My 2018 Mantra
This is for the Type A's. The entrepreneurs. The creatives. The working. The not-working. The dreamers. The doers. This is for anyone who wakes up every day wanting to do it all and struggles with the inarguable fact that doing it all is quite literally impossible.
This is for the easily overwhelmed because I am one of you.
A few months ago, when I decided to buckle the fuck down and start to pour every extra ounce of energy I have into emma's thing, I began noticing how much more flustered, overwhelmed, and just borderline panicked I was on a day-to-day basis. I was creating these extensive, forever-long to-do lists for myself which, while helpful in terms of organizing my rapid fire thoughts, were causing me to start the day by waking up feeling overwhelmed.
I want to write about this, that, and oh! That, too! I want to record this video, reach out to this website, reply back to those emails, tweak that one piece, put together that hilarious Instagram story idea I had, respond to all these messages thoughtfully, think up more content to send out in my newsletter, HELL! Think of more content in general! Post that one outfit at this exact time for this exact reason, gather stories for this one idea I have, oh and, you know, everything else: excel at my full-time job, give Cece the attention she deserves, meal prep, make sure my home is always in order, workout daily, shower (what? It's a process), call my mom, call my sister, check in with all my best friends, and take out the trash, too.
I WANT TO GET IT ALL DONE, EVERY DAY.
And for a girl who's already prone to intense anxiety, wanting to do all the things and FEELING MORE OVERWHELMED THAN USUAL is the last thing I need.
Enter my 2018 mantra:
I've never had a mantra before. It's always seemed reserved for the very... zen. Like what super well-balanced Yogis would do, and LORDT KNOWS I'm just about as opposite as a zen Yogi as they come. But after flirting with the edge of several mental breaks the last five months, I decided it was high time to figure one out.
First came what I now refer to as my "Ideas Notebook." I realized that my brain isn't capable of remembering or compartmentalizing everything I think up during the day, so being able to literally scribble it all down has helped immensely. But it still wasn't enough to calm my desire to accomplish as many of those scribbled ideas as I could on a daily basis. This self-inflicted urgency to get it all done was taking over, and I didn't like it. So, I felt a self-written phrase that I can repeat to myself over and over to ground me when I'm feeling extraordinarily flustered could be the answer. Enter:
I'VE DONE ALL I CAN TODAY,
AND TOMORROW I'LL DO MORE.
I'm not going to sit here and pretend it's been a solve-all because I am hard-wired to want to DO until I can't do no more. However, my newfound mantra has challenged me to slow down; to pause at a certain point of every day and remind myself that it all can't be done today or tomorrow or even by next Wednesday. It's challenged me to wake up each day with a TODAY ONLY to-do list and try my damndest to stick to it without getting distracted or overwhelmed by all the other to-dos that aren't on today's schedule. It's challenged me to pat myself on the back for everything I accomplished in the (roughly) 18 hours I was awake, and to stick a pin in the rest for tomorrow. Or next week. Or even next month.
It's hard to practice, but something I'm determined to do. And, if I know anything about me, it's that I clearly have the drive to get things done if I want to badly enough. Just not all at once.
If you identify with my mantra or want to borrow it, please do. By all means, take it as your own and say it to yourself every single day. I'll probably be somewhere awkwardly whispering it to myself in public, too.
xox,
