When It's All On the Line

“Revelations come when you’re in the thick of it, pitting yourself up against something larger than yourself.”

— Frank Langella

No matter how well you plan, there will be times of high activity as you drive toward a goal. Sometimes that goal might be continuing to do your darndest to raise your child right as s/he goes through a trying phase. Sometimes it will be coordinating numerous pieces of a business project that will make or break your position in your job or seriously impact your bottom line. It might be moving to a new location. Some goals just require that we power through difficulties to some extent because timing is critical. How can we do this without losing our grip and letting everything fall to pieces, including us? Here are my suggestions:

• When you're truly being stretched to the edges of your capacity, it's time to get serious about the fundamentals. You can't power through anything when you're floundering without proper nutrition, exercise, and sleep. These basics are never optional, but least of all when you need to perform at peak productivity and resourcefulness. 
• This is the time to ask for help. This may seem like yet another way in which you're stretching yourself beyond your comfort zone, but if you can challenge yourself to reach over your ego and tap someone else on the shoulder, you'll find a huge source of help and support waiting for you. Maybe you won't find what you were hoping for on the first try, but keep at it. You don't have to do everything alone, and depending on the complexity of your project, sometimes you literally can't. If you want to get more done in life, you need to improve your interpersonal skills and your willingness to partner with others to get where you want to go.
•  If you have forewarning, front-load some routine tasks, or set up a way to outsource them whether through cash or trade. With just a little thought and time invested, you can make sure what's absolutely necessary will be covered even if you can't handle it in the midst of everything else.
• Realize in advance that when your life is in a state of high demand, you may need to make some messes that will get cleaned up later. It's very rare that a highly challenging period will come and go entirely smoothly, and that's normal and ok. By all means do the best you can to keep on top of everything, but don't add unnecessary stress to the cacophony by expecting or trying to insist that everything be perfect. When things calm down again, or once you acclimate to the new pace of things, you can address the results of any minor explosions that occurred en route. 
• Plan to do something relaxing for yourself on the other side of all this heightened activity so you have something to look forward to, and sneak in relaxing moments throughout this time whenever you can. As a teacher of mine used to say, a muscle that's always tense is not useful. You need to stay flexible  in order to get things done, and to do that you need to be able to relax and breathe.

Most of this may seem fairly obvious now, but when we're being challenged in a major way, sometimes we stop thinking because we go into some degree of fight/flight/freeze mode, and it all goes out the window. The more you get used to thinking along these lines, the more this habitual thinking will remain an asset when you find yourself overwhelmed and on auto-pilot. Times when you feel pushed to your limits may be among the most difficult of your life, but if you have a few helpful strategies at the ready, they can also be among the most rewarding.