Knowing What To Stop
I can start things – I have ideas that begin. I’m REALLY GOOD at coming up with something, getting SUPER excited and spending a weekend on research. My problem is the lack of follow through because I don’t know what other things to STOP.
I am the person in the all-you-can-eat buffet line trying to load up seven courses onto the medium-sized dinner plate. On the buffet it looked amazing, but I overstuffed – the wrong food is touching, the sauce is mixing with the gravy, and there is a huge potential for many things to fall off the plate on my walk of shame back to the table.
The food isn’t going anywhere – I can go back to the buffet. I can start small, enjoy myself, and get something else if I want to.
It has to be a lizard-brain thing. I have to HAVE IT ALL DO IT ALL NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT NOW. I am a hoarder on the buffet of ideas. I collect and start them but am never consistent enough to follow through and make it into a reality; naturally I think I should be able to do them all, do them all well, and do them all at the same time.
It’s a disaster.
I could make excuses for it. I could say I don’t have the time and it would make sense; it’s a plausible plot. I have a demanding career, a husband, a six year old son, a grumpy German Shepherd, two chickens, a house, bills, a tenant, travel...the list goes on.
But it’s bullshit and I know it. I realized it especially hard this holiday break; my office was closed so I worked from home. What more time is saved than not having to get ready, no commute, nothing in my way - easy to sneak in some extra hours for myself. And I did. Every day. Every SINGLE day I spent at least three hours doing laundry, vacuuming, scrubbing, and cleaning the house.
Let’s just take that in. I found three hours every day and I did the SAME EXACT THING with those three hours – nothing got checked off. I didn’t spend time cleaning to set me up for the break – I returned to it every morning. My routine was easier to do then figure out what project to focus on. The theory of time being the issue was proved wrong.
What’s left is focus. I have to say goodbye (for now) on certain things in order to create and make the difference I want to. Maybe I’ll choose the “wrong idea” to focus on – maybe it won’t go anywhere. And yet...I will gladly take the failure of really trying and fleshing out an idea than the constant anxiety I feel of running in place.
It’s not failing that we need to be petrified of. It’s never starting because you are too heavy to get off the ground.
