Epiphany.
You’re deathmarching out the final stages of a project, you’re sacrificing your mind and body and sanity. You’re burning midnight oil, both ends of the candle, your family and friends haven’t seen you in a while.
You’re wrecked. Can you get it done? So close, so close… strength is failing, can we get over the line?
And – you do!
You get it done!
Bam! Euphoria!
But then – now what?
Nothing?
….damn it…
Motivation is sunk after that, and you fall into a funk.
If you’ve followed my writing for a while, you know I’m not big into celebrations and festivals. I don’t celebrate any of them, not even my own birthday.
I’ve always discounted festivals as not very important if you live a high impact and reflective life all the time anyways.
But! If there’s any use for them, it’s to prevent the anticlimax after a huge effort.
It’s like, if that’s it and you now have to sit around and wait, you’re hosed.
But if there’s a party scheduled in, say, two weeks, you can take it easy for a few days, then catch up on all the maintenance that’s been piling up, knowing all the while that you’re having a party marking your new launch.
If you’re managing, even just a short, “Congrats! I’m super pumped for this” or something probably goes a long way.
I’m not sure exactly what the right answer is if you’re doing things solo, but anticlimax is clearly a big killer. Plan some sort of transitional celebratory event around the end of any huge effort push so you don’t fall apart afterwards.
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In light of your new post on hypomania, I think it’s even more important that you plan something special to celebrate, in order to create that buffer where you can rest and recover (crash) and then not swing RIGHT back into flying high ( I know ascension is fucking awesome, but to everything it’s season, right? I would but disappointed if you died young from burning the candle at both ends.)
My problem, and I assume yours, is that I have pretty much everything I desire in day-to-day life, and the stuff I don’t have, I make an action plan to get, so there isn’t much that I can do to ‘celebrate’. I usually take the day off, and before the end of it I’m bored.
But I think if I had someone who said “we have to celebrate” I could probably come up with something I wanted to do. Like a full day at a spa. A day spent spelunking. A day trip with a stay in a luxe B&B.
I think the trick is remembering to treat yourself as a valued employee. I mean, if you’ll fly what’sisname to Asia as a reward for meeting his target, you should at least get, i dunno, a night at a casino or something.