For years I've struggled with anxiety and stress not making me functional. My peers often glorify the results of my work, allowing me to do interesting projects and working at Google, but inside a wretched ball of anxiety. Whats worse, is that the anxiety is the driver of my external success.
It wasn't till recently that I tried actuating on stress in my life, by accepting that my work is exceptional because my workflow is exceptional. I begun taking time off whenever I felt like it, self-assigning projects and ignoring unrelated requests from others etc.
That being said, some of my most stressful periods are when I'm doing nothing. The reason I got to Google is because I can't 'turn off' -- but I've come to realize that making good decisions at Google Scale requires a peaceful mind. Fear and anxiety leads to short term pain-reduction decisions that aren't often the best for the long term or large scale problem.
Its a sort of horrifying filter I haven't quite solved yet, but the first step seems to be quantifying my stress, like this article, actively reducing it, and accepting that the "turking" stage of my life needs to step back to make way for more intelligent decision-making and discipline.
It wasn't till recently that I tried actuating on stress in my life, by accepting that my work is exceptional because my workflow is exceptional. I begun taking time off whenever I felt like it, self-assigning projects and ignoring unrelated requests from others etc.
That being said, some of my most stressful periods are when I'm doing nothing. The reason I got to Google is because I can't 'turn off' -- but I've come to realize that making good decisions at Google Scale requires a peaceful mind. Fear and anxiety leads to short term pain-reduction decisions that aren't often the best for the long term or large scale problem.
Its a sort of horrifying filter I haven't quite solved yet, but the first step seems to be quantifying my stress, like this article, actively reducing it, and accepting that the "turking" stage of my life needs to step back to make way for more intelligent decision-making and discipline.