Painful Self Revelation
One of the most difficult things in life is to reflect critically upon one’s self and identify those areas of your life that are not so pleasant and need to be changed. I’ve been trying since the beginning of the year to do this and it has brought on some very interesting findings.
The most recent revelation happened this past weekend–I came to the full realization of how much chaos I not only allow into my life but I create in my own life due to my actions (or lack thereof). What’s worse is I also came to the full realization of how my own life is not in a little bubble separated from the rest of the world and when I create chaos in my own life, it creates chaos in others’ lives, which creates chaos in even more people’s lives, and so on. The old ripple-effect.
Basically, my own disorganization and lack of planning not only screws up things for myself but for others as well… in ways that I haven’t always seen. My family, friends, colleagues, and clients have all suffered because of this in one way or another. Again, not an easy thing to accept or swallow but necessary, nonetheless.
I have dedicated this week to making some drastic changes in my own life to mitigate this and begin the journey to self-improvement in this very necessary area. I know that many different aspects of my life will change for the better when I can work through this and it won’t be easy. I feel very blessed to have an amazing spouse in my life to support me in this endeavor and I know she will hold my feet to the fire in following-through. I am going to minimize her responsibility in this as this is my problem and she has enough to worry about without holding my hand through this but I know she’s there if I need her.
First, and foremost, I need to get back into the habit of using my GSD organizational methodology. I haven’t utilized my GSD notebook in over a month (which is bad) and will be making my list for the day and week after I finish this post.
Secondly, I will be making drastic changes to how I approach work. I have always held a, “I can do this at such-and-such time” approach when I am fully capable of doing it at the prescribed time. Having ADD, I must instill strict structure into my life or else I fall back into bad habits which I developed throughout my entire life. I must force myself to stick to this schedule, as well, and avoid the pitfalls of procrastination. Procrastination begets more procrastination which begets chaos. Just because I think I will have time later/whenever to do a task, doesn’t mean that something unexpected will not come up (as it often does) and throw an even bigger wrench into the mix. I’ve been there time and time again.
Finally, I have to allow myself time for me. From experience, if I do not allow myself time for hobbies and such, I end up feeling burned out and like I do nothing but work with massive stress on a constant basis. For me, when this happens in my life, I tend to shut down and my motivation to do anything goes right out the window. Then everything falls behind–housework, homework, work projects, etc.
Plan on seeing updates on this blog as I go through this. It’s going to be an interesting journey.
