Have you ever heard the phrase “it’s a blessing and a curse”? Of course you have, or if you haven’t, maybe you’ve been truly doing nothing for the past few decades in which case you won’t relate to this blog post at all. Or maybe you’ll relate to it too much.
I feel very lucky to have the creative mind that I do. I like the quirky ways it works out problems and the creative means it offers me in which to express those solutions. It’s fun, inventive and weird in a way that I really like. That being said, sometimes I let it run too fast for too long and have to manually turn it off. Kind of like when your computer is fucking up and you can’t figure out why - just turn it off and turn it back on again. I’m learning and implementing skills that teach me how to slow my mind down so that I don’t end up at these crash points. Setting boundaries with the outside world as well as my creative muse, though, is hard and although I’m getting better at it, I’m not perfect. I will always have a lot to learn.
Doing nothing on the beach
One of the methods I use to set boundaries with my creative muse is to keep a journal that contains all of my new ideas. I’ll write down a sloppy log-line and a few points that accompanied the thought and leave it at that. It’s almost a way of saying “I hear you, thank you, I’ve written it down and I’ll get to it as soon as I am able”. This works. Sometimes. Sometimes the ideas come so quickly I can hardly keep up. Sometimes I’m in a very inconvenient place when the idea arises and it never gets to the journal. Sometimes a new idea comes and the project I’m currently working on doesn’t feel nearly as bright and shiny and packed with glitter and ends up getting shoved to the back burner. Sometimes this results in me having multiple projects on the go at once and not one of them being close to completion.
There are a number of lessons I could pull from this: Lessons about the importance of follow through, a number of lessons about the choices we make and the paths they take us down, something trite about the grass being greener on the other side… I’m going to leave those lessons for another day, though, and focus solely on the importance of giving yourself a break when there is too much and how this actually better serves your productivity, or at least the quality of what you are producing.
Doing nothing in a cabin
First, I’d like to extend some compassion and a big hug to myself and anyone who is reading this and finds it relatable. No one ever wants to overwhelm themselves. It’s a terrible feeling and generally speaking doesn’t do great things to your quality of life or the quality of life of the people around you. I truly believe that no one overwhelms themselves on purpose. There are a few reasons it tends to happen, though, and they can include:
Testing or expanding your limits - there is a natural “three steps forward, one step back” cadence when we are learning to come out of our shells and take on more.
Lack of understanding around the task you are setting out to complete - this is also natural. It is natural for us to not know what we don’t know. Setting out to complete a new or different project, then, can land us in over our heads. That being said, this will hopefully be a lesson you only have to learn once or twice. If you lack understanding, a reasonable solution is likely to gain some, or at least step back and acknowledge how little you know so that you can estimate better.
Unexpected life shit-storm - Look, sometimes we end up overwhelmed not as a result of our choices, but as a result of unfortunate circumstances that we find ourselves in. You have likely found yourself in the midst of a shit storm before, and you’ll likely find yourself in the midst of one at some time in the future. It just is what it is.
Before I go on, I’d like to acknowledge that at some point, you will have to get the stuff done. Doing nothing is important, but it doesn’t get the bills paid or the food cooked or the house cleaned or the project done. There are great approaches to the issue of being overwhelmed - making plans, chunking things down, these are all helpful skills that will inevitably assist you in accomplishing that mountain of a to-do list that has you feeling like you have so far to go. After all, you can’t sit at the bottom of the mountain forever and expect to somehow get to the other side without a bit of effort. Even when the effort is something you get enjoyment out of, like with cooking, art and creative projects, it’ll still take some elbow grease and likely still challenge you on a multitude of levels you weren’t expecting. In fact, it’ll probably scare the shit out of you at some point because doing something that feels important is often a little bit scary. That last sentence applies to art but not cooking. I hope you are not scared when you are cooking or I am officially scared to eat your food.
My hats at rest while I rest my feet.
But before you hike, before you plan your pathway up the mountain, take a minute to sit. There will be a list of “what’s next” that’ll want to keep running in your head and I urge you to manually unplug that machine and just sit. Expand your awareness, deepen your breath and then genuinely do nothing. Your body will thank you. Your exhausted brain will thank you. Your project that doesn’t yet have an ending will thank you - believe it or not there’s a chance that you already have all the bits you need but have been so busy your brain hasn’t had the opportunity to plug the pieces together yet.
The view from laying on the grass and doing nothing
Take a moment and imagine that you’ve already done “enough” in life and that everything else is for you. How would you frame of mind change? How would your project change? Pretend that you already have all of the skills you need to finish your next challenge. How does that inform your choices? How does your body feel? And finally, as you gaze up at that summit that you need to reach, the one that sits just beyond the to-do list that overwhelms you, look down at where you are already sitting. Do you realize that you are already on a summit - forged from all of the choices made and journeys traveled up to this point?
I am ending this post with a hug to myself and to all of those who find this piece relatable. Because even if you’ve got a long ways to go, you’ve already come so far and it’s okay to occasionally stop and let that sink in.
A sign posted to remind you that you are already on top of a summit