Calmness…
After years of struggling to deal with my constant anxiety and overwhelm, one of the keys things I started to do was use mindfulness and meditation.
Through this daily-ish practice, I learned that I was viewing things in a way which caused a lot of my anxiety. I placed pressure on myself whilst at work because I believed that other people had high expectations of the work I produced when ‘good enough’ was good enough. I started to recognise that I was always rushing, double checking my work, doing things twice because I forgot if I had done something or not and placing undue time pressures on myself.
I recognised that I needed to have better strategies to cope with the workload.
I started with journaling in particular, Bullet Journaling for productivity. With this technique I immediately improved my focus at work and rarely missed deadlines or had to check if I had completed the task; It was already written down and recorded in the BuJo.
Whilst meditating I recognised where my anxiety would show up in my body…where I can feel the first signs of stress in my body. For me it is a feeling in the centre of my chest….its linked to the shortness of breath I experience when having a panic attack. With that foreknowledge or warning, I could put actions in place. What is causing me to react this way? What can I do to negate this? Who can I ask for support? I remember going to one of my line managers, informing that I can feel a panic attack and anxiety coming along and then verbalising the plan I would follow to reduce this. Usually it was creating small wins for myself. Things that I may have been deprioritising over other tasks but are starting to get on top of me.
Giving yourself time to think, time to feel and time to plan or act is key to reducing tasks.
Give yourself permission to prioritise you and what you need to do rather than what others may need of you, is like a muscle….it needs to be flexed often for you to benefit and grow.
If you are interested in what I do for anxiety and want to give yourself time to think, feel and act. Contact me via the link above.