I thought that I had a good handle on my stresses. I suppose I learned this morning that is not the case.
Let’s start with work. We were doing performance testing with the software that everyone already looks to me to help fix. I felt like it was pretty productive. Was it the perfect week? No, but it was still good. Reading an email from upper management saying that they felt otherwise was probably not great. Then yesterday, I felt like I was a lot of shifting gears over and over. Because of the previous comment from management, I felt like I needed to continue doing an investigation into issues this week. So I kept dropping what I was working on to capture logs wherever possible. Then, our Inventor licenses were set to expire tomorrow and I had not heard back from our reseller. So the panic was going on with that. My bosses requested a slide to communicate to the team about what we found last week. Global PLM wants feedback on a global drawing template. I have training that I need to give. I have a 3D PDF project that I know will really help a lot of people. I also need to make time for my continuous improvement white belt. We have data cleansing, macro enhancements, and wiki page tasks piling up on the to-do list. All of that and then the interns enter the picture.
That leads to my personal goals. I was told that I would get the interns directly reporting to me. That is not the case. I understand why, but I still feel a bit of a betrayal. I think that has been the theme lately talking with people more and more about their careers at work. I keep feeling betrayed. I truly do not expect special treatment. However, the word of my leadership is sometimes coming into question for me, and that makes me feel less devoted. I feel like this is the path that is meant to happen for me, and to that extent I am content. However, the fact is that now my responsibility is going to expand with the interns but my role will not. I can’t help but feel like this is just adding to an already full schedule. I hope that I can utilize my new ‘Essentialism’ mindset to help me block out what is not important and give my time and energy to the interns because that will be the most important. Either way, I am excited about what the summer will bring there. This time around there will be two of them.
School. My design thinking class is fantastic. I love it. However, it is very ambiguous. This is intentional as they mention every week. However, it has me stressed about the time commitment for the final project. The project is to solve problems for a grant-giving organization. It is as vague as that. I also do not know if this is purely a conceptual exercise or if we will be working with this organization to implement these solutions. Additionally, I am awful at this GMAT. I cannot score on the practice test even remotely close to a competitive score. My body requires a break from everything else whenever I am able to finally sit down and work on studying, so my progress is slow-moving. I want to push myself to start the MBA in the fall. I suppose if I am unable to accomplish this, it is because the universe is telling me it is not the right time or right path. Also, I was able to sign up for two classes now in the summer towards my graduate certificate.
Family. My family is planning my father’s memorial golf tournament and, like last time, I am ‘too busy’ to really help plan it. I feel guilty. I feel guilty about even complaining about my workload (at work and with my family). I think everyone is in the same boat. It is arrogant for me to think my workload is more intense than other people (including those in my family that still put time aside to work on the golf tournament). With all of my career and personal development happening, I am not doing a great job as a husband and I feel guilty about that as well. I am very fortunate to have Caitlyn. I need better be about putting our relationship as the ‘Essential’ task and start cutting out the other things.
Home. The tasks at home are piling up. I need to get an electrician out since a lot of outlets are not working and the breaker does not seem to be the culprit. I am usually pretty handy, but electrical stuff I stay away from. I also need to continue organizing the house/ buying new furniture to put things in their place, so our house feels less cluttered and more like an adult living space.
Finance. Honestly, I do not know why I put so much stress in this area. We are doing fine. Probably way better than fine. There is just so much to spend money on my above worries and I do not want to do it all now. So that keeps the stress alive. I also want to be able to enjoy a vacation and spend time with Caitlyn, but my mind forces these harsh walls when it comes to spending money. So since I have all of the other things to pay for, I cannot spend the money for my own enjoyment.
Health. I suppose I am doing a decent job with this, aside from insomnia. I am worried that all of this stress is causing my blood pressure to be seriously off. However, I do a good job of walking for 30 minutes every day. I also just went for a 30-minute run before writing this. Even though I am okay, the anxiety doesn’t stop me from thinking I am not.
Friends. Nope, not at all. It’s my best friend’s birthday today. I need to be better about reaching out to him. I also have people that I want to spend more time. There are people that I want to get to know better. The time is just not there for that, and that adds to the weight.
Hobbies. To top it all off, I am stressed that I am not able to spend more time enjoying the easy things. For example, writing in this blog or painting miniatures. Even the fact that I have so many video games I want to play stresses me out.
Why do I put this pressure on myself? I do not understand.
