Humbling yourself to baby steps

I want to be amazing right away.  

Maybe you are like me in this regard.  It is my nature to want to please, and if possible, awe.  Yes, awe would be wonderful.  I aim to awe.  I fall into the same old trap of wanting to please others that I become a bobble-head, perpetually nodding “yes” to every request. 

In the three years since my disability first started, I have been home and may have lost some cognitive sharpness, this is true.  I was being challenged physically on a daily basis and I neglected to challenge my mind out of sheer exhaustion, and perhaps maybe a little bit of laziness as well.  I’m not proud of my idleness. 

But yet, I cannot confuse my down time as complete mental idleness.  I have grown in ways other than being mentally sharp and with it.  I have learned to recognize boundaries.  I know that if something seems too big of a project for me, I can brainstorm ways to take care of it.  Or I can simply say, “I don’t know how to do this.”  There is a difference, you see, between telling someone (especially a work superior) that you cannot or will not do something and telling him/her that you don’t know how. 

I guess because I always prided myself on figuring things out, I would just shuffle whatever the new challenge was on to my to-do list and then fret about how it was going to all work out.  I never once thought to ask for help.  It wasn’t denied me.  It wouldn’t even have been that awkward. 

And yet I also finally understand what a co-worker once told me about our superior, “She’ll keep pushing and you’re going to have to tell her ‘no’ at some point.”  At the time I thought, “Okay, I’ll keep that in mind.”  But in reality, I think I dismissed it.  I didn’t think I was entitled to say no.  But now I see that with this particular person (and with others out there in the world, no doubt) she will ask for the moon.  She doesn’t think she’s asking for the moon.  In fact, I think she gets to thinking big and forgets that it is someone else that must break down the task into mini-steps and figure it all out.  In a way, a positive spin to it would be the fact that if she is asking you for the moon, at least she has the faith in your ability to obtain it. 

But back to a logical pattern that I can use as a guiding principle as I move forward for the next 8-9 weeks.  I shall take things slowly.  I shall not rely fully on my mind to remember every last detail, but use a notebook to jot down info as it flies at me.  I will remember that it is okay to say, “I don’t know how to do that but I am open to figuring it out.”  I must be human and stop trying to shock and awe with my intellectual pursuits. 

I am not perfect.  Although I strive to maintain a good work standard, it is impossible that I won’t have errors.  I will also remember that I will improve with time.

It takes patience with yourself and taking mini-steps.  SARK refers to them as “micro-movements.”  Tomorrow is another day.