I wrote this piece in about 15 minutes, and it has been good for my mental health

I had no idea what I was going to write about this time around, and it was stressing me out.

It has been a bit hectic this week. Hectic in a positive way, in that I have been doing some talks in different places, which required a bit of travelling about and staying away from home. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself and they were great bits of work to do, but it has meant that everything else got a bit squished.

I had intended to get this week’s blog sorted while I was away, but it didn’t work out like that, so during all the travelling I was hoping that inspiration would strike.

It did not.

It’s Friday afternoon. I got back from one of the talks about lunchtime and I need to go and get my kids in an hour. I am absolutely exhausted to be honest, and I could do with a little time to just unwind, but I felt like actually I needed to squeeze in a load of time working on this blog, and I was feeling stressed that I didn’t have time or energy to do it.

However, while I was eating my lunch and feeling this pressure to think of something special, it hit me:

Nobody has demanded that I do this each week, that is my own expectation. I decided I would do it like that and I like doing it, but in reality, if I don’t, nothing much will happen. I have had some lovely messages from people who say that they look forward to reading my stuff, but I also know that it is likely that they will not be completely devastated not to have one.

I also realised I was putting this pressure on myself to write something profound or impactful, but frankly that’s just not how my mind works. I honestly try to get ahead of myself and write a few of these ahead of time but I seem to find that quite hard: I find it much easier if something has struck me in my work or in my life, and then I can use that, rather than picking a topic and trying to do something on it.

So with all of that, I realised my expectations were that it has to be today, it has to be profound, and it has to be reasonably long (I have no idea where that one came from, and actually now I have spotted it I actively disagree with it), but all of these expectations are entirely my own.

It struck me that sometimes this is what stops us from taking proper care of ourselves. Sometimes it’s real life and the responsibilities that we have (I did need to respond to some people this afternoon, and I do need to go and pick up my kids from school) but sometimes it’s also expectations that we have given ourselves out of nowhere.

So, I gave myself permission to do a short one today. One where I just write about how I am feeling and what’s going on. I am not going to edit it, really, I am just going to put it out there as it is.

As it turns out, taking that pressure off has actually helped the words to flow. They don’t have to be perfect, in fact they don’t have to be sent out at all if I can’t make it work. That’s helpful.

So, once I have scheduled this to go, I am going to go and sit on the sofa for a bit and listen to a podcast or read. That’s the plan.

Thanks for reading. Until next time,

Ted

P.S. I went to set this up to post it, but in doing so I started overthinking what the title should be! So, I tried to apply the same principle again: it’s OK, it doesn’t have to be perfect. Just go with it and use the time you save to recharge your batteries.