Give Yourself A Break!

For some of us (I speak for myself), the hardest thing is to stop working. Even when we're away from work our minds still resides there. Now when will we learn...?

Yesterday (11th May) I had a break down- an emotional breakdown-at 11 pm. Now you're probably wondering why (or maybe not)?

Prior to then, I had this big fog in my head. It wasn't a headache which I thought it was, it wasn't my hairstyle which could've caused the tension in my head, it wasn't even my environment being too loud, stuffy etc. It dawned on me that night what it was. Whenever someone had this I would subconsciously ask what was on their mind.

I had A LOT of tasks to do and very little time to do it. That night I was stressed out and unforgiving of myself for not getting them done before the deadline. It was all I could think about, even when watching movies to help me de-stress. Can you relate?

They say 'you're your own worst critic' and I guess I was. I hated the idea of not submitting a good piece of work on time. Might I tell you, if you hadn't noticed, that the fog I'd had for days was because of work (all the things that I needed to get done). After crying and telling myself off, I was encouraged to explain to my teacher that I wouldn't be able to submit the work. Let me tell you it was a war in my head... my hands felt restrained from pressing 'send'. Well, I did it - but felt so disappointed in myself.

I don't mean pry, in fact, I'm here to share the lesson I learnt from that really tough experience.

Don't work yourself to a pulp, to the point where you're physically, emotionally and mentally falling apart over work. Yes, it is hard, but we do it to ourselves. We can become detached, sad, overwhelmed and stressed. You shouldn't want that for yourself, I don't want that for you or me. Giving ourselves a break is a CHOICE we have to make to avoid unnecessary breakdowns. Someone told me that 'it wasn't the end of the world', suggesting that I would be ok if I didn't submit it. I heard and understood their advice but I couldn't apply it to my situation... to how I felt.

Our well-being and happiness are so important and nothing should take that away from us. I had to take a step back from working just to ease my mind - maybe you have to do that with whatever is causing your mind to feel heavy. I had to say it out loud, telling myself that ' it wasn't the end of the world'. Learn to tell yourself 'it's ok' so that you can relax when you need to.

The expectations we have of ourselves it all that matters and is arguably the most important. The issue is I have such high expectations of myself that I can't even allow myself to fall short of them sometimes. Don't let this be you. We all have a lot of work to do and most of us balance so much in our lives without even realising it. Do me a favour, give yourself credit and acknowledge that you're a hard worker.

As hard as it is, I promise to take my own advice and learn from this.

Ps. I'm focusing on working smarter and learning to leave every aspect of work behind when it's time to step away.

Let me know in the comments how you de-stress.