Over Whelmed

"The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one."  - Mark Twain

Click Here For Success Tip # 081

 I go along feeling like I am doing fairly well when another challenge lands in my lap. Some challenges I go looking for, like finding the blog on doing impossible things and adding to my exercise program.  However, other challenges come to me unasked for and not completely welcomed. Mark Twain's words apply to any task.  When I started counseling, we first spent several months surveying the damage.  Then each session we tackled one more piece of the puzzle.  Many weeks I felt so little was accomplished.  A writer friend was upset because she feels like her effort of editing 6-7 pages a day her progress was not counted.  But consider that in 10 days she would edit 60 pages.  In 30 days 180 pages.  In 60 days, over 360 pages which is longer than most books.  She can feel frustrated because editing the book took 2 months or consider that the 2 months will pass anyway and at the end of two months the book is done.  I learned that many times the size of a project is overwhelming but cutting it up into more digestible pieces make impossible task possible. My kids were raised on 'cutting up the elephant' to accomplish what needs to be done.  When I became very sick I could only be up 20 minutes a day.  There were few tasks that I could accomplish in so short a time.  But when I put all those little pieces together, I could still accomplish things that I needed done.  Now, I am overwhelmed again.  So I look at the project and first decide I want to do it.  Every day there are opportunities all around to join some effort or start some project.  I have a room of partially finished projects.  Some I am recognizing will never be finished since I didn't actually want to do them in the first place.  Others are in different stages of completion but are low priority right now and in time will be finished but not too soon.  I didn't look for this new task.  I don't want this new task.  But my body didn't ask my opinion.  Two years ago, my audiologist discovered that one ear is loosing hearing much faster than the other one.  He sent me to a specialist and they found a brain tumor.  For two years, I haven't thought about it much.  Now this past week, my audiologist confirmed that my left ear can no longer understand words no matter how loud the volume.  The tumor has grown.  Now the task is to see the specialist again to see what my choices are.  I feel frustrated because I was handling what I had and getting stronger and taking on an impossible challenge and now I have a much bigger challenge than I really wanted.  I will be seeing the specialist on Tuesday.  I believe the first step will be another MRI.  After that I will find out what my choices are.  In the mean time, I still have other projects to do.  I am continuing my new exercise program and am surprised at the things I am doing that just a year ago I thought I couldn't do again.  I actually ran for 10 minutes Friday along with other exercises.  I think part of the overwhelming feeling I have is I don't know what needs to be done yet.  Like being too close to the side of the elephant all I see is one big elephant.  Time to step back.  I know how to do tough stuff, just a bit at a time.