Learning to Be More Gentle with Myself
Last month, I participated in the Bijou Be Well event hosted by Zentangle. By Day 10, I remembered why I started tangling to begin with. When I finished my 21st tile, I made a promise to myself to try and be more gentle with myself – even on the days when things when things seem to spin out of control
Burn Out is a Thing.
Well… duh. How many times do we hear or read about burn out? For me, I hear about it pretty regularly. That doesn’t seem to stop me from piling more and more on my plate. My Notion project/task/life manager positively brims over with stuff to do. I often have very unrealistic expectations of how much I can accomplish in the time I have and then get very frustrated when I didn’t get it all done.
I have a solution to this, though. Since Notion can be completely customized — I built my manager from the ground up, in fact — I can add a few things in to allow me to prioritize and focus. So now, instead of looking at what seems like an endless task list, my “focus” list feeds me a few things at a time. Meanwhile, I decide on the day’s theme – video editing, music recording, writing, etc. Batching items together keeps me in my zone and focused.
I still have a mountain of things I could be doing. Instead of worrying about all of it, I am focused on the highest priorities. If I finish them, I can always add something else to the list. or not.
I don’t have to be busy all the time.
Creatives tend to be on the move constantly. I’m no exception. I love learning new techniques and trying new ideas. Like my Notion list, my idea list runs very long and it continuously grows. In the moment of saying yes to something, I often forget that means I should say no to something else. Then my Notion grows a little more and my list becomes that much more overwhelming.
Last month, as I took 30 – 45 minutes out of each day to create something, I thought about all the yes’s (including the Bijou Be Well project) that didn’t have a reciprocal no. Then I looked at what I said my priorities were versus the stuff I was doing. Unsurprisingly, the two things did not line up. Not even a little bit.
Getting it all lined up.
The first step in being more gentle with myself begins with making time to be creative. Sometimes it involves a plan, but sometimes it shouldn’t. New projects – especially the non-creative ones – need to fit into this, not replace it. Not honoring this space means I am back on the road to burn out.
Now that I have found my way back to this creative path, I look forward to seeing where it leads me. Check out my tiles for Bijou Be Well below. If you’d like to see the slide show I created with one of my songs, head over to my Instagram account.
In the meantime, I invite you to consider how you can be more gentle with yourself.
