I’m on a roll right now. Ideas are popping, and I’m thinking strategically about a lot of things at work. All or most of my brain cylinders are firing.
This is very different than how I was doing three and a half to four years ago. My thinking was fuzzy, my creativity was shit, and I had to ask others to take notes for me at meetings. That’s what depression can do to you (in addition to the whole not wanting to get out of bed or even think of going out in the world).
I’m mentally healthy right now, which is great, but even with medication, therapy, meditation, and everything else I do to protect my mental health, I know that depression and anxiety can come back just as brutely as last time. So, while I’m doing so well, I’m trying to get my ideas and strategic thinking out of my head and shared them with people at work and others before I lose those ideas or can’t think as clearly.
I’m trying to take a different approach in the past. In the past, I’ve worried about making up for lost time, making up for the times that my depression and / anxiety were barriers to me accomplishing the things I’d wanted to, making up for the years when I had seriously low self-esteem so didn’t even try. I’d try to make up for this time by going, going, going, which inevitably lead to to burning out, burning out, burning out, which brings on depression and anxiety.
I’m trying to not make that mistake again. Instead of go, go, go, I’m trying share, go, share, rest, repeat. Hopefully, this approach works better.
Featured image courtesy of Paco Calvino under a CC-BY-NC-SA license.