There’s nothing wrong with me lol, I’m alright. But I did recently learn my lesson about not taking any breaks.

Taking a little break everyday is guaranteed to do more good than harm. I knew that, but I did not live that way.

I have no chill. This year I went from hardly doing anything all day to doing about 10,438,930 things a day.

I felt like I couldn’t afford a break or I would somehow “fall behind” or not be “good enough”. That mindset was (and sometimes still is) a huge mistake on my part.

Hustling it out and doing a million things at once was not good for me, and, despite what I believed, it didn’t make me any better of a person. In fact – it made me worse most of the time.

I was highly irritable, everything felt urgent, and I hardly gave myself time to connect with the people I love most.

I wish I could say I have found the golden solution to this problem, but I have not. However, I have made some progress.

That’s why I’m writing this for both my sake and anyone like me reading.

The Big Lesson Here

The main thing I learned was that I need to stop expecting so much out of myself.

I want to workout 5 days a week, read 40+ books a year, make weekly blog posts, podcasts, paint more , cook more meals from scratch, keep everything clean 100% of the time, play more sports, journal more/ start a club, play more video games, watch more movies, and so many more things I don’t feel like naming them all.

On top of all of those things I also work full time, so basically what I’m saying is I definitely don’t have the time to do all of those things AND relax/ enjoy my life and the people around me.

All of that left me feeling super inadequate. My need to get things done left me being really unhappy and unfulfilled.

At this point, I was definitely looking at the glass half empty most of the time.

I wasn’t doing enough, I wasn’t reaching my goals, I wasn’t being “better”.

That’s why I actually kind of hate “self-help” right now. I always thought that if I just learned the right system I would be better – but that’s not how it works. I was over-doing everything, and because of that I never really appreciated anything I did, I just focused on what I didn’t do and felt bad about it.

Writing this is kind of therapeutic honestly, so thank you for reading if you’ve made it this far. This is kind of a confession and a way for me to reflect and find solutions for myself.

I’m free-handing this so forgive me if it’s not super coherent – but this is where my first real piece of advice to myself comes in.

Write And Appreciate Yourself

Spend more time writing. Not stressful writing. No “goals”. Fuck goals. They are NOT for everyone. At least not SMART goals, SMART goals are kind of dumb if you’re a person like me who has absolutely no chill and actually needs advice on how to chill instead of “how to do more”. Fuck doing more. I need to do less.

So if you’re like me – doing about a million things a day and not appreciating yourself because you didn’t do a million and one things – you are not alone in that, but what we need to do for ourselves is reflect on that mindset and flip the script.

Instead of downing on ourselves for all of the things we couldn’t do, we should appreciate ourselves for the things we did do.

Today I have a few things I want to do that I don’t think I will get to. I could say that sucks and make myself upset, or I could say… I did book an appointment with my psychiatrist (which was something I really needed to do), I cleaned out my kitchen (which looks so much better and will be easier to use), I brought my girlfriend lunch at work (which was fun), I got our Easter eggs (oh yeah, we’re going to have a fun time with that hunt), and I’m writing this blog post now.

Despite how cheesy it might sound – framing it that way is making me feel better already.

My girlfriend really wants to go for a bike ride, cook a nice dinner, and play videogames tonight; and while I may have told her that I was a bit too busy tonight for those games – I’m taking that back right now.

The power of ~reflection~

I could do some more things on my to-do list, but I think I need a break.

Here’s the truth: not taking breaks landed me in a sticky situation recently. I had to take time off work, off of everything really, and that didn’t feel great. Instead of giving myself small breaks daily I had to take two weeks to work on myself because I let my mental and emotional state get really messy – and a large part of that is because I never allowed myself to take a break and seek the help I knew I needed.

Low Pressure, Low Stress

Balance – that’s the thing I need right now. It’s something I actively work on daily. I don’t need anymore self-help books or to-do lists. I need to stop stressing myself out and putting pressure on myself to be better.

I need reflect more on this, and really try and live by it.

That is much easier said than done – so I’ll be journaling quite a bit to remind myself of this fact. If you’re like me comment below so I know I’m not the only person with no chill 🙂

And I hope that you can take a break today as well.

Take care, talk to someone you love, and…

Until Next Time,

Stay Psyched