Five Things you can do When Life Overwhelms You

If you’re hav­ing a bad day, week, month even, it’s hard to sit down and focus on writ­ing. Projects which you know are com­ing up, dead­lines creep right along and you just get more and more behind by the moment. It drags on your spirit and takes your cre­ativ­ity with it. But, here are five things you can do that help me. I hope they will do the same for you.

1. Get one thing done. Make at least one task your focus and accom­plish it, com­pletely. You will feel bet­ter to have done at least one thing each day. Don’t slip and let it be some­thing silly or too sim­ple. You need that feel­ing of accom­plish­ing some­thing each day and you won’t get it from just putting away one book when there are twenty piled up and need­ing to be put away.
2. Go out­side. Take a good long walk, make your mus­cles, your body work. Use up some phys­i­cal energy to help get your men­tal energy back in line. Not only will you feel bet­ter but when you’re walk­ing you will get all kinds of ideas, bring along a note­book and pen. You might even bring along a cam­era, see what lit­tle things you notice along the way, once you look out­side yourself.
3. Have a hot, steamy shower. Use the really good con­di­tioner on your hair, the one that needs 5 min­utes to soak in and leaves your hair look­ing like a mil­lion bucks all day. Use a scrub brush on your skin, exfo­li­ate and clean away all the neg­a­tive energy and smuck that’s been build­ing up around you. Clean your body so that you can dry off from the shower and feel fresh. Get your­self a great new shower body wash, like pink grape­fruit or mint scented. How can you not feel bet­ter with such great smells envelop­ing you!
4. Go out for cof­fee (or tea). Take lots of blank paper (plain, not lined) and pens, pen­cil crayons, or wax crayons if you have them. Get a great latte or flavoured cof­fee, what­ever kind of cof­fee smells great when you walk in that door. Take out your pens and paper, begin with a doo­dle. Draw any­thing, start with some shapes if you can’t get into it. Add feet, hands and a face to the shapes you drew. Stick on a hat. How about some acces­sories: a purse, a book, a gar­den hoe, a cof­fee cup, a lap­top, a fry­ing pan, any­thing that pops into your head. Now do another one. Draw at least until you fin­ish your cof­fee. Jot down any ideas you get as you work, all the lit­tle things that come into your mind while you’re cre­at­ing char­ac­ters from the shapes you drew.
5. Take stock of what you have to do. Make a real list of every­thing you have to do, all the projects, the dead­lines and every­thing from your day to day respon­si­bil­i­ties — includ­ing fam­ily com­mit­ments, your job/ career and any free­lanc­ing you are doing. Don’t for­get house­work and all that fun stuff too. Now check your list, add any­thing you for­got when you started. When you are sure you have a full list read it over. Don’t let your­self feel trapped, intim­i­dated or stressed from this moun­tain in front of you. You’re about to make it smaller, more man­age­able. How many things on that list are impor­tant things which you really, sin­cerely must do? How many things are day to day ver­sus once a week, mon­thy or some­thing which you can pro­cras­ti­nate on until your to-do list isn’t so full? Maybe most impor­tant of all, con­sider how many of the things on your list (which are not vital like tak­ing care of chil­dren) are not giv­ing you any­thing back for the time and energy you put into them? Cross off things which you have com­mit­ted to do but are not appre­ci­ated or giv­ing you some­thing back in return. Don’t get stuck in the trap of doing things which really only drain you. Any­thing you cross off your list in this way you should also cross out of your life. This is a great way to lighten your to-do list and give your­self the break you’ve been wish­ing for.

I do not claim to be any kind of pro­fes­sional to help some­one with depres­sion or any kind of issues you are hav­ing. But, being some­one who does get feel­ing trapped, over­whelmed and pretty dis­cour­aged at times I know the things that help me. This is my own list, things that do work for me. If you have things that work for you add them to the com­ments. We can all use more ideas to help us keep going, be pro­duc­tive and feel we are still a part of things, still have worth and more to con­tribute to the world (even if only our neigh­bour­hood of it).

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Tagged as: inspiration, writing issues