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My Season of Partial Discontent

I have to admit up front: I owe somebody some credit. I just don’t remember who it is. I read an article or blog post recently that really spoke to me and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. The article gave a list of possible reasons for being sad, unhappy, or dissatisfied with your job.

The idea that pierced my heart: my personal goals and my professional goals are not in alignment.

Zing! Whap! Pow!

I’ve been struggling emotionally for a while now. After some serious soul searching, I know that article hit a nerve for a reason. I have an excellent career, one that I have always enjoyed. I still enjoy it, although admittedly much less frequently than I did.

I wish I had more time to pursue other interests, dreams, and hopes. In fact, this blog is an offshoot of my internal strife. I don’t have time to be a writer, but I want to be a writer. I will be a writer. I am a writer.

So, now I know what the root of my problem is: I have a complete personal/professional disconnect. I have been diligently writing down my lists of things I need to do, projects I want to finish, goals and dreams I hope to accomplish. My lists include everything in my life, as if it were all a harmonious and complete package.

But then, oh the agony.

I end up I sitting at my office in a brain fog, lamenting all the personal projects I can’t do. When I’m at home, I endlessly regret how many professional goals I haven’t accomplished at work because I’m so stuck.

My life has become an endless cycle of dissatisfaction, gloominess, and frustration.

This has to stop. And now!

The way I see it, I have a couple of choices:

Choice 1) I can give up on a rewarding career, quit my job, and start over. Sadly, this choice is a non-starter right now, for so many reasons I won’t even begin to address them all. Mainly the problem is money. That’s not a cop-out, it’s just the unvarnished truth.

Choice 2) I can separate career goals from personal goals, which means I won’t be constantly facing a list of “life goals” that I’m not 100% free to pursue at any given moment. This would allow me to acknowledge that there are two sides of my life that don’t mesh well right now. Maybe I can’t accomplish everything as fast as I want, but I can make steady progress.

I believe I’m in a season of partial discontent, but it doesn’t have to be total discontent. I just have to accept the things I cannot change, and then change the things I can.

Simple, profound, and devilishly hard, right?

–Monica

Overconsumption of Productivity Advice Makes Me…Slothful?

When I was naming my new blog, Microsoft Word provided me with these synonyms for the word productive: creative, prolific, industrious, fruitful, dynamic.

But what did Word say was the antonym for Productive? —DESTRUCTIVE.

Hmmm….

This one made me think, I have to say. Does it mean that if you’re not productive, then you’re automatically destructive? As in, no longer building but instead destroying your life? That seems a bit harsh, doesn’t it?

In terms of personal productivity, I don’t think the opposite of being productive is being destructive. Stagnant, inert, stationary maybe. But not destructive.

However, I have discovered that over-consuming productivity advice has a negative effect on my attitude. A blog post here or there about how to be more productive is a good thing. A constant barrage of blog posts spoon fed to me by Feedly starts to become too much of a good thing. Add a few leadership books on CD while I exercise and an hour of productivity podcasts in the car during my daily commute – and wham! Suddenly I’m in complete meltdown. As in, zero productivity occurring.

Overconsumption of food makes us fat. Overconsumption of alcohol makes us drunk. So, overconsumption of productivity advice makes us…slothful?

For sloth me, the answer is YES.

How perverse! Yet true. The more I read, think, and listen to productivity and leadership propaganda, the more slothful I become. I find myself sitting at my desk, sad and depressed, unable to move forward on anything substantial.

I think the reason is, I become overwhelmed with everything I should be doing.

For example:

I should write down every stray thought lest I lose it forever, or alternately think about it too much and become distracted.
I should use this phone app to track my habits.
I should use this calendar to plan my appointments.
I should use this notecard to write thank-you notes to colleagues.
I should keep a list of each of my 30 direct reports and spend a set number of minutes on Monday deciding who I should encourage this week.
I should list out every project that I might ever want to do and keep it on a someday/maybe list that I will look at once a week and feel bad because I probably won’t do it this week, either.

Aargh! It all becomes too much. I freeze, overwhelmed with good intentions and unable to act.

Maybe what I should do is slow down and take a deep breath. Reading copious amounts of productivity advice doesn’t automatically make me more productive. What makes me productive is how I implement the suggestions.

And maybe, just maybe, every piece of advice I read isn’t right for me.

Part of the reason I started this blog was to focus my thoughts on the various books, blogs, and podcasts I’ve been consuming. Some things work for me and I’m happy I discovered them. Some things I’m still thinking about. And some things, frankly, I think are pointless, trite, or silly.

So, how do you feel about productivity advice? Is too much ever a bad thing for you? Or am I a lonely weirdo?

–Monica

PS – Photo of the sloth is courtesy of National Geographic, free wallpaper.

Begin With the End in Mind.

Begin with the end in mind.

Stephen Covey’s six little words could save so much heartache, if only we applied them in our daily life. The biggest reason I have trouble finishing projects? I don’t have any idea what I really want to accomplish. In my excitement, I jump right into things with both feet and wing it. Sometimes I get lucky and everything works. More often, things get messy and I struggle to finish. Too many times, I quit and leave things undone. Or worse, half-done, with the guilty remnants of my great idea staring me in the face every day.

With that in mind, here are my intentions for this blog:

I am a writer. I will act like one. I will put words on a page and float them out into the blogosphere at least once a week, or more often if life allows. Typos and bad grammar will occur. People will get over it.
I am a leader – and a female – in a male-dominated profession. I will offer my best thoughts and ideas about how to survive and thrive in the arena. As a bonus, I will strive to take my own advice.
I am a voracious reader and podcast consumer who has been inspired by many writers, bloggers, and podders? podcasters. I will share their work and pay homage to the people who have inspired me.
I will support my favorite cause: TeacH aiti.org, a non-profit organization whose goal is to provide education to the impoverished children of Haiti. I have no plans to turn this blog into an avenue for personal monetary gain at this point. If people like my blog, they can donate to TeacHaiti and change a child’s life forever.

So there they are, my Prolific Intentions stated clearly and succinctly. A plan, a goal, an end in mind. Happy, happy day!

~Monica

Do you have Prolific Intentions?

I admit it. I have Prolific Intentions. I have lots of ideas. I start lots of projects. So many, in fact, that I don’t finish a lot of them. In the past year, I’ve started consuming copious amounts of productivity advice. You know the purveyors of productivity porn, too, I’ll bet: Michael Hyatt, The Productivityist, Beyond the To-Do List, Chalene Johnson, Asian Efficiency, Productive Flourishing, John Maxwell, Stephen Covey.

Why would I think I can add anything to the productivity world? Because I’m me. I’m different. I’m not a guy, for one thing. I’m not a hyper-fit, hyper-bubbly female who exercises 24/7, or seems to, anyway. I’m a wife. A mom, but not a stay-at-home mommy blogger. I’m a professional woman who gets up every day at 4:30 a.m. to read my Bible, lift weights, swing kettlebells, drink coffee, get dressed, see my kid off to school and drive an hour to work. I oversee the work of a team of around 30 men and women spread across two states. I have street cred. I have skills, and I’m learning new ones every day of my life.

I have thoughts to share. I want to share them with you, that unknown person out there in the world who can relate to me. Hopefully you’ll shoot back some thought-provoking responses that will help us both grow.

Let’s be Prolific. Let’s be Intentional. Let’s turn our Prolific Intentions into an life worth being proud of!
-Monica