Written by Marcus Berley, LMHC
How to cultivate a mental state that can handle the daily grind
If you operate at a high level, you're used to handling tons of tasks, day after day. You step up to all the demands of work, and have high expectations of yourself. When you get home, there's more to do. To avoid burning out, you need rest. But it isn't as easy as just slowing down. This article will examine why that is, and how to make the mental shift that will let you rest, so you can get more joy from the business of living.
Change of Pace
Imagine you are getting ready to go for a run. You put on your running clothes, lace up your shoes. You stretch for a while to limber up, then start to jog. You don't go from standing still to sprinting, and you need a cool-down afterwards so your muscles and tendons don't get shocked and recoil. It helps you avoid injury, so you can go for your next run.
The transitions are easy to see, because it's happening with your physical body. When the change of pace is mental, it can be more difficult to recognize.
Optimal Conditions
Let's imagine what the ideal conditions would be. You go through your morning, get your family situated, exercise, eat something, clean yourself up, and get to work. You focus on a project and have a few meetings, then eat a light lunch. You've put in a steady chunk of work, are getting a bit tired. It's time to take a break. You don't have any urgent obligations or upcoming meetings. Nobody needs anything from you and there isn't any task to do that can't wait until later.
You close your laptop. You put your phone in another room, on silent. You lay down on a comfortable sofa, cozy up with your pet if you've got one. Maybe read a few pages of a book, or just let your mind wander. If you feel like it, you close your eyes and take a quick nap, knowing that you'll be ready to come back into the realm of daily business when you wake up. When your eyes open, you feel rested, refreshed, and ready for whatever the afternoon brings your way.
Realistic Conditions
Most people don't have access to optimal conditions. You grind. The day throws off surprises, with meetings popping up on your calendar. A child gets sick and needs to be picked up from school. Your proposal is due the same day that the plumber is coming to fix a leaky pipe and the dog is all wound up because there's construction happening across the street. Even before all this, you felt behind, because no matter how much you get done, there's always more. Even when your projects are successful, you're buried in work. The people you love require energy too, and your home and car require maintenance. You have a lot of responsibilities and they are perpetually there in the background, demanding your attention.
Improving Your Mental State
Life feels especially stressful when it seems like there is more to do than you are capable of. This could be the amount of work to get done in a day, or the amount of income compared with what you have to pay out in a month. The mind is quite good at noticing anything that is a potential threat. And if it notices everything that isn't done yet and thinks it needs to be completed before it can rest, then it will never actually rest. Because there is always more.
You cannot do everything that you notice at the moment you notice it. You can decouple what you notice - the tasks, the bills - from what actually needs attention right now. And when you spend more time in the present, you will notice more practical steps that can be taken today, and not be swept away by the inherent uncertainty that comes from thinking of the future.
Practice What's In Front of You
As our civilization has advanced technologically, we've become aware of many different time horizons. So you may have goals for the week, the quarter, the year, the decade. And goals are lovely to have as guide posts. But, if you'd like to be able to accomplish those goals over a long time horizon without wrecking your quality of life, you'll have to learn to rest.
So look around at what's in front of you right now. Yes, in this room, or this car, or wherever you happen to be. Is there anything right in front of you that is an emergency? Is there something that you actually can do that you'd like to do, that fits this time and place? If so, go ahead and attend to it directly. If not, let your mind wander, let yourself know that, at least for this moment, there's nothing more to do.