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Last week started bad. Loads of worrying, no proper sleep for a couple of days, and some kind of bug physically. In short, I’ve been far below 100%.
Thursday, I got home from work. Tired. I went for a walk instead of a run. I decided that my body might do good with a short break from running, but I still need the movement. Got back to shower, and still tired. Grumpy. Moody. Feeling sorry for myself.
In the shower, I thought about the mood, and how it’d bothered me for almost a week. Noticed it. And decided to let go of the bad juju. Stop it.
I had enough. Sometimes that works. Just getting fed up.
Sometimes I need to have those days or weeks where I’m moody and in a rut. It’s a signal for something else, or just the state I’m in.
I know that others have these periods as well. And I’ve spoken to a lot of people who are stuck in a rut they don’t want to be in anymore without knowing what to do about it.
I’ve developed and stolen some ideas on that. Shifting attention from the negative and bothering to things i want to focus on, with the goal being to get out of and away from the rut.
These are some of them. Steal them with pride.
→ Set a deadline
According to Parkinson’s Law, things take as much time and space as they’re given. Setting a deadline for a mood or a rut makes it possible for me to limit that time.
What I’ve seen in people when speaking about getting out of a rut is that they allow themselves to be in the rut for an indefinite amount of time. They don’t really have a plan to get out, an exit strategy or even a goal post in time for when they’re going to be out of it.
A plan without a deadline is just a dream.
— Neil DeGrasse Tyson (I think)
I heard about the concept of the deadline in a keynote speech. The speaker said you can limit any emotion in time. You’re sad? That’s fine. For how long are you going to be sad tho?
His point was that if you give yourself an appropriate amount of time, you’ll be able to let go of the feeling more easily. The deadline becomes a finish line, and once you’re past it, there’s no point to keep running in the race of the feeling.
→ A word of caution
Just a word of caution on this, as it’s a trap I’ve fallen into myself: No feeling or mood is bad. They’re all signals and part of living. Allow yourself to feel them. Be in them.