A personal story and bad mental habits

In the past six months, I’ve been feeling better than I’ve felt in, honestly, a few years.

It’s been a tough few years for me and my family (a peek into that here and here) — and man, it feels good to say to friends when they ask how I’m doing, “Actually, I’m doing pretty great!”

But I’ve also been noticing that I have a bad mental habit.

As soon as I get a bit of energy in my bank account, my brain immediately wants to spend it.

My brain thinks: great, you have some energy, let’s spend it on this big work/personal project!

Katie Seaver, life coach, bad mental habits, bad habits that lead to failure, setting intentions, being intentional with your time

Of course, I get it. While I’ve been operating with a very limited energy budget the past few years, there have been so many projects I’ve been wanting to get to. Everything from dietary changes to strength training to LinkedIn marketing, and much more, are on my potential to-do list.

And yet, when I’ve followed that urge to take on big projects in a dramatic way, I’ve quickly drained myself again. And that’s definitely not what I want to be doing right now. My truest priorities are to:

Enjoy feeling good + not tired, and having a solid cushion of energy in my bank account. This is a luxury I haven’t had in a while.
Keep building up my emergency fund of energy, which has been unfortunately low, the past few years.
Take amazing, gentle care of myself, and continue to prioritize myself, my family, and my 1:1 clients.

A lot of days, I love this plan. But at least a few times a week, that thought will re-arise: great, you have some energy, let’s spend it on this BIG work/personal project!

It’s been helpful for me to remind myself:

Katie, that’s just a bad mental habit you have, which wants to spend energy as soon as you get it. That’s not what we’re doing right now. Right now, we’re enjoying feeling good, and we’re building up our energy nest egg.

Explicitly noticing + naming to myself that I have this bad mental habit has been incredibly useful to me – I’m far more likely to catch myself before I’ve spent four days doing a really hard thing + totally exhausted myself unnecessarily.

And, of course, when I am very protective of my newly more-generous energy budget, I actually feel inspired to take on some new projects at a pace that truly works for me (Q1 included a fun exploration of SEO for my business, and I’m gently dipping my toe into strength training.).

In that obvious yet perpetually surprising way, I go faster when I’m not sprinting, and then needing to recover from exhaustion.

…

I wanted to share my story, for two reasons:

“I want to spend this energy as soon as I earn it!” is a bad mental habit that I’ve observed in a lot of people. Do you have it, too?
Do you have another bad mental habit? It’s been really helpful for me to name what it is, so I can notice it (ideally) before I start acting on it.

As always, I’m rooting for you in the week ahead. You’ve got this.

Katie

p.s. Want to feel less busy + exhausted all the time? Struggle with people-pleasing? What to know feel on track to what matters most? 1:1 life coaching can be a game changer for that — and much more.

Learn more here.

1/9/22 1/9/22

A PSA on recharging your battery

Please remember: Recharging your (emotional/mental/physical/spiritual) battery… may not feel good.

Sometimes, it may feel downright bad.

Katie Seaver, life coach, chronic stress effects, what to do when life feels hard, how do you break chronic stress, how to feel less tired, good mental habits

A few reasons why:

Your nervous system may agitated and fried.

You can avoid feeling uncomfortable body sensations when your life is still zooming along. After all, there’s always a new important thing to focus your brain on — you may be able to avoid feeling your body at all!

But once you slow down and try to rest, you may no longer be able to avoid the sensations that were always there, beneath the surface. They do get better over time — but the first brush with them tends to be the most intense.
You may have unprocessed anxiety, insecurity, fear, sadness, or anger.

These unprocessed feelings could be about completely “understandable” topics (the loss of someone you love, for example), but could just as easily be about things you don’t deem “worthy” of such pain (a stupid comment by a coworker) — and yet, there they are.

These feelings may be easy to ignore when your life is moving fast, but they rush in when there is some space. And boom — you’re overflowing with resentment, or anger, or grief, or shame.
Your brain may flip out.

When you slow down and try to rest, your brain may throw thoughts at you like: “you’re falling behind,” “you’ll never meet your goals,” and “other people don’t need so much rest like this.” Or even: “You’ve already been resting for an hour/day/week/month, you *should* feel better by now!”

It’s hard to feel calm and at peace with a chaotic brain.
You may not know how to recharge.

A lot of lip service is paid nowadays to “self-care” — but I find that many people have not engaged with enough depth, iteration, and time with the complex work of truly recharging a profoundly empty battery.

Sure, sure, baths and walks and journaling can all help. But what is your very particular prescription, in this very particular season of your life?

I don’t say this to discourage you.

I say it because I find, too often, people are discouraged by the process of actually refilling their tank. They hoped it would feel like getting a massage in a white terrycloth robe. And sure, sometimes it feels like that. But it can also feel… quite challenging.

It can take a profound curiosity + courage to decide that this is a priority, and pursue it.

And above all: it can be done.
And: you can do it.

As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie