Less Hustle More Coffee

Had a great night’s sleep on Tuesday night. Not so much last night. Awake at 1:30 again! Remembered I’d forgotten about the darks in the wash – ooops – reran them again so I could hang and dry anything needed. I don’t like them to sit for too long. I was thirsty, and drank water. The dogs looked at me longly and licked their lips – ok – got up and got water for the dogs bringing it to them instead of getting them out of bed. All were happy again and we snuggled. I was fairly comfortable – just woke up and turned over every hour or so.

Yesterday, even though the night before last, my sleep had been full, I was seemingly unhappy. I noticed this mood and wondered why. Why does a persona feel unhappy when everything should be good. So what did I do? I decided to assess the situation. Problem solving skills coming to light. LOL

Pen and paper. Think tank switched to ON. I began to make a list of everything that bothered me or that I was unhappy about. Here’s the list.

1. Dogs/Texas
2. Flooring in our House
3. Squashing of Dreams – what I want, George seemingly does not
4. Work/Quarter End and January
5. Worrying/Wondering over things
6. Rude People and Why they are that way
7. My Weight/Diet/Eating
8. Dang Political/Racial Mess
9. Dang Corona Feculance (Here is where I googled “shit” synonyms so as not to offend anyone – you are welcome).

I also made a list of generally things that make me unhappy and things that make me happy.

Unhappy went something like this: frustrated with “never enough time”, things break, people are rude, systems don’t work right, apps fail, others agendas are not my own, told “no” or “not now”, being ignored by others, barriers to whatever it is you try to do, getting packages open (packaging being better made than the product itself), and any limitation that stands in the way of MY WILL! lol

Happy went something like this: Happy when cleaning, organizing, learning, studying, doing things with my hands, making progress toward goals, ticking off boxes on a list, planning, accomplishing, and getting praises or words of affirmation from others – it lights my world and my face too with a smile.

My DARN WILLPOWER – How to manage it?

Oh dear!!! Prayer, hope, acceptance, letting go, changing, and fixing. It’s a monster!

Ok so good! I wrote down and figured out all that was making me less than happy. It’s not that I am traumatized by any of it, but certainly all of these things are making me NOT in a good mood, so it was a good little exercise.

So now what? Well, I decided that as a Christian I needed to pray over these things and to allow my faith to take over. Because my persona is wired the way it is, I often let things bother me, take life way too seriously, and am relentless until something is solved/resolved. I think that is ok. I will never change. God needs people like us out there. I won’t apologize for it as I’m God’s creation. I can only apologize to Him for not trusting more when it comes to the worry part. We are the people in life that get your details done. So many details. We solve your problems, we strive to improve, we make the process better. We ask the difficult questions and we critique a situation and we never stop.

And that is what comes down to my WILL. I have a strong WILL as they call it. You know, the one that people say this about you:

“She always has to have her way” about my relentless efforts to improve something or make it better.

“She worries too much” about the same.

“She’s never satisfied” about one problem solved and now on to the next one. Yes sir/ma’am, that is me.

“It’s always something” about my continual efforts to make life better.

What may seem like complaining to some is the critiquing of a process or situation to see how it can be better. Call it what you will, I’ll likely not ever change. Live with it or leave it. Live with it or lose it. Choose it.

So after praying over those things. And feeling blessed with the things that are going right, I realize that I need to focus more on God. I have to do this about once a quarter. I get pulled out of focus by so many things in life. Then one day I think – when did I last pray? When did I last study? Oops. It’s totally unintentional but you realize you are not spending time with God and then life starts to look dingy and ugly.

So, back in the LIGHT again. What is needed? Again more assessment, LOL.

What was that business book about priority setting in your life? The author had that excel chart to help you set your week. (Google of best business classic books on setting priorities). Ahhh yes, there it is. “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. Oh wait, didn’t I make my own. Yes, it’s in my closet (aka office bookshelf). I made that Weekly Focus Worksheet just for this reason.

Weekly Focus Worksheet

1. A list of your roles in life
2. A list of all the weekly goals
3. The focus for the Week (top 3)
4. Goals for the Month in case you need to skip ahead
5. Check boxes for remembering: Spiritual, Physical, Social, R/R needs
6. Reminders for Birthdays, Shopping, New Recipes, Bucket List, Household Chores, and Online orders

These reasons are why I had to personalize mine. I made the form years ago and only used it about a month. It became cumbersome and I found a calendar booklet that had much of this built in to it. However, the weeks I DID use this, I felt content and I felt that my focus was where it should be. My roles to others, to God, and to myself were more in balance.

I redid the sheet some years ago to become more specific to the Weekends as that is where I had the most productive time. Again I only really used it for about a month til it became a habit.

I called it the Weekend Worksheet.

1. Top 3 Focus
2. Top 3 Cleaning areas
3. A Saturday Checklist for: laundry, ironing, taking stuff downstairs for storage, emptying trashcans, cleaning kitchen, vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, overall picking up of the house, surface cleaning.
4. Shows to Watch – having self time is important too – it’s fun to decide what to pick for the weekend
5. Internet orders
6. Errands (as few as possible since it’s HOME TIME)
7. Misc To Do items
8. Upcoming meals and recipes to look up ingredients
9. Items to add to the grocery list (this was before I had Alexa)
10. Things to plan/remember
11. Notes for everything else

So just glancing at these gave me contentment and made me smile again. Knowing God has my back and I also have control over my mind to relax and know that what I can’t control, He can and He will have it as Perfect as it needs to be. God is perfect and we are made in His image and strive to be Perfect as well, but because we are on this earth alongside sin and in our temporary bodies, we will never be perfect unless we are Perfect in Him. So I won’t apologize for trying to be Perfect. I do apologize to Him for ignoring Him or others which I didn’t mean to do while trying to do all that I do.

So I’ll pray, study, refocus, tick off boxes, and put things that HE wants me to think about in my mind.

I’m content already having gone through this process and made those decisions. “He Places My Feet”. I hope they put that on my tombstone. I remember it, then I forget it until I worry and then I remember it again when I ask myself why.

I hope you too, will find comfort in this process. What makes you unhappy? How do you assess your feelings? What process do you use to resolve? Maybe try some of these ideas?

• A listing or critique of what is bothersome
• Prayer and Faith and Study time with God
• Focus and Reset Priorities
• Set some Goals
• Tick off the boxes
• Move Forward with Glee 🙂

I also listened to Dr. Cloud yesterday who mentioned something about mindfulness and how you can think of thoughts but not allow yourself to become captive of them. The Bible, he reminded us, even mentions not to let your thoughts take you captive. Imagine they are clouds drifting by – just allow them to come and go. Pray if need to.

And that is all I have time for. Matter of fact I’m running a little late now. Ahhh, that time factor again. I can’t wait til retirement and no longer managed by a dang clock.