Knowing What are Important

Thank God that by His grace, I become very positive in the last 1.5 week. But somehow yesterday and today I start to feel exhausted. One of the things I started to forget counting my blessings. Yes I begin not to count my mistakes. Now when I make mistakes, I can move on quickly. But apparently it is also dangerous when I start to count my achievements or how many things I managed to get done in a particular day.

First, isn’t giving my best the important thing? Remember that in the past few months, it is very difficult for me to get things done. Sometimes an e-mail or a single slide take one day. So overcoming my worries or fear is the important one. Now that I start to be able to manage my stress, I can enjoy it. What makes me feel exhausted is perhaps my standard unconsciously start to rise up again. It is like one thing get done without stress is not enough. I want to achieve as many as possible. This means I start to deviate on what is important.

Secondly, not all things are important. One of my seniors told me that he enjoyed reading my detailed notes. But he also mentioned that if I keep doing that for many aspects, I will have little time to work or do the follow up actions from the notes. So I need to practice in deciding which one need nice notes, which one is not. For example yesterday I was asked how to add shortcut to Microsoft Office’s document location. I could just search and forward the link instead of trying to explain in detail. Today my best friend in office also showed me how to use existing tool and let go my perfectionism tendency to correct every single thing even if an expert on that area says the impact is small.

Third, be honest and trust people. There was a call from Kiddy Palace Toa Payoh saying that there is a stock on the coconut balsam I was looking for. I already bought in Westgate but I didn’t directly tell them. Only when they asked when I am going to Toa Payoh, then I mentioned I no longer need the item. Similarly, a colleague asked on how to do things. In my team, there is one role who is supposed to do it. But because I am not sure whether he can do it, I went to ask a senior who did that role previously. I wondered why didn’t I just ask the current person regardless whether he can do it or not. Anyway if he can’t, he is the one responsible to ask the person doing it - regardless whether he actually does it or not. Like what my counselor previously said, let go of the desire for being able to control uncertainty.

So now what? Realize that things are actually doing very good. Count the blessings instead of focusing on the things not yet done. Admit my limitation that I can’t do all things. I need to choose what is important and focus on those things first.