Handling The Hard Stuff

Category: Self-Care

  • There is No Normal

    One of the biggest lies we tell ourselves is “next week things will go back to normal.” What is normal? It seems like literally every day there is something that’s requiring our immediate attention or pulling us out of our default position. Things never get back to normal. Things evolve. We’ve recently started calling changes…

  • You are Doing Better than You Think

    We are terrible at reasonable self-analysis. Invariably we are our own worst critics. We second-guess every choice we’ve made and consider whether things would be better if we’d done things differently. Stop. You are where you are and you’re doing better than you think you are. You are trying. You are changing. Those two things…

  • Trying Harder

    I have a lot of quit in me. I am really good at pushing myself a little but not a LOT. I have never gone “to failure”. I’ve never pushed myself so hard I literally can’t keep going. I’ve never tried to lift something so heavy I needed a spotter to help me finish. I’ll…

  • Time is a Choice

    We often say things like “I don’t have time for that” or “I can’t, I’m too busy” when the reality is we just aren’t making the time for it. We choose our priorities with our schedule. Try replacing “I don’t have time for that” with “That’s not a high enough priority for me” and see…

  • We Can’t Hack Everything

    This is such a trend lately – every advertisement or online post is Five Quick Ways to XYZ. We are constantly pitched a cheat code or a hack or a quick way to circumvent hard work in order to get the outcome we desire. The reality is that the outcome isn’t nearly as desirably if…

  • Safety Net

    A friend of mine messaged me today to tell me she quit her job – her first professional, career, JOB job – without having another lined up. She was freaking out. She sort of had a plan, she’d loosely lined up additional work to fill the time and space and has a strong likelihood that…

  • Easygoing

    As kids we’re taught to be nice. We’re taught to be polite. And we’re taught to figure out how to get along with each other. Some of us are taught to be silent until spoken to. We learn to be agreeable and go-along-to-get-along. We practice saying yes to things so we can avoid conflict. We…

  • Boundaries do not Mean Beef

    Drawing boundaries does not mean you are picking a fight. It is not an adversarial thing. You are not doing this at someone, you are doing it for yourself. Choosing to unfollow someone on social media does not mean you dislike them or don’t wish them well. It means that your mental health is negatively…

  • Reward Yourself

    We don’t celebrate our wins much as adults. We have a hard time prioritizing the small victories in our daily lives. And even when we do celebrate the little things, we rarely reward ourselves in big or useful ways. When I was little any celebratory act was rewarded with treats. Ice cream or chocolate or…

  • Quiet Quitting

    This is a phrase that’s come about in the last few years that essentially means you’re not “giving your all” to something. It is mostly used in relation to your work identity. It goes hand in hand with someone over the age of 50 grumbling “no one wants to work anymore”. That’s true Jim, no…