Don't want to go insane or burnout?
Process your emotions
This is more a system to sustain and manage your mindset than a mindset itself.
I’ve written about all these concepts and principles that allow me to produce solid outcomes. In generally, most of these aren’t easy to do. At times, they come at personal cost, never be recognised, require sustained effort, might yield little and go against our first-response.
Processing your emotions helps you re-establish inner-peace.
Processing emotions is like flushing all the dust that piles up in your brain and heart. It helps you find clarity again in midst of a storm.
my simple system to process my emotions
I built a simple system to process my emotions wherever I am.
It consists of, in rough order of priority:
- video journalling
- exercise
- call a close friend
video journalling I whip open my MacBook, open Photo Booth, hit the record button and just talk. About what’s going on, what I’m feeling, what I’m struggling with…anything that comes to mind.
This is always doable anytime and anywhere. I might find a quiet space to do it (go into my car or find a quiet spot in nearby shopping centre). This is essentially self-therapy. Super affordable! I tried written journalling before, but found it took too long to write as I keep rephrasing and pausing. Or my thoughts come out faster than I can type.
exercise a healthy mind resides in a healthy body. You simply want to move your body and think less. A change of environment is great. I never bring my phone or use it during a workout.
I might do some push-ups or burpees then and there. Ideally I try to hit a gym. When I travelled for hackathons – I would book hotels with gyms and go for a quick gym workout even if its midnight after a long-day of hacking.
call a close friend similar to video journalling, but this time with a friend. Try to determine if you want a listening ear, advice or a sounding-board – and convey that first to your friend.
I’d like to thank James, Rob, Rhyan, Lucy for the times I just needed a chat.
the unhealthy way to process your emotions
Frankly, processing your emotions is something already done by everyone. We all do it in different ways both healthy and unhealthy.
Unhealthy ways often come at great expense to others or fail to resolve the issue. A painkiller over cure. Often they come at self-expense too in other areas.
One distinct example where there were two paths for me. I flew 5 flights, 20+ hours, airline lost my luggage and arrived jet-lagged in Boston for the MIT RealityHack (world’s largest AR/VR hackathon), teamed with strangers and things were getting intense with disagreements popping up halfway in. At one moment, I considered just venting what was on my mind at my team – I thankfully took a deep breath instead. Sure, venting might have gave me temporary relief. But it would have likely broken our team dynamic and it would have been at the team’s expense.
Instead, I continued hacking the best I could. Upon returning to my hotel at midnight, I hit the gym – then whipped out my laptop for some video journalling. Felt a lot better after that.