Exhausted? Do the Rule of 5.
This Rule of 5 WILL help you - if you commit to it.
Exhaustion is required in many societies, and is meant to keep you spinning in the same place. Intentionally. To keep you where you are, NOT to keep you where you belong. In order to get above where you are, you’re going to need to get out from under Exhaustion’s thumb. I do the “rule of 5” to do this!
Rule of 5?
It means choose and stick with only 5 things you focus your energy towards.
Five jobs and hobbies total and nothing else!
Money-making things count, individually. Kids count collectively and pets count collectively (separate from kids). Hobbies count individually.
For me, I have two jobs and three hobbies – total.
Job 1. This site/career consulting
Job 2. a part time fun job
Hobby 3. house chores
Hobby 4. pets/friends
Hobby 5. p1-om (a game dev team)
"ONLY 5? Aren't you bored? I have like, 16!"
That’s the point. That’s why you’re Exhausted.
Sixteen things is “running all day and getting nowhere”. That’s “distracting yourself with social media because you just can’t” and “getting nothing checked off your list and people are getting pissed at you”.
Boredom isn’t a bad thing – only the system tells you it is. …And your own inner fears that your anxiety/depression will take over your brain if you let it be bored.
Boredom allows your brain to work, create, dream, and get your shit together.
First, you’ll need to point your brain towards helpful thoughts as it adjusts to having…time. Our tendency is to bring ourselves down when we have time to think, which is why having time to think is scary. You’ll need to focus your brain on positive for a while to get it into a good habit with thinking.
Moving forward thoughts, optimization thoughts, listing stuff thoughts, processing thoughts, planning thoughts, happiness thoughts, friendship thoughts, etc!
Planning, dreaming, all of it will really start flowing once your brain has the time. Exhaustion and overwhelm will disappear. Your brain will start being able to think your way out of the spin after that!
Boredom frees up RAM space in your brain. Never fill all your RAM. There’s no way to get more, unfortunately. You are fine with the RAM you have, and you have a lot – it’s just the system we live in wants you to use all of it, all the time, so you are too busy to think and fight!
So what do you do first?
1. Get a piece of REAL PAPER.
Don’t use your phone or laptop or any tech! Find paper and pen, or have someone write for you if you can’t. Real paper is more permanent and make you think better. This is a known psychological phenomenon, extensively studied and recommended by therapists and professionals worldwide. (You will never find a professional without a notebook nearby for a reason!)
2. Write down your jobs. If you have more than 2, no problem! Extra jobs just take 2 hobbies each, instead of 1. (You SHOULD have 2 or less, by the way. I help with that if you see my front page.) We need hobbies to relax, even if the hobby is just set aside time to relax!
3. School? Counts as a job. Kids? One job. Caretaking a sick/elderly person? One job. Pretty much everything else is a hobby.
4. Write down everything you’re trying to do to relax, everything you use to self-medicate and recover. Everything you try to do to keep feeling like you have a life.
I think you’ll soon start seeing the issues pretty quickly after that.
Reduce to 5, start snipping away and saying “no thank you, too much on my plate” and “I’m afraid I’ll have to leave X”. Reach out for help to change your jobs to 1-2 here.
Find your boredom. Stay tight to your personal Rule of 5.
Say no, strongly. You can’t save everyone and do everything, it’s ok to not change the world and be everything everyone wants you to be.
Be a rested best you, to yourself.
