I have done an Instagram LIVE on the topic of burnout, and it resonated with so many people.
I am grateful that sharing my story was this helpful. It was not easy. I have also shared it before in the first episode of my podcast.
Continue reading “Resources about Burnout”Today I felt as if fog was lifted off my mind.
I have been feeling fuzzy and unfocused for a while and realized that I was not journaling as usual. Maybe it’s due to writing here everyday, maybe it was focusing on the other shorter journaling habits like gratitude practice, maybe it was working on launching more episodes of my podcast. The reason doesn’t matter. I thought I was fine.
Nevertheless, only after writing for 40 minutes in my morning pages did I feel like I can see clearly. Only when I told the paper what I couldn’t tell people did I feel light. Only when my repetitive unhelpful thoughts were locked on paper could I think new creative thoughts.
Same lesson again: don’t think it, write it.
I seek to improve the degree of clarity in my communications because no one likes to feel confused when they read or listen to something shared with them. Clarity in communication will serve me well in my relationships and also in my work like my podcast and future courses. It is a skill, like any other, that takes practice and requires asking for feedback and implementing small tweaks to improve it.
Two great questions I learned from Seth Godin are:
What is it for? Who is it for?
I can use these questions as filters before writing and sharing an email, a group text or an Instagram caption.
When we ask these questions we will be able to create a clear message that meets the purpose we want to accomplish. I sometimes cancel the whole idea of sending a message when I see that I am only interrupting someone’s day with it and not sharing or adding something valuable.
I invite you to try these questions too. They work super well when designing products and work presentations.
Whenever my friend feels the Fear Of Missing Out on yet another virtual session about an interesting topic for her usually, she calms herself down by saying to herself:
“It’s ok to not attend this time, you will be able to retrieve the information when you do need it. It would still exist.”
I liked her self-talk a lot and plan to use it next time I choose to skip a virtual event just because I don’t feel like it nor have space for it.
Sometimes when I think of all the online courses, audiobooks and kindle books I have access to, I get dizzy and overwhelmed.
When will I ever get through those?
I want to re-frame this question into a gratitude statement:
I am grateful that I am lucky to have such wide access to knowledge.
What I need, though, is to remember:
While I set a superb evening ritual earlier this year, the changes in the local lockdown hours, and consequently working hours, had me mess it up and it is an area I want to improve in quarter 2 of the year. For example, I used to have lunch at work, now with lunch break cancellation at work to leave earlier, I started having lunch in the evenings so I come home feeling too hungry to take a walk.
Moreover, I have written the ritual steps here in my blog and in my planner, but they were nowhere to be seen at the house. I did not make the steps visible enough, I did not repeat them enough, so I simply forgot them.
Starting this month:
Two months into my daily writing habit and I still feel challenged to write in weekends more than other days. Simply because my writing habit context changes.
In weekdays I write in my work office right after I arrive. In weekends I don’t have a time for the habit. In the morning I do my long morning routine and sometimes I work on my pdacast.
Last weekend I made it a point to write as soon as I finished my routine and it felt good to get the writing done all day. This weekend I didn’t and it is 11pm.
I will make it a point to write my blog always at the same time to keep my consistency. Learning about habit contexts shifted the way I perceive my commitment to any habit and I am better able to fix any issues I face with this knowledge.
I planned to launch my 23rd podcast episode this morning. I didn’t. It was 7:30am already and I still had much editing to do. I needed to give up my laptop for my daughter to use for her online classes. We have another small laptop that she could use but today was the special crazy hair day and I wanted her to enjoy her time seeing friends on the bigger screen. I also needed to get ready for my actual job and did not want to take a leave to finish the episode. I did not feel great because I promised the day before it would be out in this morning and because my preparation process failed.
Although I woke up very early as always when I have an episode to launch, the recording part took way too long because I should have prepared differently. My handwritten notes were not helpful as I expected. My previous process of typing my notes and reading them off my laptop screen worked better.
That was my hard lesson for today and I will try again this evening. Or better yet, tomorrow morning.