, Chris and I made goals but did not accomplish them by the end of the first month. So we decided to try again for one more month. We still didn’t get anywhere with those same goals, but we learned a few things along the way. Our goals were:
ME: I was going to try improving my choice of foods. I decided to concentrate on increasing fruits, vegetables and proteins, trying to include some in every meal.
CHRIS: Once he was established in his new job, he wanted to try to find ways to get to the gym three or four days a week again. He had been so successful with that in the past!
We just spun our wheels on these goals, doing better from time to time but not nailing it. We were both becoming more and more busy and it built up to such a crescendo that we learned something from it. Maybe it happened to you too.
Here’s what we learned about how to handle too much to do:
Although I am in Detroit and Chris is in New York, we both had the same problem and the same conclusion from it. We discovered this as we talked on the phone. You have to prioritize and let the rest go. And while juggling lots of work and responsibility, self-care becomes extremely important to fit into the schedule. That’s where we both felt it was important to squeeze in time for exercise.
Chris and a co-worker were talking about a huge project they were being asked to do in addition to their usual workload. They were feeling overwhelmed and agreed it was too much for them and definitely unhealthy. Chris said, “The way I look at it, I just have to focus on the work that will bring the most value and the rest will just have to wait.” His co-worker said that made sense and it made her feel relieved.
Recently, I have been learning about heart coherence from the HeartMath Institute and Dr. Joe Dispenza, author of “Becoming Supernatural: How Common People Are Doing the Uncommon”. They are doing groundbreaking scientific research on the relation of frequencies and nerve fibers that go between the heart and the brain, and how this affects our health and quality of life. Ultimately, they have found that feeling love and joy heals your heart, your body and your whole life.
So Christmas should be good for us emotionally by filling us with love rather than draining us of energy. 😉
So conversely, when we feel despair and panic and stress from being overwhelmed, that replaces love and joy and peace. And then your good health is more vulnerable to disease.
Whenever I am caught up in a stressful event now, I remember what I heard Dr. Joe say in a YouTube video interview. One day at work, his staff came to him with a big emergency and as he felt the stress mount he took a deep breath and let it out saying, “I’ve just got to let go of that.” His staff shrieked in shock, “What?! You can’t just let this go!!” And he had to laugh about it. Because, yes you can just let it go. Ultimately, though, his point was that he did not want to let go of the good feelings he had in order to hang on to something else that didn’t feel good. It just wasn’t worth it.
As more and more responsibilities piled up until there were too many to handle, I was forced against my will to let things go…things that I thought were too important to let go. But there wasn’t really an alternative. And after letting them go, I tried to take a break for myself because that ended up being the biggest priority. So at that point, I re-balanced everything in a (somewhat) more relaxed way with breaks for me.
For the month of December, when the holidays are upon us, Chris and I want to try to get back our previously good habits of exercising regularly and eating foods that are good for us. (I’ve been to two holiday dinners already and the biggest feasts are yet to come!) I will consider going to the gym and walking or running to be my breaks from all the work. I’ll try to schedule it into my calendar in order to make it happen. In fact, I’ve been thinking I should schedule blocks of time for each of the big projects going on so that I can handle them all.
How do you handle it when you have too much to do? Tell us the good, the bad and the ugly in the comments below. Lol!
Like this post? You might also want to read other posts in my Health Goal Diary here.
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