Self-Care Strategy #7: Remind myself that worrying will not improve my situation, so just stop it already

I have quite a few topics I really want to blog about, but then I also have several upcoming deadlines for work as well. Having deadlines stress me out tremendously, but instead of tackling the tasks one by one, I go into this avoidance mode where I would surf the net, play solitaire, clean, do laundry, anything but do actual work. I believe the procrastination activities are supposed to serve as panic alleviating purposes, but at the end of the day, the deadline is still there, nothing work-wise got accomplished, so the panic continues.

This has happened to me so many times during school years, and I always roughed through it (pull all nighters etc). Seeing how unaccomplished I am in my professional and personal aspects of life, I would say that the old strategy did not serve me well at all. Seems like rather than trying to push away the worrying by procrastination, I should actually deal with my feelings. Only when it goes away can I actually get some work done.

New strategy: alleviate the worrying by imagining what's the worst that can happen to me if I completely flunk my tasks (in this particular case, a presentation). I could:

- Embarrass myself in front of a whole bunch of people

- Embarrass and disappoint my boss

- have to deal with my colleague's smug satisfaction that I make myself look bad while she can seem much more put together than me.

I don't think I would actually lose my job if I screw up this particular task. But even if I lose this job, I just couldn't care less. It's a little sad, but as I no longer have high ambitions, I do not feel bad if I lose this career and have to do something else. Since this is the case, I should stop worrying. Just get something done and let nature run its course.

Even know logically I know worrying is not a useful feeling, my old patterns take over so easily. Time to remind myself over and over again: self-care matters more than work accomplishments.