“Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.” – Dale Carnegie. So true! You keep talking about managing energy and being productive. What are your best tips on minimizing all these emotions to be super effective?
My favorite mental trick is postponing feelings until they are no longer relevant.
Consider:
BRAIN: {{{STRESS}}}
You: Stop feeling that.
BRAIN: {{{STRESSFUCKYOU}}}
You: I am going to get a massage. I hear that massages are relaxing.
BRAIN: {{{STRESS}}} When will this be over ohmygod my problems are getting worse with every minute {{{STRESS}}}
As opposed to:
BRAIN: {{{STRESS}}}
You: Okay, I will give myself over to feeling all this stress just as soon as I finish this one thing. It’s stress time in two hours!
BRAIN: Oh. Okay, great. I’m right here, waiting. {{{stress}}} {{{whimper}}} [silence]
You: [Do stuff.]
BRAIN: Oh, hey, I feel pretty good. What’s this on the agenda? Stress? Naw, let’s look pictures of Idris Elba.
It’s hard to trick yourself into not feeling something. It’s much easier to compartmentalize and postpone. Do that well enough, and those feelings will no longer be relevant when you get back around to feeling them.
Also, physically go someplace new. You stay in anyplace long enough — your desk at home, the office where you work — and you’ll associate it with some kind of trauma and failure, because a lot of life is about trauma and failure. So park yourself at a coffeeshop in a strange neighborhood. This is the new place where you feel like a new version of yourself. You will ultimately have to abandon this place for an even newer place where you can be an even newer version of yourself.
Try that.
Jen
Originally published on DailyBull, Get Bullish’s official Tumblr.
