Several years ago, I found myself sitting in a coffee shop with a friend, discussing the paths our lives were taking, and whether we should follow or change them. “I just don’t know what God wants for me,” I lamented.
“Maybe,” he offered, “God is asking you what you want.”
What did I want? In that moment, I couldn’t answer the question. Sometimes it’s hard to know our own desires.
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The last week or two, I’ve found myself completely overwhelmed by my to-do list. On the back of a trans-atlantic trip followed by a brutal round of jet lag, each day has seen me staring down my massive to-do list only to walk away in defeat.
Usually, my approach is flexible. Because my work is so varied, I have several different categories laid out on a blank sheet of paper where I note what needs to be done for each. Then I choose a few things to do every day that week. Sometimes I’ll batch work, trying to knock out a whole category in one day. Often, I’ll just tackle the most do-able tasks, or the ones that need to be done sooner. Most weeks, this tends to work just fine. This week, it did not.
Not only was there too much on the page to begin with (a fatal mistake for feeling accomplished), but my real difficulty was that there were too many competing things on the list. Usually one category takes precedence one day, another the next – there’s an ebb and flow that allow for flexibility. This week, there was no natural starting point. Too many things on the to-do list needed doing, all at the same time. I was overwhelmed and paralyzed with the simple decision of where to begin.
I recently had a reader write in with this question:
I can have a peace of mind at home, I pray a lot, I even have a prayer desk beside my bed, but my bedroom is a total mess. Is this normal? I am trying to fix it … Can you give me any tips or advice?
Here was my response:
If you’ve found a way to manage most of your spaces, but you’ve got one room that is always a mess, you’ve got to figure out why it is, despite your attempts to fix it.
Here are 7 common reasons that might help you figure out why your room is always a mess, no matter how hard you try to keep it clean.
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If you struggle to do everything perfectly, if you labour over the last tiny detail of every little thing, if you are afraid to ever show your work to anyone before it has reached complete perfection, you might be a perfectionist.
There’s good news for you, though: help is available. Once you realize that you can still pursue excellence without being a perfectionist, and you give yourself permission to embrace the imperfection that comes with making progress, you can take your next step on the path to recovery: increase production, on a deadline.
Perfectionism is a burden, but it’s also a privilege. If you have an entire essay to write in the next 8 hours, labouring over comma placement in one sentence becomes a privilege you no longer have. If your manager expects 10 reports on his desk by Monday morning, you don’t have the luxury of hours spent formatting margins within 1/8 inch.
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I’ve written before about the importance of knowing yourself, and how journaling can be a big part of that process. But what if you’ve never journaled before? What if you don’t think of yourself as a “writer”? The whole process can be intimidating if you’re new to journaling, so here are some prompts to help you get started.
Remember: there’s no right or wrong when it comes to journaling. It’s just a place to note down your thoughts, feelings, ideas, and everyday life happenings. You may naturally want to focus more on one than the other: that’s fine! Journaling is the kind of practice you grow into over time, so start with writing what’s easiest for you to write. There will be seasons of plenty, where you’ll be filling page after page, and seasons where it’ll be difficult to scratch out more than a few lines. Stick with it, and you’ll be able to look back and see the fruit.
