Just Get it Out There

I went to the Zurich botanical gardens today on Sunday, and sent my dear friend Nita some photos and she told me: “BLOG IT!!!” I said something about perfectionism paralysis and about feeling like there are so many other things I should post first and she said, “Just get it out there!”

Yeah… I’ve been doing a lot of preaching lately about the hazards of overthinking. I can preach about it, because I do it so well. It’s one thing that I excel at. One of my favorite bloggers, David over at Raptitude, wrote a blog about how he used to write off-the-cuff blog posts but now feels pressure to be perfect. This morning afternoon (oh shit, it’s afternoon already) I discovered a video on procrastination and perfectionism that resonated big time (as did the four other videos of his that I watched today). My aunt Nina does a good job of not overthinking her blog posts. I thought, that’s great. I want to be like that!

But then, just like always, I second guessed myself. In fact, this blog post has been sitting here for three days and I have convinced myself multiple times that I don’t have anything worth saying so I shouldn’t post it. And then my monkey brain said, maybe I should delay this blog post so I can blog about that… and then I spent a grotesque amount of time finding the perfect meme to represent my overthinking. That’s right, I overthought my overthinking meme to put on my blog post on overthinking.

Random Life Update

So anyway, here’s a random life update, to get the ball rolling! Sorry, Nita. This isn’t the blog post you asked for, but with any luck it’s freeing up the mental space to get that one out there next!

I had a nice visit with friends in Zurich before they took off for Lisbon and left me to watch their cat. They showed me around a bit but they had to work and I felt like I needed to as well, so we didn’t really get out and see that much.That would have bothered “Old Christina” but the new Christina is a slower traveler. It helps that Zurich is only a 4 hour bus or train ride from Munich, so I know I can always go back and the FOMO is less.

Plus, I had told myself that I was going to buckle down and work on my book (Magicians, Cross-Dressers, and My Uterus). Yeah, you know, that book I’ve been working on for like 300 years? The one that I say is my number one priority but I always find something else to prioritize before it? Dishes, laundry, even taxes come before writing my book. Oh yeah, and cats. Cats definitely come first. See that cat? That’s my boy, Emilio. He spends more time looking at my vision board than I do.

I have a friend who gave me a phenomenal coaching session recently (even though she said that she couldn’t help me and that she wouldn’t let me pay because she also has a perfectionist streak as bad as mine). She asked how I was feeling about my book on a scale of 1-10 with ten being over the moon about it and one being I want to burn it. I thought Hmm… I don’t want to come out as being too optimistic or too pessimistic. So I said, 4.

“So you’re nearly halfway to feeling over the moon about it,” she said. “The next time we meet, I want you to feel that you’re at least a 4.2. Let’s talk about how to get you there.”

Well, by the end of the call, I was already feeling 4.2 or better.

I have direction again!

So back to Zurich, I planned on using my time (and my friends’ huge dining room table) to plot out my chapters and come up with a new outline for my book. I did part of that… I now have a notecard with a summary and keywords for each of my chapters – many are already written, some in process, some only notes, and I identified a bunch that don’t belong. Here’s my assistant for the weekend, Dory.

Sorry for the tangent, Nita. I promise I’ll do a post about the botanical gardens next. 😛 Someday… 🤦🏼‍♀️

Oh, one last thing. Quite a while ago, my talented friend, Jessica, designed my book cover. How cool is this? I’ve also set up a new page devoted to author stuff. I haven’t done much with it yet, but take a look: Christina Howell Author and Editor (christina-howell.com)