I took a step back this weekend to look at the trends in my life, which is a different way of doing things for me. I have young kids so I rarely have time to sit quietly and think. Oddly enough, after the grandparents agreed to watch them for a day while my wife and I recovered from strep throat, you have a lot of time to think in between naps.
What I noticed about myself as I reflected was that I have a lot of nervous energy before changes in the routine. I’ll give a couple of more recent examples:
- Once my throat started hurting early in the morning, I found it hard to go back to bed and get sleep. This was because I was going over all the possibilities when I went in to the urgent care facility in the morning.
- Since I signed up for spring classes in graduate school I have been checking to see if the syllabus’ have been posted in our online platform. I know they’re probably not going to be there, but why not check and see?
- Before my daughter’s first basketball practice, I obsessively went over the provided practice plan to make sure I knew what I was doing. I’m an assistant coach…this is six year old’s basketball…not that critical.
I’ve been called many things when people find out about my “condition” (by the way, I say this tongue-in-cheek). I prefer the term “has a lot of nervous energy” over terms like “worrier” because I’m not necessarily worried. I usually just can’t stop thinking about my part in the upcoming event and what I can do to make it the best it can be.
With all this being said, if I look tired on the day of a big event, that’s because my nervous energy kept me up and I really want it to go well!