[5/21] Now for a healthy dose of overthinking
Sponsored by my anxiety.
Disclaimer:
A series of daily ‘stacks challenging consistent writing habits, influenced by Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages Exercise from The Artist’s Way. These pages are *meant* to be private - fear and loathing while rotting in bed sorta vibe. However, I need accountability, so Substack is my resolve.
🎧 Today’s soundtrack:
I can’t be arsed with quippy headers
Patience or paralysis, you have to practice stillness. Welcome discomfort; don’t run from it. It has much to teach you that you have failed to learn.
Here’s a header
I’m going to keep this short and sweet.
I’m also going to stop posting these to email because I’m an inbox zero girlie, and there’s nothing worse than a stack of unread emails driving up your anxiety barometer.
It’s Saturday. I’m emotionally and mentally spent after the past week.
Overall, I'm positive, but I ponder the paths to come. I want to curl up and doom scroll for the last long weekend until the end of summer.
But I committed to showing up and writing for my self-published online digital paper, so here I am. I’ll try to quantify my current life situation-ship when my energy replenishes, but for now…
Day 4 of Tom’s inbox challenge, day 5 of Studio Sonder’s 21 Hard Challenge
Here’s another header
Full context: See yesterday’s post [4/21].
Today’s task: Write THREE ways to solve the problem you found in your answer.
Question 1: 🧟♀️ What’s your survival strategy if your life went apocalyptic tomorrow?
📌 Answer 1 - Problem ➡️ Solution:
Full respect for anyone who makes a living this way, get that bread 🍞
It’s important to consider that when all may seem lost, it very rarely is. Besides, AI will probably take over the feet picture market soon (if it hasn’t already). 2/10 survival strategy.
📌 Answer 2 - Problem ➡️ Solution:
My answer to this is a mindset shift I’ve been actively practising: You only fail if you do not try. By that, I mean that everything else is out of your hands as long as you did the best you could.
There is nothing but the here and now, so whatever ghosts of past lives, mistakes, or decisions still haunt you, know they are imaginary.
The only thing worry will do is hold you back.
📌 Answer 3 - Problem ➡️ Solution:
My action from this answer: It’s time to start planning my novel. Let the final weights within ooze out. Lock them in a notebook.
Burn them if so needed. Artists and writers have a gift for making sense of what others cannot.
Turn your pain into something - anything - that helps you make peace.
Question 2: 👏 Will you ever be satisfied?
📌 Answer 1 - Problem ➡️ Solution:
Never be satisfied? Don’t be such a silly goose. You have so much to be thankful for - look around, look around, at how lucky you are!
Some people spend a lifetime working ten times as hard as you ever will for 100th of what you have right now.
Ambition is valuable, but not at the expense of your humility and altruism.
📌 Answer 2 - Problem ➡️ Solution:
Great, well, can you tell the part of you who answered the above that?
I am satisfied—beyond satisfied, immensely grateful, and everything in between. But that doesn’t mean I should stop trying, growing, or taking action.
My solution to this one is to nail what “satisfied” looks and feels like. I’ll save that for a later ‘stack. YA GURL IS TIRED.
📌 Answer 3 - Problem ➡️ Solution:
32032 DAYS. Yep, we humans have a finite and fragile existence. Doing all you want to do in life is a good directive, but this has resolved for me that the day at hand is the only one you have control over.
We’re shuffled into existence and must be patient for our chance at living.
You can only rest when - if - you retire…
I need to revisit (and finish) Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Workweek because one thing he discusses has really stuck with me: I have mini-retirements now.
Enjoy your life NOW. Otherwise, what is it all for?
As I said in my last post, nothing is guaranteed, and anything can change. Make space to actually live your life. And book that frigging holiday ffs.
Question 3: 💫 Three years ago, you defined success as freedom. How do you define success today and why?
📌 Answer 1 - Problem ➡️ Solution:
Freedom will always stand. No solution needed.
The problem is: What if something challenges that freedom? Boundaries, my friend, boundaries. When you’ve tasted freedom, when you know what it looks like, and you know it’s what you want, you better protect it. It’s also worth identifying the price of your freedom, if you’re ever in a negotiation setting, at least you’re prepared to cut a deal in your favour.
📌 Answer 2 - Problem ➡️ Solution:
Growth is good. My next problem to tackle here is balance. Trying to spin all the plates at once threatens my progress so far. It undoes the threads and leaves me exposed.
To practice: Protecting my “yes”. Cutting any people-pleasing behaviours, especially if they’re at the expense of my health.
Shaving down my to-do list - if it ain’t bringing me energy, joy, growth, or money, I ain’t doing it. Until gaps in my time arise, I will not add anything else to my list.
I invite you to do the same. Be brutal. Marie Kondo the f*ck out of your life.
📌 Answer 3 - Problem ➡️ Solution:
Rain it in a bit, sausage. “Things” are nice, but if you’re having trouble with any of the above because you're “trying to make more,” then the first port of call is to spend less.
It seems obvious, but it’s why most people end up in financial traps, expanding their lives to fit their current situation only to feel like they need to sell their feet pictures if it all goes tits up.
My actions for the latter half of the year:
Buy more thoughtfully, slowly, and sustainably - thrifted where possible.
Invest, save, and keep building that financial cushion (I’m progressing well).
Get realistic about the business trajectory. Get things moving financially, and make the tough calls early when it’s time to bootstrap.
Spend money on experiences vs stuff - the best way to make memories, the outcome of which is invaluable.
Takeouts, champers, and boujee hotels (or whatever indulgence is on your list) are great treats, but when they become habits, they lose their sparkle. I may use these as reward systems to kick my ADHD in the arse moving forward.
Oh, look, a final header.
I did it. I wrote the thing. I’m going to go have a nap.
It’s a mega rot, goblin mode day. And you know what? That’s okay.
See you for the next issue!
Keep taking messy action daily,
D x
P.S. I haven’t proofread this. Deal with it ✌️