Day 11. What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?
11 things? That's quite a lot, isn't it? And I have to work on all of them next year?? Who says? Though, when I think about it, this exercise really forces you to delve deeper down inside, in order to fill the list. Tough stuff! When I ran out of inspiration after about no. 5, I found myself googling other people to see what they'd wrote. Not helpful! It's all about me, right? Not other people. So I clicked off and went inside my brain.
In no particular order (though the fact that this is the order I thought them up in may be significant?). And I must point out that I've been working on some of these things already this year, but I've listed them because they're things that really deserve to be pushed through:
1. Excuses. Whenever I don't do something I'd been meaning to do, there's always a reason. Sometimes they're legitimate; often they're just excuses: "I'm too tired" "it's too hot" "I'd like to make that craft and share it on my blog, but the photos would turn out crap because the light's not good" etc. etc. I'm basically a positive person, and I can look at most problems positively. It's just the ones where extra motivation is required where I have a problem, like exercising and anything that requires moving mounds of stuff before I can do it. (Like half of my art and craft projects at the moment. egh!)
2. Lesserness. This is what makes me buy cheap undies that fall apart after a few months, when I really deserve quality ones. This is why all my art supplies are still in a big cardboard box when I have space to set them up again. This is why my bedroom looks like a bomb hit it, why my dreams of a dressing table and a jewellery stand haven't materialised yet. This is what gives Negative Nancy such free reign. I want to start believing that I deserve the best. I want to start believing that the money/time/effort it takes to get the best is worth it.
3. Mindlessness/Short Term Thinking. Things like: "oh, I'll just eat this chocolate cos it's yummy and I'm a bit stressed and I deserve a treat." In reality, eating it will make it harder/longer for me to lose weight, and I really need to deal with my stress in a way that's better for my mind and body. Not to mention the fact that it's not healthy to view food as a treat. Another example: "I've got a bit of time, and I could try and meditate, but I'll just read my book instead cos that's less effort and I just want to relax." In reality, I know that if I could just get the hang of meditation, it would help me relax and add to my happiness.
4. (Unnecessary) Stress. I know that there's good stress, which helps you get things done. I'm talking about the bad stress, which makes my shoulders tighten up and my heart pound. For me, there's a lot of crossover between stress and anxiety. I need to take a step back and ask myself, is this an appropriate reaction to this situation? Or am I having an anxiety episode? What can I do to calm down? What strategies can I use when I'm caught up in the moment?
5. Dessert. Boy will probably cringe when he sees this one. It would certainly help my weight loss goal if I didn't sit there every night eating empty calories and then went to bed, letting them convert into pure fat overnight. Ew, when I put it that way, it makes the chocolate pudding seem so much less appealing! It's a huge habit that I've tried to break before, and it's so hard! As soon as I've finished dinner, I get an urge to put something sweet in my mouth. I want to search out some strategies to help me with this.
6. Avoidance/Procrastination. There are two major areas where I'm really bad with this - contacting people, and housework. I've written about the underlying causes of this in previous posts; it mainly seems to come down to lack of self-confidence and anxiety. If I work on these, then hopefully it'll take me less than a week (or never) to answer emails and phone calls, and I'll be able to tackle those messy corners without getting overwhelmed.
7. Body Fear. And body hate, too. I just don't trust my body. It doesn't do what I want. It reacts unpredictably. I'm scared because I could fall over and sprain my ankle again at any moment. It gets sick - I'm always pumping it full of tablets and hauling it off to the doctors for inspections. It doesn't look the way I want it to. I love to dance, but I'm too embarrassed. That makes me feel so sad. This issue is something I've been working on for a while - all my life, really. Sometimes I have a better relationship with my body, and at other times relations break down. I have to admit that it mostly depends on whether I'm getting what I want from my body or not at the time. I need to learn to love my body unconditionally.
8. Shoulds. I've been warned of the danger of Shoulds! I spend a lot of time doing things that I feel like doing, and thinking about the things I should be doing but I'm not. If I work on No. 6 Procrastination, hopefully I can smooth this out a bit.
9. Stuff. My recent De-Cluttering Project was a great first step to dealing with this problem. I just physically have too much stuff to be able to do the things I want to do with my apartment. It's frustrating and depressing. I don't want to live like that. I joked to people that I could probably do that project over again 3 or 4 times; it's actually true. So why not??
10. Comparisons. "Her house is nicer than mine." "Her blog is prettier than mine." "His photos come out amazing and mine are terrible." "Their car is newer than mine." "She's thinner than me, and her clothes are much cooler." "Their crafts come out looking so professional, I'm not even going to bother." etc. etc. I'm really starting to get bored with this crap! I'll take a deep breath and push it all away. I am me. Why should I try to be someone else and inevitably fail, when I can be me and a raging success?
11. Split Ends. I'm growing my hair at the moment, but one of these days I'm going to have to go to the hairdresser and get the ends trimmed, and perhaps even develop some kind of hair style. That would be cool.
Well! That was more effort than I thought it would be. My brain is really frazzled at the moment with having to write a piece every single day. I was hoping I could write two a day and catch up, but I'm still 4 days behind. I'm not giving the prompts the thought they deserve, so I'm going to abandon that plan. Perhaps I might even to take a day or two off and do simple stuff for a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment