How to keep your mental health when important decisions are at stake.
When i have difficult topics in a business context, e.g. when partnerships or expenses are discussed, my brain goes completely crazy.
This concerns positive things as well as negative ones. but with small setbacks it is slightly worse.
I think about it for 2-3 days and constantly make notes in my notes app.
during commutes, when i am with my family.
write down sentence fragments, statements i want to make.
think about if-then decision trees,
weights the individual options.
I then have 4-5 screen pages full of text.
.. to write a concentrated mail at the end in 1-2 hours of effort, and then I feel good again after I have sent it.
I notice that the tonality changes a lot over the 2-3 days. very intimidating and defensive from the beginning to a win win win result for everyone in the end.
how do you deal with it? are these serious obsessive-compulsive disorders? (i mean, it burdens me in everyday life in a negative way).
I have the feeling that i'm not getting my thinking straight. The emotions and the emotional fear of not doing justice to someone or getting negative feedback stand in the way of an objective view.
You are aware of what's going on in your mind, which I believe is the most important part.
All humans struggle with morality, decisions, and negotiations. It's normal to feel stressed and anxious about things that your brain believes might impact your chances of survival.
Writing things down is a good way of getting things out of your head, and you're already doing that which is great.
Try to make use of the fact that you're so aware of this mental process and zoom out a little - put the decision you're making in perspective with the rest of your life and existence. If you think about anything hard enough, you realize it doesn't matter that much. We're all just trying to be happy and help our fellow humans 🙂
Edit: Another thing, our body is incredibly resilient - it can handle a lot more stress than you think it can. I would see your problem as an anxiety disorder if you're having panic attacks all the time, can't sleep, or can't be productive at all. If you stay aware of how you're dealing with your emotions and handling stress, I am sure you'll figure out how to manage it over time. A little stress is healthy and makes us grow 😀 like Nassim Taleb's Antifragile!
Thanks for this framing! Besides this concrete issue, I still can sleep (as much as you can with 2 kids, 3 month + 3 years old) and also I feel quite productive.