Hacks to Shut Off Your Intuition

Post date: 2021-01-15 04:12:58

We bought a house, against our better judgment. It was a big mistake. Our brains keep screaming at us, "This was a mistake! You have ruined your life!" What can we do in the meantime to stay functional and un-f**k our lives?

Last week, my husband and I closed on a very cool house in a fantastic part of town. It's a fixer-upper, which we knew from the start, but it's becoming more evident that despite the objective coolness of this house, it is not the right house for us. The amount of work needed is overwhelming; we're having to downsize drastically, and it's now clear that there will be little to no space for some of our most important hobbies, which was a dealbreaker for us when we were looking at other houses.

My husband has had several anxiety attacks about this. He has experience in home remodeling and is capable of doing the work (or soliciting help from tradesmen friends when needed), but he's worried that this is a time/money suck. He has a tendency to catastrophize situations, but I'm concerned that his reaction is valid this time.

I've tried to help by making a detailed list of tasks and prioritizing them to avoid burnout. I'm encouraging him to talk to other friends to get some perspective about the general shitty nature of homeownership. I'm redirecting him to focus on short-term small steps instead of staring at the ever growing list of tasks in front of us. I've coached him through mindfulness and anxiety-busting techniques. We are focusing on positive-thinking and best-case scenario situations.

But I can't shake the feeling that we're just deluding ourselves and this is a right and proper mess.

My 'worst-case scenario' plan is to live there for a year and fix it up and try to resell it. The uniqueness of the house and the fantastic location would make it easier to resell, provided the market doesn't completely tank between now and then.

But in the meantime, how do we shut off that part of our intuition that is screaming at us to GTFO?

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