I started out planning to write this brilliant post and I stopped. I got to the page and thought “I’m such a fraud. What do I have to bring to the page that others might benefit from? Really, why am I pretending to have something I don’t?”

Reasons to Have Faith

Fortunately, I do have things, skills, knowledge and drive, that I can draw on. I know how to do stuff and I know how to get through the slow times, but I get hung up.

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I was tired, chronically running on E, and sleep didn’t matter. It was a draining experience. All the life seeped out of me before the workday ended. By close of work, it was all I could do to get home and crash.

It was more like slide, really. All the energy I once had to go to the store or run other errands after work was gone. In fact, I was too whatever to sleep. I would just lie across my bed sometimes for hours, until I found the strength to shower, eat, and go to bed.

What was sapping the life out of me was work. It turned out I was doing the wrong work, or it was a negative work situation. And, when work is a problem, it can easily spiral into life. It took me a while to figure this out, and then to acknowledge it.

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When was the last time you went to bed on time? When was the last time you just rested? Not slept but relaxed and breathed and spent time just being content. When you think about it, it’s not as often as you might like, right? This post is for those of us who have trouble remembering to just breathe.

It’s especially difficult to turn things off when you like your work.

Just because you’re not working doesn’t mean you’re resting. There are thoughts that eat up your play time. What keeps me from relaxing are two very closely related things:  a healthy work ethic and respect for competition.

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Writing is an important skill that can make you quite valuable. You can increase your value by learning complementary skills. However, it doesn’t mean that you should lose focus of the job that you were hired to do.

It’s important to continue to learn, in whatever work you do. As a writer, you learn how to complete articles quickly and cleanly. Anticipating the needs of articles will help you to get done beforehand any research you need. You know too that language is fluid, dynamic and therefore guidelines change. You need to keep up with changes and that’s a lot.
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When you have the opportunity to work and play, in the same life is tantamount to having your cake and eating it too. And guess what? You need to do that.

When you sit before your computer day in and day out, and the work is flowing, it’s sometimes quite easy to forget the importance of fitting in other activities. One really important activity is relaxing. The conscious choice to dismiss obligations for a time is exhilarating. Then when you actually spend the allotted time relaxing, you give your mind, spirit and body time to be restored.

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While I Was Away

It wasn’t my plan to spend so much time away from my blogging space. I gave in to the dark pressures of my day job, and let it spill into my mornings and nights and weekends. I completely the balance I had maintained. It was easy to do because I really like my job a lot. And my blog has suffered tremendously, which means that I suffered too. I missed it.

This is not my only site that has flagged in my absence. Telling Stories took a powder too. And it’s been a challenge to face the setback. And yet here I am to rebound, to breathe life back into my lifelines, with more than a small measure of hope that I can regain my balance between work and non-work. I really like blogging. It has become part of what keeps me balanced, so it’s definitely worth the effort.

Since I climbed out of the pit of over-work, I took a few days off to breathe life back into me and the things that keep me going. I’ve learned a great deal in my months-long absence.

What I Read

• I have read Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett’s PROBLOGGER: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income. I was delighted to have finished it while I was still on my break. Now, to calm down and plot my course!
• I started reading The 4-Hour Workweek, an interesting book by Timothy Ferriss. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I’m not there yet.

I read my constant companion blogs by Darren, Joanna, Catherine and Brian and many others that reaffirmed for me that “DO IT” is a good plan. It’s a positive thing to change and grow. For me to be balanced again, I do need to CHANGE things a bit, so I made the first efforts to DO IT. More on that later. As I surfed through other blogs too, I found that I’m not the only person for whom change is in the air.

• Joanna Young of Confident Writing, has some great, exciting and inspiring changes; her new company/site, and working out her current site changes including the bookstore.
• Catherine of Sharp Words is working a little differently with her book reviews and it’s coming along better than she’d hoped.
• Amy Palko, now of Less Ordinary, moved to a self-hosted site. She inspired me too because she’s well-known and made this big change. And, quite successfully too, because the her new site seems to be off to a very good start with the familiar stunning quality images.

What I’ve Done

• I started catching up on my blog reading, as you may have noted above.
• I caught up on my sleep.
• I caught up with my family and friends.
• I’ve come up with some ideas of how my blogging may lead to bucks.
• I’ve brainstormed some posts ideas for my blogs.
• I’ve planned to change my blogging setup.

Three Things I’ve Learned

1. In an effort to stay on top of my game I have come to the realization that I will have to get a bit ahead of myself, with respect to my writing.
2. Change is everywhere. It feels like a good thing because it is, and a necessary part of regaining and maintaining balance
3. It’s okay to doubt—a little. It’s okay to stop—briefly. It’s not okay to give up—period.

What’s to Come

My addresses will be changing here. I bought the names a while back and I recently set up the first one that I will be using for this blog. The other will come soon. I don’t know how it will work, or if the content switch will happen. No rush there, I just want to start posting to the new site as soon as I’ve finished the setups. In the meantime, I’ll continue to share my adventures here.

This was a fantastic “stay-cation” that I took! I added a few extra days around the July 4th holiday. And, it was as much fun and revitalizing as I’d hoped, just relaxing and reading and thinking and being. I know the guidelines, and yet I managed to lose track of my rule to keep some time for me. I’ll renew my vigilance.

If you’d like to, please share your experiences with overload and how you manage to regain your balance.