Tag Archives: stress

From Passion Projects to Stress Projects

It will forever confuse me when a passion project is turned into a stress project.

(sidenote: shouldn’t all projects be passion projects?)

Yes, I understand that a lot of time has been poured into this project. Yes, I understand that the rest of life’s path is dictated by the outcome of this project. Yes, I know this is a passion. Yes, I also know somebody had to give birth to this baby.

I know it’s hard to let a project out of our hand, and delegate some tasks to others that have maybe more skill, knowledge, or experience in the necessary areas. But I also know that it does absolutely no good when we continue to grasp at that project like it’s a bag of falling beans.

Absolutely there are critical points in the next phase of this projects development that we should have input on, like the color scheme of a new book cover, or the photograph used in our bio or front page of new website.

However, when the we start telling the delegated (the SEO expert, the typist, the designer, the publisher, the artist, etc.) they’re not doing it right, it’s us who’s not doing it right.

Here’s an idea.

Delegate the stress.

 

All In An Instant

There is patience and there is crippling fear.

Patience is an aware look at the situation, using better forms of judgement and aptitude to gauge prospects plainly laid out in front , and using all of this information to base judgements and action upon.

And then there is crippling fear that roots one so hard to their current situation that one fails to acknowledge discomfort, stress, and effects on health and mood before it’s too late and something breaks.

Both of these situations take just one single moment, one single instant to rectify, both within ourselves through our own actions or mindset, or through external forces that may just be the factors in the situation itself. A simple unexpected event.

But we can’t plan for the unexpected. We can plan, we can strategize, but the unexpected is.. unexpected.

It’s the difference between saying: “Yes, I understand that things are busy right now, getting out of control, but I’m creating plans and routines and methodologies to help with this, that I’m very eager to practice! Patience and persistence will solve this problem shortly.”

Or I can say: “I am so busy. I can’t do this. Why do these people keep demanding of me. I’ll never get this done. But I can’t stop, or somebody might get mad. Everybody is counting on me. There is no alternative. Must just keep doing as quick as demands come in.”

I prefer doing anticipatory work, rather than reactionary work. I prefer looking for schemes that will allow me to scale easily, rather than lurching like an old rusty transmission.

Smart & hard, not just hard. But this is my efficiency, not yours.

Mentally Tough and Small Discomforts

It’s easy to get lost. To start swimming with the overwhelming nature of more and more and more to do. More people want our attention. More articles to write. More service to provide. More hours at work…

Stress builds up inside us when we try to control our conquering path of each task with utmost attention. Is this necessary?

Perhaps accepting these small discomforts are out of our control (allowing our subordinates to do something without our hawk eyes constantly honed, for example) is a necessary step to conquer?

This initial discomfort slowly dwindles to a cautious reminder, a check point strategically placed to check in and ensure all is aligned as it should.

How do you remind yourself?

 

Stress, Complain, and Get Upset

We live life. This isn’t ever going away until the day we die. So that is fairly set in stone.

As we live our life, each day is met with events: second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day. Good events, bad events, sad events, happy events.

This is our day. This is our path. There is no escaping this. It is our scheme how we let each event lead into the next event; this is our master plan, our grand illusion.

The way I see it, we have two choices. We can love each encounter and event, seek to share and exchange energy, and waltz through each moment of the day…. or we can get stressed, complain, and upset when the events don’t go as expected.

It’s your choice really.