"Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency." - Natalie Goldberg

Stress is an emergency that needs to be dealt with immediately.

I realised yesterday that I am feeling stressed in my new job. It is not the job itself that is making me stressed though; I love what I'm doing and I think I am doing it very well. It is not even the fact that I am short of time to do all I need to do before deadline. No, it is the fact that my editor is stressed and because she is stressed she wants me to do stuff on a last minute warning, and that is making me stressed. I am a planning person, I don't like sudden changes (unless I come up with them), and I plan my time. Not every minute or even every hour of it, but to the point that I know that tomorrow I am spending my whole day doing research and writing, so that I might be able to get some time off the following day. Now, if my boss were to ask me to come to her office to work tomorrow that mean that I have to change all my plans, not only for tomorrow but for the day after and probably for the day after that as well.  That is what is making me stressed.

I understand that my editor is under a lot of pressure and stress at the moment, we are doing the first issue of a new magazine and she wants everything to be as good as it possibly can. What she doesn't seem to realise is that if I don't get the time I need, when I need it, to do what I need to do; then what I do will not be as good as it can be, and we both want and need it to be. This is both our future, it is not only now and this issue.  However, we are doing it in about half the time we will have in the future and it is the first time for us. I am sure it is only teething problems and once it is all in print and the first issue is out, we can all sit down and talk about what we like and don't like and what needs to be changed for the next issue. Baby steps for a grown up is sometimes hard.

Anyway, I might be feeling stressed but since I realise it I can do something about it. I am in charge of my life and what I don't like I can take control over and change. I will do my job as good as I possibly can, and that is all I can do, but I will do it without stress. Stress will only make it bad, and it will put bad feelings into what I write and that is not good. I’m taking my time and I am doing it my way.

My dream of being a writer has a lot to do with freedom, to work a lot on my own conditions, a writer is an artist and not an office worker. A writer needs the freedom to fly. Give us a deadline and we will do what is necessary to make it, but don't hold us down. We will either get a writer's block or leave you screaming behind us. Some guidelines and rules and how it is supposed to be written is fine, and sometimes good, but don't plan our time for us.

This is all new to me and I am realising more and more about it as I go along. Knowledge is good, knowledge will help me understand why I react and feel the way I feel and as long as I know that I can work with it instead of against it.

If you are stressed you need to learn how to prioritise what you need to do. I said no to meeting my editor today, I don't have time because I have a job to do. I am writing this blog post because it is relaxes me to write it and it puts me in the writing state of mind. I do what I need to do to be able to do what I need to do. Everything is not an emergency! Although feeling stressed is, so take care of that first, and after that you can get on with what else needs to be done.

What makes you stressed? Why does it make you stressed? What are you doing about it?

You can read about Natalie Goldberg here and here.

Love

Carina