How I began controlling my negative emotions to complete important and urgent tasks

When was last time you had an urgent or important task to complete, yet your negative emotions held you back? We have all been in such circumstances I believe. That feeling of “Oh I just don’t feel like it today or I am feeling down so let’s do it tomorrow” and we are then behind with our tasks. This becomes a habit and what happens next? Our poor habit takes over our self discipline and we get sucked into the “I’ll do it when I am feeling better”  way of thinking.

I get pms symptoms for seven days per month which depletes my energy, creates many negative emotions, gives me headaches, backache, muscle pain, increased sleepiness, increased low moods, clouds my logic and I become the most emotional woman on earth where any wise person would know to run a mile when they know I am pms-ing! It is no fun at all when I am dealing with and handling all  of the pms symptoms, every month and needing to suck it up, pull myself together and just get on with it! Some days I want to scream and kick someone in the balls! Other days I feel like staying in bed and binge watch one movie after another. There are days when I want to binge on chocolates and unhealthy snacks to satisfy my pms cravings. I have seen days where I want to pick a fight with my sweetheart merely to get his full attention. On a good day, I shall get on with the tasks that needs my attention, then feel the tiredness, sleepiness and whatever else is taking control of my tired body and retreat to bed for a nap. On a bad day, I want to be on own, have no interest for anything happening around me and couldn’t care if I had food to eat because I feel so sleepy and tired I find getting out of bed would be like running a marathon for my body.

From many trials and errors as I am learning how to control my negative emotions each month to complete my urgent and important tasks, I have established a few vital facts about my body and mind. I like to track everything I do from what I eat each day to what affects my energy levels, I learned that what I do each day with my body has a huge impact on my overall health and well being. Staying active, on the go and getting off my “perky butt” as my sweetheart would say, has been a huge benefit to getting tasks completed. It is the power of habit. We are creatures of habit, poor or rich, good or bad, productive or not, we are the biggest creatures of habit. I do have good habits in place yet they disappear as quick as a flash as soon as pms is with me. It is like when a cat sees a dog!

Staying active, on the go and off my perky butt is no problem whatsoever on my none pms days as I am an active person by nature. Yet, as soon as pms arrives, I am hit with a huge wave of “let’s just stay in bed” syndrome. No, it is not laziness. It is real and it is a pain in the butt!  People who do not understand the impact pms has on women’s energy levels have no idea what we are enduring each month. I would love to make pms disappear for good because I sure can live without it, after living with it since I first got my monthly period. I would love to divorce it with the help of my lawyer!  Sign the papers? No problem. I shall be celebrating with anyone who wants a wild party to remember!  Let’s bring it on girls and boys! 

On the seriousness of taking control of my negative emotions to getting my urgent and important tasks ticked off……..

I learned to focus on the end result. Last night was a great opportunity for me to put into practice what I had learned about controlling my negative emotions. I had taken a nap after coming home from work, eating my snack and taking a shower. I had a huge headache and felt so sleepy and tired. I got woken up by youngest son Calvin’s noise and decided to stay in bed for a few hours. Then the dreaded thought of having to do this and that creeped into mind. Ohhhhh dear says my head. I got to do this and that? How? I have no energy, I got this huge headache, I got my period, bla bla bla! The excuses were becoming as long as the Great Wall of China!  “Shut up and just get on with it, I need these tasks done or else I am going to suffer the consequences”!   That, is how I control my negative emotions during challenging times. I have a firm talk with my negative emotions and make sure they listen to me. The dishes were washed, rinsed and put away. Our kitchen was tidied. The rubbish emptied. The tasks that needed my attention today were written on my “To Do List”.  I washed and dried my hair. I wrote in my journal. Phewwwwww!  What a huge sense of achievement and satisfaction!  I was rewarded with a clean and tidy kitchen this morning to make our breakfast in. Yes! Yes! Yes! Triumphant! Woo Hoo!

I am becoming a master of my negative emotions!  Win! Win!

Well done me! 

Taking action to becoming productive

Oh boy! What a week already!………and it’s only Wednesday!

I have been making great progress everyday since setting new goals at the beginning of the new year. I am loving every day as I focus on achieving my goals and enjoying the journey.

I deleted all the games app from my phone and iPad (except one) in November/December last year to focus on becoming more productive with my time. That was one of the most valuable things I did for my time management.

I am tracking my progress with my physical exercises from the help of pen and paper.  That has helped me to see what I am doing and what needs more of my efforts.  One of my physical goals is to plank for five minutes and I am only ten seconds away from that goal. I struggled tonight to complete four minutes and fifty seconds yet I pushed my body to its limits. Accomplishing that four minutes and fifty seconds was a huge hurdle to jump over yet I kept going until the end and what a relief it was for my aching body to hear the alarm go off!  Woo hoo! Well done me! Patting myself on my back!

I started working as a volunteer in a charity shop every Friday to meet new people and to get out and about. I also started to attend Toastmasters meetings on a Tuesday evening for public speaking as I want to become a public speaker which is one of my bigger goals.

As my nineteen year old son sold his car last month, I no longer have access to a cat so I am relying on public transport which is consuming more of my valuable time yet I am gaining more waking from it all so I feel happier. I get more fresh air from walking and it helps to tire me out for a sound sleep at night which is vital for me to recharge.

The most indulging thing I love to do nowadays that costs very little money, is to lock myself in out bathroom, with my Yankee candle lit, a book to read or my phone to watch Ellen Degeneres on YouTube that cheers me up. I feel so relaxed from soaking in our bath with lavender oil and taking care of my needs. It is so therapeutic and energising for my body.

I am writing more in my journals and my blogs nowadays. Yet my blogs take up more of my time because I need to think, gather information and tweet things as I want to have an attractive blog for others to read. I can be such a perfectionist!  Thats just my expectation of what I want from myself. I want to push myself to do better than I did yesterday.

I love to write as I find it ever so relaxing and I learn more about myself when I write, especially when I write my blogs. It is my way of reflecting, venting, sharing, analysing and I feel so much lighter after I have written about my experiences.

Another thing I love to do is read non fiction books and I mean flicking through the pages by licking my finger and feel the pages as I do so. I am a visual learner with a tad of kinaesthetic thrown in. So I need to see texts and feel the pages from a book in order for me to soak up the author’s words and learn from the book. I always bring a book with me to read on my travels now as the bus journey to and fro gives me enough time to indulge in my reading.

I love being productive yet it can be tiresome and on wet days with wild winds, I just feel like staying snuggled up in bed and forget about working on my goals. Then I remember that I am the only one who suffers the consequences of being lazy.

I was rather busy yesterday with many errands that needed tending to and I felt so sleepy and tired out from two nights of disturbed sleep so I took a nap for an hour before cooking my dinner, taking a shower and headed out to my third Toastamsters meeting. I felt like staying at home and putting my feet up, as my body was feeling the tiredness then I reminded myself of my goal to becoming a public speaker so I pushed myself to get into the meeting. Once at the meeting, I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and I decided to join as a member.

Today was another productive day at home as I caught up with the housework that was crying for my attention. I changed my bedsheets with the help of my great helper Calvin, my ten year old son, before soaking in the bath and it felt great to slip into my bed with clean bedsheets. Ah! Bliss! The kitchen floor needed a good mop over and I cleaned our bathroom. Calvin vacuumed our living room and hall so he gets his weekly pocket money.

Now, to write my gratitude journal before I catch my beauty sleep!