Taking My Task Driving to a Personal Level
I’ve always been task driven which, in an interview for a day job is always a plus. I don’t care how much time a job takes me to complete. I want to do it efficiently, but accurately too. It meant putting in a lot of overtime during major projects, often working well into the night via a VPN connection into someone else’s office.
I still work late into the night more often than not. The difference is I start my day later and use the first part for self-care; sleeping later, a morning walk, going to the gym 3 times a week, starting laundry, and eating a healthy breakfast. Now the late hours are by choice rather than because someone who signs my paycheck expects it. Needless to say, I feel much better about burning the midnight oil.
It took me about 3 years to get back into the swing of setting and meeting expectations without someone else doing it for me. I always knew what I wanted to accomplish. The sticking point was finding the motivation; the reason for making things happen now rather than later. In the current lingo, I had to learn to create my own “sense of urgency”.
Evolving from Employee to Self-Employed
My evolution from being someone’s employee to answering to no one but myself was a long 
one, fraught with its own share of perils. I had to re-learn to use tools I’d taken for granted when they were simply part of the job I’d been hired to do. I had to learn to establish drop-dead deadlines though the only consequence of failing to meet them was personal satisfaction.
Sure, it also meant I strayed further from the path leading to my dreams by missing the mark, but for the most part, the only one affected was me.
There are some who might disagree as finishing and publishing my memoir is sure to touch a few who need it. Responses to posts here and on my blog, Embracing Vulnerability Courageously are proof there are many who need to know it’s OK to talk about suicide and mental health openly and honestly. A complete book on the subject, though the market is becoming more saturated lately, can only serve to move the conversation forward, and further into the open.
Who will know that my words in book form might have made a difference until it actually comes to pass? Until then, making and meeting productivity goals is still both self-imposed and a matter of self-satisfaction. That doesn’t mean they’re less important simply because there’s no one else in my chain of command who is impacted by my success or failure to meet deadlines. If I’ve learned nothing else in the 5+ years since I left the traditional work force, it’s that I matter!
Impacting the Unseen Others
Regardless of what’s visible before my own eyes, what I do truly does impact others. Whether it’s the friend who asked why I hadn’t been doing Facebook Lives lately, or the woman in Australia who took the time to send an email telling me how a blog post had impacted her outlook during a tough time, I’m not operating in a vacuum. You aren’t either. Whether you’re working for someone else, or carving your own path out of what may, at times, seem like solid rock, your actions do affect others.
How you and I affect other people may not be readily apparent. In fact, it might not become visible for months, years, or ever. But every action taken produces a ripple. That ripple expands, touching ripples other people make; joining, or altering a trajectory. Those ripples join and re-direct other ripples in an endless flow. Without them, events might or might not occur somewhere far away in both time and space.
I have to remind myself often how my own lack of momentum impacts so much more than myself. It’s humbling to realize my failure to move forward affects people and circumstances I may never know, perhaps even more than my movement does. It took me awhile to understand it doesn’t matter so much whether I move in the right or wrong direction (and really, who determines which one it is?). The key is to keep moving in a somewhat forward direction. I say somewhat, because, let’s face it, there’s a time to backtrack.
Moving Backwards to Continue Forward
There have been times I’ve gone way off course, and the only way to fix it is to go back a few 
paces, regroup, and start over. Life can be like those maze puzzles where you don’t see a dead end until you run smack dab into it. You have to go back to a crossroads before you can take another path which might or might not get you back on the right track again.
I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t given an instruction manual or a road map when I chose this life. I have a purpose, but it was up to me to figure it out.
Sometimes I feel like I took longer than I should have. On a conscious level, I realize there are no “shoulds”. I had a lot of lessons to learn and experiences to live before I figured out why I came here this time. I had to make my share of mistakes, fail many times, and succeed a few before I truly understood. How else could I have known I needed to advocate for mental health and suicide awareness? I needed to learn what it felt like to live with someone who was mentally unstable, but shackled by society to try and hide it.
I had to experience suicide loss in order to kick polite society to the curb and start speaking out publicly. My own pain, grief, isolation, and healing gave me more knowledge; more understanding than a slew of books and courses could possibly provide.
Looking Back to See How Far You’ve Come
If you feel like you’re treading water and not making a difference, I recommend looking at where you’ve been and what you’ve done, no matter how small it seems to you. Like me, you touch lives every day, and there are people whose lives are better for having connected with you.
You may be as scattered and disorganized as I’ve been for much of the last few years. That’s part of your journey. You’ll find a way out of the chaos when it’s time, and not before. Trying to force it is like trying to force a butterfly out of its cocoon before its time. All you’ll get is a partially formed something-or-other that’s no good to anyone, not even itself.
If I’ve learned nothing else the last few years, it’s to be patient with myself. When I’ve felt like I was going nowhere fast, accomplishing nothing, and lacking motivation, I was actually gearing up for a major push. Like a bear who eats himself into a stupor before hibernating, I soaked up knowledge, motivation, and inspiration in the months or years I was seemingly idle. I’m getting close to the point where I’ll emerge, a lean, fit, presence to be reckoned with.
How about you? Are you letting yourself hibernate so you’ll be ready when it’s time to rise, shine, and make a difference? Acquire the tools you’ll need while you can by performing all the tasks you can imagine or visualize. When you rise, you’ll only have time to act, using the tools you’ve acquired. The planning will have already happened, at least as far as you can plan for a bucket load of unknowns. When it’s time to execute that plan, you’ll only have time to adjust and proceed. As long as you see change as an adventure and not a demon to be avoided, it might be a helluva ride, but like me, you’ll be glad you took the leap.
About the Author
Sheri Conaway is a writer, blogger, ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats, and mental health. Sheri 
believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income. If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author. And check out her new group, Putting Your Whole Heart Forward.
Be sure to watch this space for news of the upcoming release of ” Rebuilding After Suicide”.
