Having just returned from a weeks holiday, I found my brain running away with me telling me all the things "I should" be doing. I should make a to do list, I should be doing more, I should be spending more time on social media, I should be posting more content, writing more sessions, trying to get more clients. Very quickly I found myself feeling extremely overwhelmed and not particularly motivated to actually do any of it. Then this train of thought quickly escalated to "I should have done more before I went away", "I should have done some posting etc when I was away", "I should have taken more content for reels", "I should have written some more material" etc etc. Now this started to make me feel inadequate, lazy and guilty about taking some much needed time out which is of course ridiculous!
Since I started working for myself and running my own business, I very quickly realised that I needed to stay as motivated as I could. I became Mindfulness Teacher, Business Development, Sales and Marketing, Finance, Social media expert (uses the word expert lightly lol), Researcher, Networker, Website builder, and maintenance, Google Business expert (again loose term) Admin and general dogsbody - wow its ALOT. What I had to realise is that I am only 1 person. There is only 24hrs in 1 day and some days when I don't feel much like doing it all. It is and can be so overwhelming...
Our brains are very good at telling us what we should or shouldn't be doing. Our brains can be very loud and overpowering and can make us feel lots of different emotions about how well we think we are performing, how we compare to others doing something similar to us, where we think we should be by now. So what "should" we do about this lol? What we can do is change that internal narrative. What we can do is be kind to ourselves, what we can do is set small goals and boundaries for ourselves and what we want to achieve. It's fine to set those bigger goals but what is important is to learn how to break them down into smaller chunks and to learn not to beat yourself up if something doesn't work out how you wanted it to or imagined it.
The attitudes of mindfulness can help to remind us that we don't need to strive, we can be accepting of where we are and we don't need to compare ourselves and our progress with others. We can trust our gut and have some acceptance of how things are for us in this present moment. I use my meditation practice in times like this - getting back from holiday and not really knowing what to do first. I like to make a list and look at each thing, check the alignment with my overall direction, asking myself how important it actually is in this moment and taking a pause. I sit with it and breathe without judgement of myself and where I am now. Even a 10 minute meditation can help me regain some clarity and focus on what is actually important - lets face it I don't have that large team of people to share the work with, only me and actually that is totally ok. Things will unfold in their own time. Yes I can and do have drive, yes I can and do have focus and yes I can and will get things done, however telling myself what "I should" be doing is never going to helpful.
"Should".... I should, you should, I should have, you shouldn't have. Rarely does that word or sentence inspire hope, motivation or self kindness. Can we remove it from our narrative please? I am definitely working hard to remove it from mine!
If your internal voice is often telling you what you "should" or "shouldn't" be doing and you struggle with the same self talk, why not chat to me about how Mindfulness & Meditation can help to break that cycle? I can't promise it will go away completely but with practice, that voice can be made smaller and be heard less frequently. We are only human after all...
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