Making Things Harder Than They Need to Be!

Dear Readers,
I can make BIG mountains out of the smallest mole hills.
It's sometimes amazing I do anything when I consider the self-talk that goes through my head.
Everything seems too hard.
Just making the bed can seems like a major feat to me!

But I have learned a technique that has been making a difference.
I read about it in the book, Feeling Good, by David Burns, where in it he has a chapter on overcoming procrastination.
He has you keep track of, and rate, your perceived difficulty of a task, and then do the task and rate the actual difficulty of the task. This is on a scale of 0% to 100%, where 0% is easy to 100% being very hard. (He has you do the same for the perceived and actual satisfaction of the task.)

For example, I perceived that dusting the house was going to 90% hard, but I found it was actually only 40% hard. Making the bed has now become easy for me. I used to perceive it as 70% difficult, but I found out most days it is only 20% difficult. (For me)

Writing a blog post seems so hard, (90%), that I often don't write one, or start one and don't post it.
But actually, it's not as hard as I make it out to be, usually only about 40% hard for me. Once I start writing, the words usually flow!
(And it doesn't have to be perfect, I always need to remind myself.)

This simple technique is helping me so much, I am going to add the perceived and actual satisfaction part. I can tell you now that almost all things give me way more satisfaction than I perceive they will. 

It seems to me I overestimate the difficulties of life and underestimate the joys of life.

I pulled my back this weekend. I have been sitting in a chair with a heating pad and ice for 3 days. Hubs and I did get out for a walk, (I would classify it as a stroll), but I couldn't get into the car. It took about 10 minutes. He was pretty patient.
I am not sad or angry about my back. This happens once in awhile. My back will heal, and life goes on. I am using this time to reflect and write.

No mountain making today!
It's all mole hills, maybe even ant hills!
(That was a joke and I hope you all got it!)

With a Heating Pad on Day 535,
Wendy