Thank you. That was a good challenge for me! Here’s ten of the models I did on the thoughts causing painful feelings for me right now.

1.)
C – I brought in 23 million dollars in less than two years.
T – I’ve set an unattainable bar for myself if I don’t keep working at the same pace
F – helpless
A – predict failure for each new project
R – slow myself down with doubt

2.)
C – I brought in 23 million dollars in less than two years.
T – I probably wouldn’t have brought in this amount without extraordinary pressure.
F – Grateful.
A – Tell myself I must need a frenzied pace to perform
R – Keep trying to get things done at the last minute if that’s when they’re handed to me

3.)
C – My boss listened to me and gave me a raise
T – I don’t want to be promoted at this company because everyone else seems even more stressed.
F – Anxious
A – Hide and minimize my contributions
R – Company leaders don’t know the value I create for the company

4.)
C – My boss listened to me and gave me a raise
T – I’m lucky to have this job & this boss, and I’m unlikely to find anything else as good
F – Hopeless
A – Turn down other offers and opportunities out of fear
R – Stay in my job but pretend I’m not choosing it

5.)
C – Meeting deadlines is the primary responsibility of my job.
T – I can’t keep doing this at the last minute, it’s killing me.
F – Exhausted.
A – Worrying about health impacts of missing sleep.
R – Spend a lot of time worrying.

6.)
C – Meeting deadlines is the primary responsibility of my job.
T – If I fail to meet a deadline, people will lose their jobs and important services will go away.
F – Guilty.
A – Berate myself.
R – Keep working nights and weekends to finish projects.

7.)
C – Coworkers sometimes give me grant components close to my deadlines.
T – I will fail if I don’t do excellent work in minimal time.
F – Scared
A – Pressure & berate myself.
R – Work through nights and weekends from a place of stress and fear.

8.)
C – Coworkers sometimes give me grant components close to my deadlines.
T – I’m a bad mom for constantly prioritizing my work deadlines on nights and weekends.
F – Guilty & sad.
A – Be resentful in my attitude toward my projects.
R – Don’t feel good about my job OR my parenting.

9.)
C – My workload will increase this spring.
T – I’ve already missed too much time with my daughter.
F – Sad.
A – Be resentful in my attitude toward work.
R – Don’t feel good about either my job or my parenting.

10.)
C – My workload will increase this spring.
T – I’m a stay at home mom on the weekends now.
F – Determined.
A – Show up ready to get absolutely everything done every weekday.
R – I complete everything within my power to complete (…but…)

So, here’s what I learned. 🙂 I am being intensely negative and victim-y about my work. Reading those C lines, it’s confusing why I was turning them into such sad and anxious thoughts, since I could totally feel proud, expansive, grateful, etc. about the exact same circumstances with different thoughts. It seems pretty clear that I’m the one treating myself disrespectfully, not others at work.

But.

I honestly don’t see how cleaning up my thinking will change the circumstances at my job this spring. I think it will change my feelings, which I already know will improve my life generally! But I didn’t figure out what new actions I should be taking from those feelings in order to achieve the results I want. I can’t control the other people, obviously. Is it a matter of still working to meet the deadline regardless of when I get the components, but from a place of cleaner thinking? Or saying no to those situations, but from a place of gratitude for my job? The result I want is to do my work in an organized way that supports higher quality projects, bringing in even more $$ than I have before, and doing that without working on the weekends.

Thank you for everything.