The Inspiring Bee

Lately, I’ve been feeling like I’ve got a dozen spinning plates in the air. And no one’s going to help me catch them all.

Why this sudden drama fest?

I’ve been dipping my paint brush into too much things lately.

Besides creating a photography site, I’ve been thinking up fast, easy and cheap crafts on not2shabby, making videos here and maintaining my freelance writing site. I’m also taking a Writer’s Digest course on Inspiring Writing, signed up with two new groups (SITS and the Creative Empire). I’m also querying, social networking and connecting with other like-minded folks. And did I mention I’m also the Associate Editor for Psychcentral.com?

So you can see why I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed lately?

It’s the reason why I felt so grateful to have found other writers and entrepreneurs going through the same thing. I was particularly happy, for example, to find Lisa Verdi’s post on Overcoming a Confidence Crisis.

And I’ve already blogged about my own frustrations about blogging in this previous post.

Are you going through this now too?

If so, feel free to chime in with your tips on how to be less overwhelmed.

Or just keep reading this post on what has helped me.

Give yourself permission to just be. Today, for example, I set a goal to do less. Less social networking. Less blog reading. And more time on really connecting with what I was doing. Whether it was working, eating or just doing nothing, I gave myself permission to just be.

Surprisingly, this had an opposite, unexpected effect on me. It somehow made me more productive.

I think feeling pressured to produce and to be perfect worked against my goals of creating things that inspired me. It felt more like a “must” versus a “desire.” When I let go of the “must,” “need to” or “shoulds” in my life, I gave myself the freedom to do what I wanted and not what I felt I should be doing. In the end, this helped me to create content and produce things that I felt happy about because I enjoyed the process not because I felt I had to.

Get ready. Here’s the takeaway:

You need to figure out what feels right with you. Although it’s tempting to buy in to what the world is saying about what you need to do be successful or how what you’re doing is wrong, you need to have the courage to find your own path.

You also need to not do anything every once in awhile. If you’re on a path towards your dreams, chances are you’re eventually going to get overwhelmed. You’re taking risks. You’re meeting fear head on. You deserve a break. So start now. Well, maybe comment here first. Then, carry on.

And keep posted. I’ll be posting more tips on this topic next week.

{photo credit}

Thursday, August 5th, 2010, 7:00 am   |   How to  |  RSS feed |  Respond  |  Trackback