The Straw Had Nothing to Do With it!

Courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/ Stuart Miles

It’s true. What your grandmamma used to tell you about the straw that broke the camel’s back never happened. There isn’t a straw in the universe heavy enough to cause that kind of damage.

I see it all the time. Normally even keeled people come apart at the seams and right in front of me, they melt like the wicked witch in a bucket of water. I’ll say it again, wasn’t the straw. Grandmamma was wrong.

There are some dangers of believing in the straw. Here are a couple:

You focus on the wrong thing. You spend your time trying to avoid the straw and don’t even address the heavy load you’re carrying each and every day. You should be implementing strategies that will lighten your load.

You mark your threshold at the point of crisis. That’s way too far over the line. You’ll want to readjust your limit well before that point to keep you emotionally healthy.

In today’s world, you are bombarded with all sorts of things that add weight to your emotional camel. You naturally adjust to the added weight and keep right on going, albeit a bit slower. It happens so automatically, you don’t realize it’s getting to be too much, until… well, you know.

Last Thursday night I sat down to write this blog post to share with you on Friday. I’ve been traveling a lot and I was dead dog tired. My mind wouldn’t function. I could not string words together with any meaning at all. This 400 word blog post was my straw.

The truth is four solid weeks of burning the candle at both ends broke my creativity’s back. I could have focused on this blog post and convinced myself it was too much for me to handle. If I believed that, my blog could go away. After all, it’s breaking my back. That would be tragic because how would I connect with you without my blog?

It’s critical to your success—and your sanity—to focus on the things that are weighing you down and fix those things rather than concentrating on getting rid of the straw. You’ll be happier, healthier and more fulfilled.

Today’s Challenge: Take time to identify those things in your life that are weighing you down and put a plan in place today that will lighten your load.

What is weighing you down? How is it affecting you? Share it here.