A New Leaf

Last fall, I was feeling very overwhelmed.

I found a few peaceful moments - getting a massage with a gift card I received, a paint-your-own pottery date with my mom - but mostly it felt like my work-life balance was all work and there was no end in sight.

When I was at the spa getting the massage, I saw a tiny book on a shelf called Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much, and I immediately identified with it.  I'm a woman! I do too much!  This book was made for me!  And so I added it to my Amazon wishlist.

Painting pottery on a random Monday off in a quiet pottery studio reminded me how much I used to love art class, drawing and coloring.  One of my favorite places as a kid was visiting the artist neighbor who had baskets upon baskets of every color of marker you could possibly wish for.  I remembered that my brother had given me a coloring book when I was a senior in high school with mandalas (none of those childish topics), and I enjoyed it a lot.  I thought about getting one now, so I did a quick Google search and learned that coloring books as therapy for adults is very popular right now.  I added 3 books and a set of colored pencils to my Amazon wishlist.

As luck would have it, my incredibly intuitive baby niece gave me coloring books for Christmas, and my thoughtful sister-in-law gave me the book of meditations.

Unsurprisingly, these items, this stuff, did not miraculously heal me of my terrible work-life balance.  They did not bestow peace upon me with immediate and total results as I had hoped.

But they were a good start.

As the spring wore on, I tried to make myself aware of what was causing my stress; I tried to use these gifts as tools to regain balance; I tried to be open to self help.  But I'm a strong-willed, intelligent woman, and it took time for me to realize I didn't know everything.

One day, in the middle of a good week, I was asked to meet with someone for some unsolicited time management advice.  My week took a terrible turn for the worse because I was offended that someone who is not me thought that they knew what would help me.  As if I hadn't had training on time management, as if my current work situation allowed me any control over my time.  Thankfully, after a few days of fuming, I had cooled off before the meeting, and I was receptive and open.

So I'm trying to turn a new leaf.  I'm only a few weeks into this new process, but I can feel the positive results.  I also felt the negative result of returning stress when I fell off track for a day, which reassured me that this advice was helpful, and neither the meeting nor the suggestions were a waste of my time.

I have always struggled with the balance between positivity and realism in my work life.  I know that "the beatings will continue until morale improves" is not a way to motivate a team, but I felt like I had somewhat fallen into that trap.  I'm optimistic that with my new outlook and time management plan, I can be more productive and feel so good about myself that team morale will naturally improve as I become more available to help the team rather than wallow in my previous puddle of overwhelmed non-productivity.

Now, if only I can find a better way to manage spring allergies...