Slowing Your Universe Down

Hello my friends and thanks for being here! Right now I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed. Here’s why:

[image error]Yesterday I finished my first draft of book 2 and sent it off to my editor!

While this sounds like a completion (and I absolutely am thrilled about the achievement!), the writing period for this book was mostly a slow time when it came to everything else. I wasn’t blog posting, I was working out less, I slowed my TV writing progress, and I had a lull in my non-writing work extra-curriculars.

Then there’s also trying to get all of this done while having a full-time job and maintaining a social life–or more precisely, battling myself about the kind of social life I can afford to live while on this journey…

So really this morning, after an attempted day off yesterday to, “just relax,” I woke up and all those other things hit me. It’s Sunday and I took off on everything yesterday so now I have to get this done, and that done, and this done, and that done, and this, and that, and then this, and then that.

[image error]The funny thing is that you’re driving towards a dream you don’t want to sacrifice the pursuit of because you only live one time, yet you also feel the weight of the short-term sacrifices you need to make to get there.

It’s tough to deny that in your mind you need to justify either the first or second choice, even though you would likely be happy with either in the end.

But I think the thing you need to figure out and remind yourself every single day is that it shouldn’t be enough to be satisfied. And personally, I’m trying to do that for myself right now just by writing this post.

So my answer about how to slow down the universe when you’re feeling overwhelmed is actually kind of contradictory:

Tell yourself there’s a reason you’re feeling this way because there is: you want to achieve something better and the process of doing what you’re passionate about floors you
Remind yourself, out loud or on the page, what that something better is and why you can’t compromise it
Make a list of all the things you need to get done today
Speed yourself up and kick your own ass to get them all done!

Sometimes we just need to take a minute or two to hype ourselves up, or to find someone else to help us get hyped up. It kind of reminds me of psychiatrist Wendy Rhoades (Maggie Siff) from the show Billions (definitely worth watching!). In the show it’s her job to remind stressed out stock traders why they’re doing what they’re doing and to get them back in the mindset they need to be in to achieve their best.

If there’s one constant in her sessions, the answer is almost never to give up. Instead, find the confident MF’er inside you who’s stuck in a cage of stress, figure out how they got in there, and then it’ll be easier to find the right key to get them out.

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This has been almost as much of a rant as a writing update and I’m gonna go with rant because my own head was cleared along the way