At any given moment, regardless of appearance or emotional certainty to the contrary, it is not the demand of those already-overdue, one-hundred-and-one tasks that have you feeling so overwhelmed and under prepared. What you’re really experiencing is the overwhelming presence of one thought that has the power to freeze you in your tracks. This deceiving thought calls itself “one-hundred-and-one things to do.”

The next time you “hear” this inner voice of imminent doom, listen instead to this higher instruction: Never again look for a way out of any anxious condition. Look instead for a way to see through it.

Success only becomes impossible when you try to deal with what isn’t in your power. Renegade parts of you want you to waste your powers dealing with them. Your misguided attention to their punishing presence gives them a life they wouldn’t have without tricking you into giving them one. This means you don’t need power to deal with what has been defeating you, only the higher understanding it takes to consciously dismiss it from your inner life. You have that power now. Start using it by getting one thing done, one at a time, all the way down your “to do” list. Proceed in spite of any thoughts or feelings that would have you believe you can’t. Just behind your certainty that your list of what you have to do is too much for you lies a new and conscious capability to proceed one step at a time, to accomplish one task at a time, to your satisfaction.