How to disconnect from your to-do list and connect to yourself.
Do you ever feel like you’re always chasing goals, achievements and “the next thing”?
Do you ever feel bad if you haven’t ticked off enough boxes on your to-do list?
Do you ever measure your self-worth by how much you get done in a day?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might be suffering from “productivity guilt“. This is where you become overly focused on being efficient and effective at everything you do, both at work and in life.
Productivity is good for the economy, but not always good for the soul.
It can make you feel stressed, overwhelmed, and unhappy because that to-do list is never done. NEVER! It can also make you forget that you’re a human being and not a human doing.
You are so much more than your achievements. You have inherent value and worth that doesn’t depend on your output or performance.
You don't always have to do. You can just be.
You can just go for a walk because you want to experience nature and not because you need to increase your step count.
You can just close your eyes and do nothing without having to tell yourself that you’re meditating.
You can just eat the strawberries because you want the strawberries and not because they’re one of your five a day.
This week I’ve had a mini break with family and I’ve taken a small step to being more of a human being by untethering myself from my phone during periods of waiting or “dead time.”
Rather than compulsively checking my emails or replying to messages, I’ve just waited, taken in my surroundings, and allowed myself to be.
I’ve felt a sense of peace and contentment that feels almost (almost!) as rewarding as the dopamine hit that comes from being a little worker bee and checking off boxes on my list.
Either that or I'm getting my dopamine hit from ticking the box off my to-do
list of being a human being rather than a human doing, haha!
I guess it’s impossible to know what one’s true motivation is when doing anything, but I’m pretty sure we can all agree less time spent on your phone is 100% always a good thing!
How could you be more human being than human doing?
