Raise your hand if you’re feeling any of the following right about now, what with the holidays and life and work and laundry and moving the Elf on the Shelf:
- Put upon
- Exhausted
- Frazzled
- Slightly ticked off
- Really ticked off
- Confused
- Doubting
- Grumpy
OK, listen, I get it. There’s plenty going on in just regular ole life and then here come the holidays. And Thanksgiving was a week later than it was last year so already you’re kind of ‘behind’ in holiday prep, and you’ve probably got some added layer of complexity—right now for us it’s that our four-year-old son is giving up sucking his thumb and so is prone to be a wreck in the afternoons and our laundry room is out of commission while our basement reno project waits for backordered doors to arrive. (First world problems, I realize!)
But no matter what time of year it is, or whatever not-normal situation you’ve got going on, there’s no reason to hang out in your crappy feeling du jour. It’s just not necessary. Plus it makes you less effective in everything you do. And honestly, the world needs you to be feeling good because Lord knows, everything is a little bit better when you are bringing your best.
So what do you do? How do you snap out of an unpleasant emotion?
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to do something that makes you feel good. Which will probably be something you’ve been wanting to do but have been putting off. It should definitely be something that gives you a great sense of personal satisfaction; something that scratches some itch down deep in your soul. Whatever this thing is for you, it is the most important thing you could be doing right now.
Why? Because tending to the things you’ve been wanting to do but have been neglecting raises your energy and restores you in a big, big way. (Click to Tweet!) And when you raise your energy and restore yourself, everything you do afterwards flows so much more easily and effectively.
This is why on Monday, which was a more hectic than usual Monday because we were out of town this weekend and thus hadn’t done any preparing for the week, I stopped in at Radio Shack.
Is shopping at Radio Shack really a restorative thing to do, you may be asking yourself. Why yes, in this case, it most certainly was.
See, my phone was four years old, and it was starting to get weird. I use that puppy for everything, including my livelihood, and I’ve been meaning to upgrade for weeks. Weeks!
But the time never seemed right. And then yesterday, as I was walking through the grocery store parking lot, I looked up and saw the Radio Shack. It beckoned to me. It said, Maybe we have the iPhone 6 you’re looking for. So I popped in.
The nicest salesman, whose name was Wellington (which is an energy-booster in and of itself) said they could back up my old phone while I shopped and have my new phone ready for me to pick up on my way back to the car.
It felt so fun. So exciting. It made what could have been a hectic trip to the grocery store feel like a satisfying adventure. Even when Wellington couldn’t access my account and I had to abort the mission, because the account is in my husband’s name. I didn’t even care. It wasn’t even the phone I was after, it was the feeling that comes from tending to something you want and need to take care of. And I got that in spades.
(As a postscript, my husband surprised me by stopping in to Radio Shack on his way home and completing the transaction. It’s so pretty and now I’m extra in love with him for dealing!)
When you allow yourself to step away from getting things done in the name of honoring a desire, you are rewarded with productivity that feels effortless. It’s a paradox. A beautiful, magical, wonderful paradox. And I hope you’ll give yourself the opportunity to experience it this holiday season.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to do it for a long time. Maybe it’s 15 minutes, maybe it’s an hour. You might not finish whatever said thing is, but you’ll put good effort in toward accomplishing it, and that will still buoy you. If you’re thinking, it may work for her but not for me, just try it.
And if you want a little more guidance on getting out of a mental funk, remember that I am offering a free teleclass on how to Overcome Overwhelm, For Real and For Good. It’s happening later today at 2:00 ET (live! With goodies to give away!) with a replay at 9:30 ET. To sign up for that, click this pretty button!!
Wishing you peace amid the chaos. =)
