Leaving my therapist last session she told me I should look into what a “low demand lifestyle” was. My first thought was “f u, no???” and my second thought was “okay but how do I actually incorporate these things?”
I would be grateful to hear how folks of all support need levels have incorporated this concept into their lives.
In my particular situation I have a huge amount of autonomy in my life so most of my struggles are from self demands. It’s a lot easier for me to act on demands from others (so long as I agree they are good demands, things that make sense or that I don’t really care about but care about the person asking so I can do it without too much resistance).
I’m not fully familiar with the phrase, but I generally try to set things up in my life so that things fall into place with or without further input from me. I’ve had (and have) a lot of problems with executive disorder in my life, so it’s always a gamble for me. One day I’ll be perfectly fine putting in ten hours of work furthering a single project, the next I can barely stand 30 minutes.
My way of managing this has been to look for “default states” as I call them. To try and find a way that if this is the last moment of attention and work I can put in to what I’m doing, things will still carry along to a positive or at least a neutral outcome.
It doesn’t always work, obviously there are some things out there that just defy that kind of approach. But when I can get it working for me it’s really nice because it allows me to take the brakes I need to avoid burnout without feeling guilty or gambling too much with the outcome of whatever it is I’m trying to do.
Good stuff.
Reading that alleviated a lot of pressure.
That sounds like that approach would better fit me too.
Accepting when can. Not imposing a rigid scheduled structure that I’m demanded to meet.
Oh wow I do need to figure out the “default states”. I’ll often push through something because I think I can finish it and it will be so much easier than coming back to it and having to remember all the steps/variables but that’s how I end up working 60 hour weeks 😬
Thank you!