Dealing with discouragement

[NH Homesteader]

Us too, on the lower income lifestyle. I had a well paying job.... Gave it up to homeschool and homestead. I think we're better off this way, no doubt!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

When a lower income lifestyle equals a BETTER lifestyle - for yourself and/or your kiddos - it's a pretty smart decision!

 

[baymule]

I think I may be the opposite... I get depressed when I don't have anything to do. The more irons I got in the fire the happier I am.

What's that old saying... "Idle time is devil's time" holds true for me. I get in enough trouble all by myself, I don't need the devil giving me any more ideas... If I'm not running around like a one legged man in a ass kicking contest - then I'm simply not happy.

You just described me! I always have so many things going on, so many projects started, it drives my husband nuts.....after 22 years (on Valentine's Day) You'd think he'd be used to it. Sometimes, I even finish one!

 

[sumi]

When a lower income lifestyle equals a BETTER lifestyle - for yourself and/or your kiddos - it's a pretty smart decision!

Well said!

 

[Calista]

Sometimes I think, if you're not feeling overwhelmed, then you're not doing enough. Then I give myself a mental slap and remember that's my Type-A personality speaking.

I get up every day with a plan, God laughs, and then I take comfort in what I DO get done.

I'm lucky not to have any personal health issues but my Vietnam vet husband has PTSD and we have to roll with the punches when he has bad days and can't help much. Poor guy has been dealing with the fallout from that war for 40 years -- gee, all he wanted to do was stay in the seminary, studying for the priesthood and do good for people, and his government drafted him and trained him to be a sniper. One can sympathize with why he's so messed up.

 

[NH Homesteader]

That would do it, wouldn't it. Thanks to him for his service, although I'm sure that sounds rather lacking compared to what he has to live with. The folks from Vietnam have it rough.

I've let go of my obsessive to-do list having a 4 week old infant. Just wait til spring when we're able to go outside more and I'll be type A right along with you! Haha!

 

[Beekissed]

Adm. McRaven explains at a University of Texas, Austin commencement speech:

If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another.

By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter.

I know it sounds silly, making the bed is one way I ward off feeling overwhelmed by all the many thing to be done from season to season, day to day. Mom always taught us to make the bed and there was no option...we had to make it.

Then when I got out on my own, I continued the practice...I found that, even if I had let my room get pretty messy, a neatly made bed in the middle of all that chaos still gave the room a gloss of respectability. It automatically made the room look cleaner.

Over the years I grew to LOVE sliding into smooth, cool sheets at the end of a hard day, so that little pleasure was something I prepared for each morning.

Nowadays I hurt a lot, so getting anything done in a day is wunderbar to me and some days the made bed is all I seem to accomplish...but that's at least one thing. If I didn't get one other thing done all day, I got that one thing done and could reap the rewards of it at the end of the day.

Like the quote above, I've found getting that one thing done first thing in the morning, most often leads to other one things until the day has several one things piled up that got done. On the really good days, I get the chance to mark big things off my list...and that's another way I keep from feeling overwhelmed~lists.

Daily and seasonal lists can help you stay focused. I'm a hopper...my attention span is that of a gnat, so lists help me regain focus when I've got several projects started and none of them getting finished. I still seem to have many irons in the fire at once around here, but the lists do tend to keep us focused on specific goals so that we actually DO get things done...eventually.

 

[Chic Rustler]

Yeah. Like right now I know I really need to get the garden ready. But I'm also stuck on the idea of putting in a drive point well. But I'm going to finish it first

 

[baymule]

I look at it this way; a lot of started projects means that I am never bored. If I get tired of working on one project, I just go to another.

 

[sumi]

Calista, hugs for your DH, I cannot imagine

Beekissed, I make my bed as soon as I feel up to it in the mornings. It bugs me so when it's unmade! Then I think of something to do that has to get done, even when I don't feel much like it. Having that task completed usually spurs me on to get going with another, even if I don't complete it. I found once you get going with something it gets easier to get it done, it's just the start.