Knowing What You Don’t Want is as Good as Knowing What You Do

I often say that knowing what you don’t want is as important as knowing what you do want. I got a job at a television station once and immediately knew that despite my degree, I didn’t want a career in television. It is invaluable to know yourself and what your happiness is composed of. But sometimes I still screw it up.

Last week, for the umpteenth time, I wrote out my bigger writing and blogging career goals, readying myself to take the actions I still always feel I can not get ahead of, and suddenly, I felt smothered. All these must do’s and have to be’s were exhausting me. I’ve intentionally been taking my cues on choosing by what makes me happy. And suddenly all I felt was overwhelmed and incapable of living up to my intentions. Like I was trying hard to be someone else. I did not want to feel like this.

And so I put everything down and stopped thinking about what my future self needed to do. As I am committed to my writing, I always keep up with my blog posting but I realized … it’s Summertime. There’s even less time to do anything during the Summer with children out of school. And here I was trying to stack more on my head.

I wanted that “kick back and relax” feeling that I had in the beginning of Summer. Because in less than a month, it’s back to school. No more leisurely mornings and afternoons or visits to the beach. It is a mindset to enjoy the slower pace and I had completely forgotten that was where I needed to be.

So here’s to dropping obligations like hot potatoes for the month of August. Here’s to doing what I want when I want to. And allowing for the feeling of nervousness to pass after the third day of doing nothing “productive” because I’m so used to ambitious thoughts that I don’t know how to exist without their whip.

We all have things that we do that we may not be aware we’re doing to keep up or keep ahead. Just being mindful and staying grounded can be the exact thing that you need you to do to see these and be in control of them and not them of you. Fear is usually the wall to wall carpet in these rooms. And I’m being very mindful to watch where I step.

And just as I’m preparing to publish this, I read this post called The Struggle IS Real : The Ten Tell-Tale Signs of Burnout . Fabulous read by a favorite sage Miss Sas Petherick . An absolutely spot on tell it like it like it is to be burned out and what you need to do immediately. Which was pretty much what I did. We are all so hard on ourselves. But candles burned at both ends burn out.

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