Do One Thing

Life is filled with so many to-do lists, it's almost amazing we can make it through any given day. And there's alot of stuff going on - everywhere I look I see and hear people talking about how everything is big and major and completely overwhelming! It's not rare then in that situation to find that alot of people end up petrified in fear.

My teacher used to say, " When the pressure is on, just start and the pressure will be off." The future holds too many uncertainties. We can't know what will happen if we act one way or another, we can't know that things will go the way we expect them, and this can cause alot of fear and anxiety. But fear and anxiety are limiting and they especially limit us on the action level - we end up truly petrified, turned to stone, and unable to make any movement at all.

We can choose to accept the fear or we can do something about it and the best way to do something about it is to start so the pressure will be off, i.e. take constructive or positive action. Here are some simple ways to start:
1) Make a list of the things running around in your head that you have to do
2) Single out the one that is causing you the most headaches and write down three things you can do to gain more knowledge and thereby empower yourself
3) Draw a picture of how you feel
4) Write out the "worst case scenario(s)" you can think of - oftentimes doing this will alleviate the stress of the unknown - and then evaluate how bad they really are

Now use some of this information to filter out a few things you can do - phone calls you can make, internet research, talk to people specifically expert in the things you are dealing with, talking it out with a friend, etc.

And then schedule with yourself to do one little thing each day. Just one thing is all that's necessary.

Change is easy. We set too many monumental tasks in front of ourselves and expect ourselves to manage that on top of the already unmanageable stress of life, and it doesn't work. Change on the other hand, is just placing one foot in front of the other, taking one little teensy step at a time, These steps produce knowledge and knowledge is power. It informs you of what options are viable and which aren't and allows you to make informed decisions. And once you are at the part about informed decisions, you are already in movement and on the road to change. Doing one thing turns out to be way easier than you thought and you are on the way to resolving whatever situation you're dealing with. Good for you!

Blessings.
- Darshan



© 2010 Darshan F Jessop