How often do you take on too much and then find yourself swamped and overwhelmed and on the verge of mental catastrophe? If you are anything like me, the answer is frequently! I blame mania for a lot of it. I feel like I can do anything and everything during those times. I begin several projects, make promises to people about things I will do for them, and make plan upon plan upon plan, fully elaborated in notebooks full of written out schedules and ideas. I pay attention to every detail, to the point that I don't really accomplish any real work. My mind is racing too fast to settle down and focus on completion of anything. Everything begins to spin faster and faster. More ideas! More promises! More illusions of what I am truly capable of. Suddenly, it's a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions, and I'd give anything just to make it all go quiet and leave me be. And then I crash. And when I crash post mania, I crash hard.
The people closest to me are always telling me, "Amy, you've got to slow down. Prioritize. Focus on what is really important, and let the rest of it go." I don't think they realize how difficult that is for me. For one thing, I don't really know how to prioritize. It all seems important to me! But then I have to take a deep breath and think about what my job really is. I am a homemaker and a mother. Keeping my young son physically and emotionally taken care of is my most important job. Making sure everyone is fed is my job. Keeping the house off Hoarders: Buried Alive is my job. Writing is my hobby, and I have two books under way that mean a lot to me. Likewise, this website is very important to me, because I want to help others who struggle like I do. But I get too intense about it at times. I let it take precedence over everything else. I have all these ideas on how to orchestrate it better, to make it bigger, to make it absolutely awesome. But if I let my writing projects get in the way of my home life, it becomes a problem. As much as I want to take my writing to a more serious and job worthy level, it has to remain a hobby for now. That is the limitation I personally have to accept for now. To take on any more, especially right now with my moods and anxiety being very unstable, is to risk a full blown nervous breakdown. I have been there before, and I don't want to go there again.
The key to accepting your limitations is to find out what they are! You can't draw lines if you can't see where to draw them. To understand your limitations, think of what normally holds you back. What do you consider your weaknesses to be? For me, I am not good at multitasking. I have to take one step at a time or I get overly stressed. Your limitation may be similar, in which case it would not be wise for you to plan a baby shower for your best friend and have a big assignment due around the same time at work.
One of the hardest lessons is learning to say no. People will ask you for favors, your boss will ask you to work overtime, your kids will want to sign up for every sport and extracurricular activity under the sun. Decide what you can feasibly say no to, and carve out time to do the things you have to. Always ask yourself the following:
- Do I really have to do this?
- What are the consequences if I don't do this task, or put it off to a later date?
- How can I pace myself with the tasks I need to complete before a certain deadline in a way that I avoid becoming stressed?
- What is the reward for completing this task on time?
-Amy Purdy
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