I have been struggling in my life recently as well as with GTD. Previously I was cranking things along very well in life and GTD. My runway was a bit of "big fish in a little pond" syndrome where I got a lot of positive feedback about accomplishments at a daily level. I had a routine I loved but I let it develop into a bit of a comfortable rut also. During this time when my husband and I would discuss our higher levels of focus, it seemed like we were moving toward larger life goals extremely slowly. That got discouraging, but since we spent more time on the runway than in those discussions mostly things seemed great.
About 7 months ago we decided to stop playing at some of the goals, took a spanish class, and October 1 we changed our entire lives so that we now spend 4-5 days a week with our local spanish communities. As far as big picture goals, now I am thrilled with my life. 1-3 years down the road I only see myself getting more thrilled that we have finally gotten on the road to some of our higher level goals. As far as the runway though, there are days I feel like I am resistant to all of it. I only had a couple years of high school spanish, so the learning curve is steep. I do see regular progress though it's a lot of baby steps, and while we've been fairly warmly welcomed it definitely is a different culture.
Being in a foreign language all the time is exhausting and there are times I find myself gravitating to other english speakers rather than struggling through foreign language conversations. Hubby used to be fluent in reading and writing spanish, so he is moving much faster than I am. On one hand, I'm glad one of us can be more useful more quickly, but I also feel a little left behind. We travel quite a bit more from home, and I have the more flexible schedule so my days home vs out have been the ones to adjust. At what used to be errand times and housecleaning times and such, I am so tired of going that I just want to lay around and read a book. I'm falling behind there, and hubby is able to help out less than he used to because of his extra workload.
One more element to this that I know is significant, is that the beginning of Sept just as we were preparing for the move we lost 5 really close friends in a plane crash. There is pretty much no way to describe how awful that was, and we ended up delaying our move for a month because pretty much whenever I was at home I was sobbing. I know grief is playing a big part in how overwhelmed I feel, and I know being a perfectionist makes the grief worse by always worrying about what I am not getting done and what I wish I was doing better. I've tried to cut myself some slack there, but I am a "suck it up and do what you need to do" type of person, and I am frustrated by my resistance to the spanish part of my life. Where before I feel like I'd have done spanish lessons daily no matter what, and prepared every morning before heading out, sometimes I am so not in the mood that I let it slide. Long term I know that will only slow my progress with the language and make me feel overwhelmed for longer, but in that moment that argument isn't overcoming my resistance.
I can say that GTD has been helpful in keeping most of the balls in the air during this chaotic time. I've been able to keep the most important...or at least the most urgent things from the lists done, but I am tired of feeling in limbo. I know others must have felt this way in making moves and career changes. Any suggestions would be extremely welcome.
About 7 months ago we decided to stop playing at some of the goals, took a spanish class, and October 1 we changed our entire lives so that we now spend 4-5 days a week with our local spanish communities. As far as big picture goals, now I am thrilled with my life. 1-3 years down the road I only see myself getting more thrilled that we have finally gotten on the road to some of our higher level goals. As far as the runway though, there are days I feel like I am resistant to all of it. I only had a couple years of high school spanish, so the learning curve is steep. I do see regular progress though it's a lot of baby steps, and while we've been fairly warmly welcomed it definitely is a different culture.
Being in a foreign language all the time is exhausting and there are times I find myself gravitating to other english speakers rather than struggling through foreign language conversations. Hubby used to be fluent in reading and writing spanish, so he is moving much faster than I am. On one hand, I'm glad one of us can be more useful more quickly, but I also feel a little left behind. We travel quite a bit more from home, and I have the more flexible schedule so my days home vs out have been the ones to adjust. At what used to be errand times and housecleaning times and such, I am so tired of going that I just want to lay around and read a book. I'm falling behind there, and hubby is able to help out less than he used to because of his extra workload.
One more element to this that I know is significant, is that the beginning of Sept just as we were preparing for the move we lost 5 really close friends in a plane crash. There is pretty much no way to describe how awful that was, and we ended up delaying our move for a month because pretty much whenever I was at home I was sobbing. I know grief is playing a big part in how overwhelmed I feel, and I know being a perfectionist makes the grief worse by always worrying about what I am not getting done and what I wish I was doing better. I've tried to cut myself some slack there, but I am a "suck it up and do what you need to do" type of person, and I am frustrated by my resistance to the spanish part of my life. Where before I feel like I'd have done spanish lessons daily no matter what, and prepared every morning before heading out, sometimes I am so not in the mood that I let it slide. Long term I know that will only slow my progress with the language and make me feel overwhelmed for longer, but in that moment that argument isn't overcoming my resistance.
I can say that GTD has been helpful in keeping most of the balls in the air during this chaotic time. I've been able to keep the most important...or at least the most urgent things from the lists done, but I am tired of feeling in limbo. I know others must have felt this way in making moves and career changes. Any suggestions would be extremely welcome.