I’ve been trying to write an inspirational post on gratitude and preparing for the new year with a strategic plan, and the true meaning of Christmas…but you know what? I’ve been completely overwhelmed lately.
As much as I thrive on being a Digital Nomad, the moving and transition from here to there is always somewhat disorienting to me. Friends remind me that moving ranks right below death as a highly stressful event. But I brush it off, thinking that since I like being elsewhere, it “shouldn’t” effect me that much.
This state of overwhelm always effects my writing and publishing. It’s not hard for me to write. It’s hard for me to share…via publishing here. So that’s something I’ll be addressing in this year’s strategic plan annual review.
Overwhelm. It sucks.
Overwhelm is something that affects everyone, some more than others. Creatives are especially prone to getting stuck in overwhelm, because we can imagine so many things so vividly. We can also see the end result in the minds eye. The hard part is translating that vision into action. And all of the little steps it takes to get from here to the grand vision.
Part of my strategic planning process involves creating a Stop Doing List. I adapted this from Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great. Essentially, in order to make room for the new, we first have to let go of something else. Not unlike dealing with the stuff that fills our studios!
Stop Doing List: from the visual journal of artist and creative entrepreneur Carol C. Parks
Enter: The Stop Doing List
We have an activity in my workshops affectionately known as the “Stop Doing List”.
It’s a wonderful antidote to the pages of our long to-do lists. I love to see mouths drop open when I suggest we think first about subtracting, before adding, one more thing to do in our lives.
Items that qualify for the Stop Doing List include things:
- you don’t like doing
- that don’t add value to your life or your business
- that don’t pay enough
- that take too much time
- that you just aren’t that good at
- you could pay someone else to do
- that cause an unhealthy type of stress
- that bring in little or no reward for the effort
- that are “shoulds”
- that other people expect you to do
- you’re good at but are just tired of doing
Try using each of the above bullet points as a journal prompt, and fill in your own blanks.
Now, just thinking about what you would stop doing, but feel you can’t, can cause anxiety. That’s normal.
Take a deep breath.
Stop thinking.
Start writing.
Don’t worry about how.
Radical Idea: from Lisa Sonora Beam's Visual Journal
Something that helps is to label the page: radical ideas, or radical wonderings. This makes it easier for the heart and mind to synch up and not freak out.
Why We Freak Out
One of the greatest myths of creating something new is that we’ll have to do a 180 degree turn in our lives in order to have it. And that it will be hard. For instance: to be a “real” artist, I’ll need to quit my job, leave my family and go live in poverty in order to have time and space to create.
Or: I need to go get another degree. Or go back to school. Or move to New York or Los Angeles. Or move to the country. Whatever it is that seems dramatically different from what you’re doing now.
Consider the Trim Tab to Calm Down
In systems thinking, there is a concept called the Trim Tab, named after the tiny tab sticking out from the rudder of a ship. This little tab makes it possible for the rudder to work more effectively, easily allowing an enormous tanker to make it’s own 180 degree turns.
To apply the Trim Tab principle in your life ask:
What is the least amount of change or effort I could make that would have the biggest result?
The Stop Doing List is a brainstorming technique to get at some of those tiny changes that will make moving forward, or toward your desires, easier—and at the same time—more effective.
So…what’s on your Stop Doing List? I’m going to take a break and do this journal prompt myself, and add my list in the comments. Feel free to join in!
Related posts:
Howdy! I’m Lisa Sonora Beam, author of The Creative Entrepreneur. I teach people how to get unstuck and use their creativity to make a living doing what they love. 
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Yes, yes and yes! Great post. Thanks for all the great reminders.
Dear Lisa,
That’s a useful way to focus on the right now, and to just be. For me self-realisation often works. (Fixes it)
I am one to get too overwhelmed easily as well. For me what often triggers this motion is what my left brain “thinks” it “wants” to do. This stems from the constant obversation of others and their own lifes, and so the mere wandering commences into the daydreamworld.
What often happens is that I become frustrated because of this overwhelmness. It isn’t that I have too much to, as I am quite paceful and in each moment uniquely, as I’ve never made a list. I live in the now, and take each experience as it comes so to speak. It is just that when the brain wanders, it starts to dream too much of all these wonderful things ‘it’ likes to do, and in the end of it, it’s not really connected to the right now and how I am feeling. I have noticed that I go through these overwhelming phases on purpose. Even though I get less of them, I learn more about myself in the journey and my growing awareness and the mechanics of my left brain thus eventually healing this kind of experience completetly.
A wonderful lesson, on the journey of my own awareness.
“Creatives are especially prone to getting stuck in overwhelm, because we can imagine so many things so vividly. ”
Hmm… that may INDEED be the reason. Never thought about it that way, but it may be an answer to a question I have been asking myself for quite some time. I’m sorry as this is not really the central thought of your post, but it really left me thinking… so thanks a lot for sharing. I also enjoyed the rest of the article, by the way, and LOVE stop doing lists.