If you’re like any artist, creative, actor, singer, dancer, writer, storyteller on the planet, you FEEL acutely. You pick up on the emotions of the world and you turn those strong feelings into art.

THAT IS AWESOME.

It is also awesome in the burdensome sense of the word. It’s a BIG weight to carry.

One of my most effective tools at dealing with stuff that can become overwhelming, go on loop, spin out, create anxiety, induce panic (is this list sounding familiar?!?) is something I call “Worry O’Clock.”

(I teach this in our membership, but right now is no time to keep this tactic at members-only status.)

Start by picking a time. I choose 6pm. Since the worry loop can start up pretty much as soon as I get out of bed, 6pm is not too-too far off, but it’s far enough in the future that it does a really good job.

Every time a worry, a freak-out, even a self-critical thought (am I the only one having more and more of these lately?!?) floats in, I say, “Oh! Let’s make an appointment to clock in for that. I want to give this anxiety my FULL attention. Rather than having it share space with things I’m working on, let’s give it a focus session. 6pm okay? Great. I’ll see you at worry o’clock.”

At 6pm, an alarm in my phone goes off and I sit down with my journal and no other distractions, and invite the worry, anxiety, cruel self-talk, whatever… to show up. “Okay. Here I am. Let’s go!”

Now, the first few times I did this, I was really worried my brain would spin out like WHOA during these sessions, but interestingly, it was only a few minutes of journaling, a few things listed off, a short little burst of words. And when I said, “That’s it?” All that energy that started poking at me earlier in the day was just NOT THERE.

But I kept showing up, because that’s the deal. The way I could GET that nonsense to pipe down all throughout the day (which it did; it’s very obedient that way) was to promise it that date… at worry o’clock.

Within a few days, I was feeling SO FREAKIN’ GREAT all throughout the day, that by the time 6pm rolled around, I would go, “Aw, man! Do I hafta?!?” because I was just way too blissed out to hear a list of all the worries and anxiety and such.

So it became a super-quick check-in at 6pm. “Hey. We good?” And my panic would answer back, “All good.”

Holy crap. Worry o’clock WORKS.

I’m using it now for all things crazymaking (and there are a lot of these things, right now). Maybe it can help you too.

Lemmeknow if you try it! And if you’ve got any similar tactics to share, pop ’em in below! Comments are open and I always love hearing from you. 🙂

Oh, before I close off, if you’re even THINKING of joining me for JFDI with Bon (we kick off a new round for May and another for June — and when you join, you’re in for all of it), please consider enrolling ASAP because our Thursday session is one of THE most amazing things I’ve ever taught. It’s my 5×5 content planning process and it is a GAME CHANGER for creating a year of blog posts, email newsletters, social media posts, livestreams, podcast episodes, or anything else you need to get out into the world. Totally free bonus as a part of this hotseat workout! All the info you need is here. Hope to see you in the dojo!

All my love,

Enoughness is an inside job… and sometimes you need a guide to find your way there. Let Bonnie Gillespie get you started.