Stress: Is it a reaction?

I think so. Things are going along pretty fast for me right now. I've found that learning to learn again is a challenge to say the least. My priorities have changed drastically but I'm, for some reason, still holding on to some old habits that aren't helpful. I feel that the good should push out the bad; however, in practice that is certainly not the case. I just compound everything together and it feels like 1 + 1 = 4 at times. I try to tell myself that I can put one hundred percent into everything I do.. school, work, being a husband, exercise, healthy eating habits and the list goes on and on. In my mind this shouldn't be a problem but I feel that I'm shortchanging things that are important to me.

How do I do it? How can I focus nearly completely on school, which I must to keep up with the course load that I am taking, continue working so that my wife and I can pay bills, stay healthy by eating right and exercising and help out with the day to day chores that at one time I was able to do. Thank goodness my wife is understanding otherwise she would be really pissed at me at this point. The first thing I neglected was my chores at home. I'm not so sure I had to do this but I did. The second thing was work. I've had to call out the past two weekday shifts that I have because I couldn't find coverage for them. That's a strain because I don't want to jeopardize our income otherwise I will not be able to do any of the other very important things.

Over the past two or three weeks school has dominated my mind and my actions. I must find a happy balance so that I can continue to do all of these things well.

Where is the balance? First of all I do things that hinder my progress and drain my energy. These must go. Tobacco, alcohol, unhealthy eating and laziness must go now. I see that very clearly and my goal over the next three weeks is to get rid of these things so that good habits can take there place. I must exercise and plan my meals. That's not as easy as it sounds because I am somewhat of a compulsive eater. This affects me very negatively because when I eat unhealthy I feel drained and I don't want to exercise. Then my mind isn't sharp so I lose focus in my studying and find that I don't even care about work. It's a vicious cycle.

Just writing these aspects down helps me to categorize the things I must focus on and the things that must be let go. It's a constant struggle that leads me back to thinking about stress. Right now I feel like I am pushed to the absolute limit and of course this makes me very afraid of failure. I am sitting at the crux of my future with limitless possibilities. I've worked so hard to get to this point and now that I am here it seems that I may not be able to continue.

First of all, it's a good problem to have. I'm stressed yes, I react to this stress by feeling overwhelmed and out of control. I must regain control and mold my path toward things that will support my success not lead me to failure.

At least I have the ability to make these decisions even though they are difficult ones. I can do this no problem but my current path of actions will certainly make my life much harder than it should be.

My action steps:

1. Plan my food and stick to the plan.
2. Develop an exercise schedule with my wife and stick to it.
3. Set a date, now, and stop using tobacco and drinking alcohol. It's a no brainer I know
4. Set up specific times that I will study.
5. Make things right at work and maybe think about a part-time job during the week and continue weekends as I've been doing.
6. Don't react to stress, rationalize and find out where the stress is coming from and deal with it. Don't let it compound.

I hope to continue blogging about my problems and success on this crazy journey. I have a feeling this blog will morph into more of a-how I reached my goals- instead of -what's in my way right now. We shall see...