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Pacing... it seems so easy when you read it and it still seems easy when you write down your good intentions. But how do you stick to these good intensions?
Pacing is incredible important for both highly sensitive people and those with chronic pain that is why I am adding this blog entry on the subject.
Without good pacing and knowning when to stop you will make the same mistakes over and over again which will lead to stress, frustration and often extra pain or lack of energy.
Let me share with you what works for me:
- Prioritise what you have to do. First between what is absolutely essential and what you would like to do. Make sure that you drop what you don't have to do and that you focus on necessary and fun. [organizing will be a topic for another entry]
- Make another chart [I do this very easily by printing a weekly chart in outlook every week] If you do this during the weekend or monday morning you can pencil in your appointments and get a view of the week. If some days seem too busy, try to switch something around, or say no to something. Having it on paper helps to keep the clutter from your mind.
- Know your body and your limits. Keep a diary of activities for a while and in this diary note daily activities and how much energy they cost you, or how much pain.
- When you know your limits don't try to stretch them too far. You can always try to play around with the limits a little but don't go from a 16 hour work week to 30 in one go. Gently does it.
- Take outside influence into account. If damp weather affects your pain, take into acccount that you will be able to get less done on those days. If you are highly sensitive and have to be in a crowded room for a few hours, chances are that will affect you as well. Be smart and use this knowledge instead of fighting against it.
- Take breaks to do meditation or breathing excersises during a long day. Select something that suits you. For me short grounding excersises work best. They only take up to 5 minutes and make a huge difference. If I need a longer break guided meditation works for me as well.
- If you lose track of time easily, use a timer. With my RSI, the first couple of years I could hardly type. And since I did not get punished with pain on the spot but a day later, I used a timer to make sure I stayed within my boundaries. Select one that makes enough noise to be really irritating. :)
- Reward yourself for a job done well, but don't get angry if the pacing fails. Nobody is perfect and it might take some tries to find the right rythm for you. Stay positive and look at everything that went right!
I would love to hear from you what works for you to pace yourself and make sure that you don't work too hard.
This is also the first blog on which I used a nifty tool called Zemanta that pickes out media, related articles and in-text links for you to add in your blog without having to search for it.
Things to come...
Last week I asked friends what they would like to find on a website if they were looking for a coach/counsellor. I can keep adding what I like, but I would rather that it gives the reader what they are looking for. So keep an eye on my safe haven website as well as this blog for many new additions. To give you an idea of things to come:
- More factual information on what it means to be Highly Sensitive or to live with Chronic pain.
- When is pain chronic?
- Tips on conserving energy
- Book tips
- Pain diary [track your pain through the day]
- Mood tracker
- online diary
And much much more. If you have ideas of what you would like to see included here, just tell me. Who knows your idea might very well make it to my websites.
It looks so easy doesn't it? When you see a webpage, blog, etc that looks pretty and is driving a lot of traffic. Until you start your own marketing campaign and you come from a background were you never learnt how to do it and are not a wizard with computers. It is easy to get stuck.
It threatened to happen to me.
For a year I saved links to websites that were useful, made lists of what I would do in my marketing campaign and when I finally sat down to do something about it, I had so much that I did not know were to start.
In stead of panicking I sat down and asked myself. What would I ask a client to do in this situation?
Then it became clear to me and soon I had a shortlist.
- Ask for help. Talk to your own coach/experts for pointers
- Make a mindmap to structure.
- Set goals [week, month, half year]
- Don't make the goals so big I can't achieve them
- Go back to the marketing plan and break it down even more so it becomes manegable
- Select a few things to work on and concentrate on them for a while.
Right away the fun in marketing was back for me! I coached myself and am back on track.
More on coaching, counselling and marketing next week.
The second kind of affirmation cards I like to use are those that you can buy in shops and online. Most bookshops will carry some of them, for me the new age bookshop in town carries several of them. I don't often buy them online as I have found that these kind of cards are very personal. The lay-out and the artwork of the cards has to speak out to you.
There are many kind of cards you can find. I have scanned some of my favorites. They include two series of cards from Louise Hay. "Health and body" cards and "I can do it" cards. From both sets one example of front and back are shown. With these sets I will chose one or more that somehow call out to me that day. Things I feel good about already or aspects of my life that are a little shaky and I need some reenforcement about. As with my selfmade cards I will place them around the house and will look at them several times a day and even repeat the affirmations.
I might hear you ask how I can use all this online? In several ways really. I can look for online sites were I can find cards and work with those. If I want to work with the cards with clients we can do so together using a whiteboard on which we can both enter information. This works really well in a chat session. When working through email, I can scan and add images of cards that I think would have meaning for a client and they can leave them on their computer or make prints and put them on places throughout the house that feel good for them. Or any other means that they can think of. The possibilities are infinite.
This post has been written with the help of my part-time dog Nina, who when she visits me loves to sit next to me to watch me work and then when it is ready she will look the article over and add her approval. Or not.
Image via Wikipedia
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