The Week You Overcommit Is A Pop Quiz

I am currently over committed as far as the number of work hours that I’m capable of putting in are concerned.

This puts me in an interesting position to do something that I consider is very special.

If you are equally in a place where you feel like when you put effort into one thing, you’re falling off track on others, this is probably for you.

This moment is what I call a pop quiz.

A pop quiz in class is mildly important,

It holds some bearing on your grade…

but it’s not the overall test.

On a math quiz in class, maybe that would test the current problems you’ve been working on.

But as we go through a pop quiz in life,

We learn about our capacity to handle the specific emotions that show up when we go through periods of overwhelm,

In this example: I have too many things to do in one moment that I’ve committed to.

For me, this tends to manifest in the emotion of anxiety.

And that’s okay.

Anxiety isn’t a bad thing,

It’s just emotion that shows up when certain things in my life happen,

And the reason I can tell you that with significant ease is that I’ve gone through so many of these pop quizzes and afterwards I’ve looked at my grade and said

Well, what actually happened?

What was the emotion I felt when I went through this period?

How did I handle it?

This is where the opportunity of this pop quiz comes up:

Once you look at your grade, you can think:

Did I do well on it?

What happened?

What did I know?

What did I not know?

What did I not do well?

This pop quiz does not assess your grade entirely.

It’s not there to determine your fate in this world.

It is there if you want to use it as an opportunity for you to collect a little bit of data about what happens when you face a specific problem.

No ego, no emotion.

Then, you can turn this data into insight:

When this emotion shows up next, how would I like to handle it?

When (or before) this level of overload shows up, what could I do to support myself?

What is a new behavior I can put in place?

Does just gritting my teeth work?

No?

Okay, what’s an alternative then?

What this does is it changes the moments where you fall off track or you’re going through a difficult experience into an opportunity for growth.

It demonstrates your capacity to handle this specific level of overwhelm/emotion or that specific obstacle in this moment,

It’s not a good thing about you.

It’s not a bad thing about you.

It just is how you currently handle it.

And when viewed this way, it makes it clear that this is just a pattern that can be changed.

So that in the future, when you encounter that same obstacle or emotion, you have planned to handle it better.

And if you still don’t handle it perfectly?

Well..

That’s just your next pop quiz 😉