Relaunch: Baby Steps

The other day in the bookstore, I saw a book called “Women Who Do Too Much.” Ha. I’d like to write my own book on the subject. Its title would go something like: “Women Who Try To Do More Than Any Human Being Could Realistically Accomplish In One Lifetime, and Because of This Fact, Become Anxious, Overwhelmed and Mired in Self-Loathing.” I wonder if anyone would buy it. Probably not. I wouldn’t even buy it, and it’s my life story.

Wanting to do too much is my curse and my downfall. Of course, on the silver-lining side of things, this surely indicates that I have a lot of hobbies and interests and ideas and aspirations. Right? But the tarnish on that silver is the fact that having too many goals and interests makes it difficult to be productive. If I’m not doing everything, for some reason, I find it difficult to accomplish anything. I’m staring at a self-imposed mountain of tasks, and I’m so overwhelmed, I freeze up and do nothing. It makes for a very scattered, unfocused and frustrating life.

“So why don’t you just do one thing?” a friend asked me recently. Of course that sounds perfectly logical. Unless you’re me. If I’m doing just one thing, what happens to the other things? What if I never get to them? How can I abandon them like that? It’s like telling me I can only have one friend. Or that I’m only allowed to eat chocolate ice cream. Sure, I like chocolate ice cream. I like it a lot. But what about black raspberry and mocha almond fudge? And butterscotch ripple and mint chocolate chip? I want it all. For example, if I’m focused on my writing, I feel guilty about not doing my music. If I’m doing my music, I’m not creating artwork. If I’m creating artwork, I’m not focused on my writing. And if I’m doing any of these things, obviously I’m not cleaning the house, organizing the basement, or paying the bills. Yes, this can be a torturous internal monologue. Yes, I drive myself absolutely crazy. No doubt I drive Hubby crazy, too. If there’s one thing harder than being me, it might be being married to me.

And so, I have come up with a potential solution. To sum up: Baby Steps. It’s like that old adage about every journey beginning with a single step, instead of trying to run a marathon in twelve directions all at once and finding out that the finish line is getting further away with every flail. Or something like that.

Taking baby steps means setting aside an hour to write, and allowing myself to enjoy the process, instead of being upset that I haven’t completed an entire draft of a novel, and its sequel, too. It means focusing on trying to learn one song on the guitar and find some joy in it, instead of being impatient with myself for not being ready to perform solo. It means cleaning out one box in one corner of the basement instead of reprimanding myself for not reorganizing the entire downstairs.

Baby steps means slowing down and focusing on one thing at a time, trying to enjoy the present, and reveling in the fact that at least I‘m further along than I was before. Even baby steps feel like progress.

Now, if I can only remember this…

-Callie