A 5-Step Process for Making What's Heavy, Light
If you are feeling stress, anxiety, or fear in one—or let’s be serious, multiple—areas of your life right now, this is for you.
Here’s what I do to pull myself out of the headspace of overwhelm and mental scatter—I hope you take what resonates and give it a try in your own life.
STEP 1:
I wrote out a list of everything in my life that feels heavy right now. (It was a laughably long list haha). Here’s a sliver of it:
Purchasing a car
My mom’s health
A major work-related project that remains unfinished
Need to switch my health insurance state
Unconscious spending
The idea of dating seriously again
Then, I order the list based on what feels the heaviest, as measured by mental space, emotional drain, and urgency.
STEP 2:
Brainstorm a way to make each heavy thing as light and easy as possible. This doesn’t always mean everything on the list will end up being “light,” but the exercise is intended to come up with more creative ways to lighten your load. Example: I’ve been in the market to buy a vehicle, and the stress of researching, online shopping, and negotiating with dealers was taking a toll. I asked myself, “How can this whole process be lighter to get to the outcome of having a car to drive around in?”
I decided to purchase through Carvana, which makes the process super simple compared to the traditional dealership route. I purchased the car I wanted in my PJs at 10 o’clock at night, and it made the stress of buying a car significantly more manageable. Other “light” options could have been: car share until I feel confident in exactly the car I want; hire an expert to do the car purchasing process on my behalf; take Ubers to get around instead; take public transportation (not a tenable option in my situation, but it would’ve been in every other city I’ve ever lived in); or buy a used vehicle from someone I know and trust who wants to sell it directly to me.
STEP 3:
Next, I pull out a fresh monthly calendar to map out all of my free time (time not spent working or on personal engagements I’ve committed to) for the next quarter (what I call a “mini year”). I sort the list into goals, habits, and one-time events. Here’s how I categorize the three:
Goals - Something I need to dedicate more than one session to making happen. Ex: Purchasing a car requires a budget check, car research, test driving, calling insurance and financing companies, etc. I know I need to block out multiple sessions in order to accomplish my goal of purchasing a car I love.
Habits - Something that requires a consistent change in my day-to-day behavior. Ex: It makes me anxious when I don’t wake up until after 8 am, but I haven’t built an evening routine that supports be getting up earlier on a consistent basis. Reducing that point of anxiety means creating new habits around when I go to bed and what I do during the first hour of each day.
One-Time Events - Something that I only have to do once, and then it’s in “set it and forget it” mode. Organizing my kitchen would be a good example of this. I can get it done in an evening and never have to block out time to do it again.
STEP 4:
For the next 30 days, I get more specific and carved out time on the calendar to tackle the things that feel heaviest on my list. Of course, some things I can’t do much about—but I can change how I feel about it or build habits around it to mitigate the heaviness. An example: I can’t control my mom’s health, but I can call her for 15 minutes each day to check in and book a ticket for her to visit me in Atlanta this spring.
I start with what is weighing the heaviest on me and look at my calendar to plug in the necessary time required to lighten the load. My process involves focusing on one new habit per month, so I choose and block time out for that separately. I fill up my free time with the goals and one-time events I want to make progress on with the intention of making light what feels heavy so I can be increasingly productive and more joyful as the month goes on.
Of course, the calendar will never go to plan perfectly. The hardest part for me is not choosing what feels good and easy in the moment over what will feel good and light in the long-run. There is a time and place for spontaneity and play, but it can’t take over so much so that I’m not getting important things done. I think this is a struggle for all of us, and I just want you to know you’re not alone in it.
STEP 5:
I go down the list and, one thing at a time, I write a little love note to my current self from my future 80-year-old self who is wiser, kinder, smarter, more loving, more compassionate, more no-bullshit, and more fun. Here’s an example of what one love note sounds like:
A love note to myself about unconscious spending:
“You’re fortunate enough to earn a wonderful living, Melissa. You have everything you need and so much more abundance than you could possibly imagine is coming your way—just you wait. But, in order to prepare yourself well to handle more wealth, you have to be a good steward of what you have right now. There will always be more to want and plenty of things to spend money on. But, what truly matters to you? Does your spending reflect those values accurately?
Right now, you know there are misalignments. Take a weekend day to sit down and create a refreshed budget for yourself from scratch. Create the easiest system possible for you to live well, joyfully, in the budget you’ve chosen for yourself. Celebrate every time you pay off a debt, and say a prayer of gratitude whenever you receive money from the world. You’ve earned it—and the more grateful you are for what you have, the more you’ll get in the future. Invest more heavily in retirement, health, philanthropy, and unforgettable experiences. Invest less in clothing, eating out, and knick knack purchases—you will remember hardly any of those things. Enjoy your beautiful life. Money doesn’t need to be a source of anxiety for you any longer. You are deeply abundant. Now it’s time to match that abundance with awareness and conscious spending. You got this!
FINAL THOUGHTS
This seven-step process is incredibly helpful—even the act of doing it will make things feel lighter. What I find is that when I have clarity and a plan, it alleviates about half of the stress. This takes a few hours to do, but once it’s complete, you will feel significantly less anxiety, stress, and fear. I promise.