It's All Part of the Process

It makes me chuckle a little now, but I have to say I had myself in a bit of a tizzy.  Survey says, “Continue to share your process with us, it helps us too”… “I want to know how a flesh and blood person deals with the experience of being a unique traveler.”  If you’re new to the blog, the survey I’m referring to can be found here and I’d love to know what you think!  So, here goes.

I explained in an earlier post that a lot, positive and challenging, has happened to me in the past two weeks.  New clients, lots of new contacts, a jump in blog membership and traffic, a big deadline and then I got sick.  I couldn’t even really just let go and be sick though I spent a couple of days in bed because this is what was going through my head, “I’ve had no inspiration for blog posts—maybe I’ve used all of the material I have…maybe I’m sabotaging myself just when it seems that everything I’ve worked so hard for might be blossoming a bit…maybe everyone will stop reading the blog if I don’t post something…maybe I just don’t have the energy for all of this...”  Then on Friday afternoon I felt a little shift in my energy and I felt less sick and more like myself.

Saturday morning, I decided to get up and just do a little informal brainstorming.  No pressure, just flip through my journal and jot down some ideas that had been floating around in my brain but hadn’t taken any real form.  Two hours later I had all of this:

I started writing down ideas on sticky notes.  I’m visual and tactile and like to be able to make connections between concepts and have the option of adding on to them at a later time.  Though my right brain generally rules, my left brain likes to create a little order out of what the boss creates.  I have a file cabinet next to my desk, so I started placing my notes in categories on the drawer faces.  I then arranged them heirarchicly with the most developed ideas on the top drawer and the infant ones on lower drawers.  In my journal, I discovered thoughts that had slipped from my conscious mind and others that provided springboards for brand new ideas. While thinking about the blog, I rekindled a couple of other project kernals that I’ve been working on for some time and created these:

I cut sticky squares into sticky strips, wrote on them sticky side up and then stuck them to the underside of the center round sticky note.  They make me smile because they’re kind of whimsical and decorative too.  I should also say that the note colors coordinate with my office colors making them pleasing to look at.  It really does matter to me.

Not only did this burst of a brainstorm reassure me that my blog ideas are far from dried up, it also motivated me to super organize my coaching files and schedule a couple of other projects that I think are next steps for my business.  The one thing that remains to do from this weekend brainshower is to create a schedule for myself in which I block out time every day for business actions as well as leisure and recharging.  I’m seeking greater balance so that, instead of super intense over the top work periods followed by energy crashes, I take a slower but steady approach.

Instead of burrowing under the covers where the running dialogue in my head was tempting me to hide from inevitable failure, I got started with one small step and ended up removing a good bit of emotional and physical clutter.  Tomorrow, I start the work week with a little more structure and a little more vision.  Within that framework is a whole lot of freedom to explore, create and discover.  And next time the tizzy starts, I’ll be a little more confident that it’s all part of the process.