Scattered
It’s summer. And we should be playful, relaxed, basking in the sun, right??
Um…. Anyone feeling SCATTERED???
Uuuugghhh. Feeling scattered is EXHAUSTING. And it totally keeps you from being creative, from feeling centered and calm, and from feeling productive in a meaningful way.
And shout out to parents out there:
Rushing to get your kids to different camps? Childcare fiascos? Trips that should be FUN?? In-laws visiting? Guests, guests, guests! (How do we know and love this many people???) Where’s the chardonnay and mojitos???
So okay, summer isn’t the chill time it’s cracked up to be. I don’t know how we got here, but here we are. I actually RUN a summer camp, so I’ve never had this fantasy, lol, but I see it all around me in the families I work with: Caught. Off. Guard. How did we get here, you ask? And how do we stay sane?
Scattered looks like this. It’s Sunday night, you’ve had a great weekend and you’re thinking about going back to work Monday and you’re like, Gaaahhhh. You feel overwhelmed. You don’t know which project or task to tackle first. You have tons of ideas but don’t know what will work. You are believing you don’t have the answer when you actually DO know the answer. (We will get to that in a bit.)
Now for creative entrepreneurs, bosses, self-employed, and oh, let’s just say ALL HUMANS who live in the modern world and have a job, a family, friends, interests, volunteer work, and ERRANDS, we all feel scattered sometimes.
But I think a lot of us see the summer as a time to regroup and figure out what the fall will hold and that puts some pressure on us to have a clear bunch of goals and a clear direction…. and because of this pressure, we can get anxious and lapse into feeling scattered.
Okay so. Let’s unpack this a bit.
We don’t just feel scattered because there are a lot of demands on our time. It’s not just that there are a lot of DIFFERENT things needing our attention. It’s not just that life is complicated. Because those things are true in modern life ALL the time. Every week. And, here’s the bummer of it all: living a creative, adventurous, fun and interesting life means you are going to have a more complicated choice-filled life. So, yaaaaaayyyy.
So you’re sitting there on Sunday night or Monday morning and you’re like “aaaggghhh how do I figure out what to DO?” You’re probably picturing all different things and your mind is flitting around and then, bam: Overwhelm.
So what to do?
Well first, like any good Buddhist will tell you, don’t DO anything.
Not yet.
We gotta get our head straight because jumping to DO things in this mindset is probably going to not only waste time, but it’s more like having a cigarette to calm your craving for cigarettes. That’s not really going to solve things and you’re gonna get cancer or at least very yellow teeth.
Okay. So.
#1: First, journal. Just get all that crap out of your head and onto paper.
What this does is enlists your prefrontal cortex to get your rational mind working which brings you out of that caveman-like anxiety.
I’d suggest you make a list.
You can do a Whining List first, (that’s what great about journals, they don’t go talk to other people and say, “Good lord that lunch with her was a downer today.”)
Journals be like, “You got whining to do? I got pages. Let’s go!”
But set a timer. 10 minutes of whining max.
Next, let’s categorize that list. What are the things you:
Have to do.
Want to get to, but can’t find the time.
Have an idea about but no idea how to do.
So. Pause for a second and go and write down these three lists. But make a CHOICE that you are not going to wallow in the thought: this is overwhelming. Know that we are going to move through and past overwhelm and into DECISION MAKING, centeredness, and enthusiasm!
Okay now that you have these lists – and make sure they are comprehensive lists! – take a look and just acknowledge that there is A LOT there. You could probably even spend a little more time coming up with more things to DO. It’s kind of endless.
Now here’s where the overwhelm comes in.
Feeling like there’s a RIGHT way to do it and you aren’t equipped with the skill to know the right way.
Feeling it ALL HAS to be done. And like right away.
Feeling like you don’t know how to decide what to do or which to do first.
All of the above… Right?? Ha!
So, let’s start with the idea that there’s a right way. You KNOW what I’m going to say, if you’ve been following me. As with improv, there is NO RIGHT WAY.
Now we are not talking about the steps to building a car here people, in which case you should definitely follow directions at the factory to build it in the right way. We are talking about building a life. And we are improvising it.
In fact, you could argue that doing things in a way that is different from either how you’ve done it before or how other people do it, is what leads to innovation and something new and exciting and fantastic!
So. There’s NO RIGHT WAY. Please write that down on a post-it and put it on your bathroom mirror, or tattoo it on your butt. Whatever works.
Next, ask if it all HAS to be done.
Now be serious about this. For how much of this did you just make up the belief it ALL has to be done by a certain time?
And if you really can’t shake that belief (and I’m going to also suggest there’s always a little narcissism that comes with this belief, in the sense that we feel we are suuuuuper important and everything we do has a massive effect), ask yourself this: If you DIED tomorrow, what would happen?
There are only two options: Either someone would take over for you, or your work would just simply stop and the world would go on without you.
What??? I’m not irreplaceable???
(Your ego just had a shit fit. That’s normal! Don’t panic!)
Understanding that you ARE replaceable is a HEALTHY belief! So take a minute and either write down or repeat:
“I’m not as important as I think.”
And I don’t mean this in a “I suck and I should feel like a loser” sort of way. It’s really just shaking you off your belief that all of these things NEED TO HAPPEN NOW.
I’m a big fan of questioning our beliefs. If you need more help with this, check out Byron Katie who is fantastic at helping with this with her 4 questions in what she calls The Work. (http://thework.com)
And look, I always have to remind myself, and I say this out loud a lot: “Katie, you’re running a theatre company, not an emergency room.” However, if you ARE running an emergency room, it’s actually even MORE important you are not overwhelmed, indecisive or scattered.
And finally, the most important one that will help you avoid feeling scattered:
How do I decide what to do or how do I decide which thing to do first?
I am going to assume there is some creativity involved in your work because in all careers, all creative careers, and all improvised lives that have family, friends, other people, all of those lives that are not filled with exactly the same thing every day. Your work requires some problem solving, some creation, some change and some growth.
And that kind of improvising in daily life means that besides the fact that there might not be one way to do it “right”, there is definitely sometimes a way to do it wrong. And let’s avoid that.
So here are some pitfalls to avoid:
Pitfall #1: When you do not “DO” anything at all.
Like not starting, for example. If you feel overwhelmed, sometimes it’s easiest just to not even try, not even start.
When I coach, I know that no matter where we start the conversation that day, we will probably end up in the same place. Meaning that if a client is feeling isolated in their work, if we start by them talking about their family, or their friends, or the news, or their career, we will end up talking about people and loneliness and isolation. It’s just how the brain works. The core value you want more of in your life is in that big brain of yours. My job is to help you or your company/staff/leadership team dig into that. But whatever you say, I’ll be able to hear that little urgency under any subject and we’ll get there.
So how does that pertain to feeling scattered?
You have all these thoughts running around in your head and that’s what’s troubling and distracting you. If you can get quiet, look at the list above, circle some words in common in your journal that keep coming up, that is a good place to start.
Go back to your core desire: What do you want to feel? Connected? Creative? Like you are helping the world? All of these? Then look at your list of to-do’s and see which of these will give you the STRONGEST feeling you want.
If you want to be creative, and it’s Monday morning and you’re feeling scattered and overwhelmed, take 20 minutes first to CREATE. Anything. It doesn’t matter.
TRY THIS:
Do my 5-word-story exercise where you take five random words from a newspaper or magazine and write or speak a story that has to use all five words in 2 minutes. Or sing or write or look at new recipes or whatever it is you like to do that’s creative.
You can see a video about this on my facebook page at KatieGoodmanComedy. It’s also in my book Improvisation For The Spirit.
Now what exactly is this going to do for you besides make you lose 20 minutes of your precious workday??
Getting your creative right brain online will do sort of a reset. You’ll physically and emotionally feel better and this will clear your head a LOT.
What doesn’t work is trying to get a clear picture of what you should prioritize when you are anxious and scattered. Okay? Make sense?
Pitfall #2: When you are stuck in Indecision
So if there is no right answer, that means you can pick anything. Try closing your eyes and turn your paper around and around and let your finger land on one item. Now really commit before you open your eyes that you will do that item that you randomly pick first. Open your eyes and voila! Your first task! Then do that. Easy. Right??
Your brain is gonna rebel big time because it truly believes there IS a right order! It will say, “But I can’t do that first. I can’t just write to the agent about my book before I have my proposal set.” Okay, well hey there’s an actual real answer with good decision-making advice! If you can’t do that first then you have an answer! And guess what? It turns out you DO know something. You CAN make decisions. Huzzah!
I tricked you a little, but if you commit to doing what you randomly pick, then your brain will give you very clear feedback in milliseconds.
It’s like if you have a yes or no decision. Say heads yes and tails no. Then flip a coin. Then pay very close attention to your absolutely instantaneous reaction. “Oh shoot, I didn’t want tails!” Ah ha! It’s a little magic trick I use. You can access your clear decision-making knowledge this way. Try it – it’s really kind of crazy.
So this is really the crux of it. We feel confused. We think we don’t know how to decide. We believe there’s a right way of doing things. We feel pressure. All of these things are completely useless. They block us. They make us feel anxious. They keep us from moving forward. This is true for Sunday night and Monday morning, but it’s also true in a bigger picture way. So don’t let yourself say you don’t know the answer.
That’s it. It’s absurdly simple.
This is what this entire thing boils down to:
Do not say you don’t know.
Here’s an example. Don’t say “I don’t know how to program my website, so I won’t have a website”. Say, “I don’t know how to program my website… so I need a programmer”. “I don’t know what I want on my website… so I’ll go look at others for ideas”, “I don’t know if people will like it… so I’ll put something up and change it if needed once I get feedback”, “I don’t know how to hire someone to do the tech… so I’ll ask a friend or someone on Facebook who I know has a great website.”
I think one of the reasons we get stuck is that we feel alone and isolated.
In the old days when we lived in villages, so if you didn’t know how to help your baby with the croup you’d go to the old lady three huts down and be like, Hey Old Brunehilde Wise Lady Crone Master of All Things, what do I do with this incredibly annoying baby? And she’d be like, “Okay here’s some herbs and some steam”, (and perhaps a little magic if this is a fantasy novel and not actual olden days), “and basically you’re gonna have an unbelievably terrible 3 days but it’ll get better so just chill a little.” And then you’d go back to your hut and it might or might not work, but at least you’re not trying to figure it all out on your own.
I know that as a creative person I don’t work alone well. I probably collaborate more than some other kinds of creatives, but I love that part.
When I first really got this, I was with my mastermind group and came home all fired up, like “Okay I really am going to stop saying I don’t know what to do.” And I really did get it and it totally worked and I just ploughed ahead and then like 4 days in I wrote to one of them saying I just didn’t know what to do next and she was like, “DUDE. You just told us all you would stop saying you don’t know and it’s only been like 4 days and you backslid!!” ☺
So. It’s hard to make new habits of mind. That’s why resolutions are hard. And this is what anyone who is talking about resolutions that work will say to you: It’s not only about getting yourself to change the habit, like not exercising or saying you don’t know what to do and feeling scattered. You have to actually change your MIND first. The habit and resolution will follow.
Okay? You getting this?
You. Know. What. To. Do.
And that might be asking for help to learn something that you don’t know how to do, but that counts because what you knew to do was to learn the new thing. To get help learning it.
What makes us feel scattered is not deciding, not choosing a course of action because we are pretending we don’t know.
This is what my friend Susan always says to me:
“What are you pretending not to know?”