For the last couple of weeks, maybe longer, my anxiety has been running amok. Anxiety is a sneaky beast and doesn’t always show up as heart palpitations and shaking. Sometimes it’s the feeling of being behind on everything, or a sense of impending doom, or even thoughts about how there’s no possibility you can do it all, for whatever value of “all” you want to consider.

As I reviewed the month of April during my not-quite-really-a-vacation last week, I began to understand why I’ve been feeling anxious. A bunch of things that wouldn’t have been noteworthy alone happened all at the same time: a project that had been difficult from the beginning continued being difficult and I ended up making the worst hourly rate I’ve made in years; another challenging project was, well, challenging; I had to do an entire rewrite on a piece; three families I care about encountered extremely difficult times; and those were just the bigger things. All the normal day-to-day difficulties persisted, too.

Once I identified the source of the problem, I got down to figuring out what I could do about it. This sounds pretty simple, but it took a few days. I’d wanted to do so many things during my quasi-vacation, but it turned out what I needed was to rest. It was Friday before I felt like even tackling trying to solve the anxiety problem. I made more progress on Saturday and Sunday than in the entire week.

On Friday, I wrote a long journal entry and pondered the question of why I was feeling like my life is out of control (it’s not). I ended up making a bunch of lists, one for each area of my life that I felt I was not keeping up with:

• Work/money
• Exercise
• Food/nutrition
• Gardening
• Housekeeping
• Home projects
• Personal projects

Then, I wrote out the steps I needed to take in each category to feel better. I half-expected to feel overwhelmed at this point, but instead, it all felt much more doable written out like that. Saturday I worked in the garden and ended up feeling better about that—it’ll always be more work than I can get done, but now at least I might end up with some tomatoes—then Sunday I did a ton of cleaning and straightening.

I’ve always been a list-maker. And it is always surprising how much better I feel when I’ve given thought to the steps necessary to complete a project, write a book, grow a garden, or whatever endeavor I’m chasing at the moment. Why is it so easy to forget?

Are you a list maker? Does it help you feel calm? Or does all of this seem a bit much?

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How many times have you decided to do a thing, figured out the steps you need to take to do it, then berated yourself for not getting it done?

Here’s an example: Improving nutrition. For years, I would decide to “eat better” then really struggle to do so. The soundtrack in my brain was pretty ugly. I wasn’t eating well because I was lazy, didn’t really care, etc.

In order to change my dietary habits, I had to break the process down into steps: making a menu, listing the items necessary for the menu, shopping, prepping, keeping the kitchen clean, and accounting for the time it takes to cook. Turns out, nutritious meals don’t just magically appear when you decide you want to eat better.

Even after I plotted out the steps that are necessary to improve my nutrition, there were still barriers. What would I do when I was *really* hungry and needed to eat immediately? How would I handle the craving for something sweet after a meal? What kinds of snacks, if any, are appropriate between meals? The answers to all of these questions turned out to be much more important than I realized in those early efforts to improve my nutrition.

This same process of recognizing barriers has turned out to be crucial in everything important goal I’ve worked toward, including running Smiling Tree Writing, developing an exercise routine, home improvement projects, and on and on, right down to doing a better job of keeping the bathroom clean. When I identify the barriers I can figure out a way to walk around them.

When it came to better nutrition, I decided to make it a pleasure as far as possible. Usually Saturday or Sunday mornings are dedicated to a leisurely press of coffee and time on the sofa with my iPad and a notebook, browsing new recipes and listing the ones I’d like to try, looking at the weather forecast for the upcoming week (I like to grill on nice days, or have stew on chilly days) and creating a menu that includes what we have on hand, what we need to shop for, any prep that needs to be done, and options for lunches and snacks for the week. If I’m planning to exercise, I’ll include that, too, because sometimes I get dinner started and my partner finishes it while I go run.

It’s a bit of a time commitment, but since I’ve been doing it, we’ve had far more enjoyable and healthful meals. I don’t feel guilty for what I eat (most of the time) now. Splurges and treats are largely planned in advance. One of the biggest barriers was actually having to figure out what to cook each day, so the menu was an important path around it.

I can think of a bunch of other examples of how this process of figuring out what’s stopping me from reaching a goal has led to a breakthrough. Sometimes it’s a very small thing—I wanted to spend a little bit of time working on my quilt most evenings, and putting my sewing box with everything I need within reach on the coffee table helped more than I imagined. Before, it was on a shelf on the other side of the room, about 8 steps from the sofa. Those 8 steps were a barrier when I was settled in and comfy.

Have you ever identified a barrier and charted a path around it?

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I’ve been thinking about the word nourish lately. What it means when it comes to nutrition, creativity, self-care, business, and even lead generation. I guess this time of year is the time when I reflect on my goals in every area and what’s working and what’s not.

I used to divide my task list each day into sections: Work, Self, and Home. It helped me remember that the tasks I did to take care of my household were important, and not just impediments to running my business. The Self section came after that, when it became clear that taking care of myself was equally as important as my business and my household. If I’m not engaged in some creative pursuit, my performance in all other areas suffers. If I’m not taking care of my health, my productivity declines.

This time of year, I look at each of those areas and think about what my goals for the year were and how did I do? Did I get closer? Did I change my mind about any of them? Did I just ignore them and coast along?

After a visit with my doctor last week, it became abundantly clear that I wasn’t making progress toward some of my health goals, which made me reconsider the work I’ve been doing in that area, which led me to the word nourish. As I began to plan some shifts in how I eat (I’ve been following a low carb, keto-ish plan for a few years, and I’m going to move to more of a whole-food, lower fat plan), I also began to think about what else I might need to spend some time nourishing.

Google tells me that there are two definitions of nourish:

1. provide with the food or other substances necessary for growth, health, and good condition
“I was doing everything I could to nourish and protect the baby.”
2. keep (a feeling or belief) in one’s mind, typically for a long time
“he has a long nourished an ambition to bring the show to Broadway”

Those two definitions can apply to all three of my focus areas. There are certain business goals I’ve nourished for a long time (I’m happy to tell you that one of my longest-held income goals is within reach this year). This week, a friend and I have blocked out some time to talk about our business plans for 2022, and help each other figure out how to reach our goals.

Of course to meet those health-related goals I need the right nourishment, and not just when it comes to food. That definition includes “other substances.” In my case that means the right mix of exercise, medications, and rest. The best formula of all of those things changes over time, and it’s helpful to consider what’s working and, for me, right now, what’s not.

Nourishing my creative self is one component of good mental health. The thing that’s been missing here is creative writing. I’m trying to build that habit back, but it takes consistent nourishment!

Do you find that proper physical nourishment improves your creative life? Do you have long-held goals that you keep well-fed?

As a gardener, I know how important it is to keep the soil nice and balanced and full of nourishing substances. If I can manage that, surely I can manage to nourish all the facets of myself, too.

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Several weeks ago, I saw this on Twitter: “Use of the word sustainable is unsustainable.”  Joining the ranks of green, eco-friendly and all too many other buzzwords, sustainable is quickly becoming a word I try to avoid in writing simply because it is so overused as to be nearing cliche status.   Even worse, once a term becomes a buzzword it begins to invite suspicion.

Avoiding the word though, doesn’t mean I don’t support the movement that spawned the overuse of the word.  My favorite businesses are those that follow practices don’t necessarily encourage growth, but that are designed in such a way the business can exist for years to come without exhausting resources.  In every town there is a store or a restaurant that has been operated by the same family for generations.  Those businesses were sustainable long before it was a buzzword.

The recent economic difficulties should provide a lesson in the results of  un-sustainability.  Constant growth of towns, of profits, of home sizes, of home prices simply cannot continue.  There is a ceiling whether we choose to see it or not and when we choose to not see it, we may crash into it painfully.

Sometimes, the outlook for our society seems so grim, I cannot see a solution.  Then I will read about or meet an entrepreneur or farmer or writer who is making a change in the way things are done.  Perhaps they are delivering their products or services in a new, novel way or refusing to grow in order to maintain the business they built conscientiously or choosing to make less money so that they can make a difference for people instead.  I see young professionals fearlessly starting their own businesses because the employment landscape doesn’t suit them.

Focusing on people who choose to improve the way business is conducted, who work to make sure resources are used responsibly, who are not afraid to make a living by approaching their chosen profession from a new angle will help the rest of us have the courage to make a difference ourselves.

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