Mindset Of Struggle

How do you let go of the struggle mindset and start living to the fullest? (Define “to the fullest” though… Start breathing easily, more or less, get ride of the unnecessary tension.)

I sense there are people who take things as they come, who are easy about making decisions, who don’t consider everything they face a struggle — a mere course of events. I know I’m not one of them. I also know that as seen from the outside, I am such a person. I take things as they come, I enjoy a favorable course of events in my life, and so on. Maybe inside, every one of us is fighting for something, against something. Our happiness is a hard-won one. For some it may be more true than for others. I want to switch completely to the side of those who don’t struggle all the time.

There might be this underlying principle at work: Take it all with less seriousness. Most people are overly serious about themselves and what’s going on in their lives. It’s worth remembering that in lots of ways, life is about play.

I’ll give you an example of my current struggles:

  • Need to plan an upcoming holiday. A good thing, right? NOOOOO. I’m overcomplicating things. So it’s hard. Instead of counting options and choosing the most desirable and value-for-money option, I stress over it again and again.
  • Baby sleep schedule and habits. Impossible to fix once and for all. And I have it almost perfect, but not perfect, and that’s what’s bugging me. She reaches a growth spurt, making it harder to fall asleep on her own or go back to sleep once woke up. And I crumble and fall, because, guess what, I’m an eponymous bad mother.
  • Finding kindergarten for the baby.
  • Not working. I don’t even work! I should be working! Even thought it’s “my time” for not working, and I decided not to decide at least until daughter is one year old, and I can afford time off, and I’ve been working my entire life, and I also have a project that I’ve started working on…
  • Speaking of which. I’m not working on the project enough. It stagnates. And I’m afraid to lose momentum.
  • Looking for a new apartment. The moving in, and setting up — enters anxiety.

As soon as you solve one thing, another appears. Which is a good thing, otherwise, things get boring. But it’s so nice just to think that you could be enjoying a worrisome life.

What often happens is, instead of making a decision and moving on, I get stuck on struggling. The thing that you’re currently doing is not as hard as the thing that you know you should be doing. It can last for weeks. I might call this article procrastination, but it’s not. You can do a lot of things, but not a lot of things at once. So some to-do’s get delayed. Some are spaced out — like apartment search (it’s not that you can just get to it and have it done in a couple of days). It’s the search, it’s the process—when there’s no urgency and you’re looking for something suitable.

Back to the mindset, though. I’m set to changing my thoughts from “agrh, so many things to do, why don’t they just do themselves while I sit back and read a book; no I have to do them” to “it is what it is, no biggie”. They are biggies of course, and they’re also your imminent and everlasting passengers in life. You’ll always have certain organizational things to do. You have to burn your time on them, but don’t burn your mood as well. Treat them as necessary — and not necessarily evil. Outsource what you can, pay for services, do the rest yourself and focus your mind on something else, something less operational and more meaningful.

Doing things is not the same as struggling with them. Nothing comes easy for people. You have it easy on one occasion, you have it harder on the next. Everyone faces decisions, everyone, at some point in their lives, struggles and has what is called rough patches. Don’t burn your mood on those. Don’t tangle your mind up around the things that you can’t run away from, that you have to go through. Welcome them in your life, let them pass. Stay happy.

Urban Girl Notes

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Tanya Mulkidzhanova

Written by

Product Manager at Viacom. Made in Ukraine, living in Berlin, raising a daughter.

Urban Girl Notes

Random texts on daily life and girl issues.

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