You are likely on the cusp of burning out

Photo by Paul Pastourmatzis on Unsplash

A new year has come along. Many people are settling back into work in the midst of fog and ice.

It sounds very fantasy novel, but the realities are anything but. A backlog of emails and a return to the feelings of tiredness and stress. It’s like we never went away.

This was my experience last year. It’s what led to a burnout that passed through the whole of 2024. The unfortunate reality is that this will be the tale for many people around us in 2025.

I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s Resolutions, mainly because they don’t work. Yet I can’t help but be alarmed at the fact that I’m seeing people be so resigned to fatigue that change isn’t coming that the enthusiasm for ‘new’ isn’t even there.

We are a product of the entourage we find ourselves in. And the entourage I am in are feeling an extra level of downtrodden and tired.

If this is how you’re feeling right now, this is your big, fat, blaring warning sign. You are potentially on the cusp of breaking down. In fact, you already might be.

And trust me, that experience is not fun. For several months of 2024, I essentially struggled to function. I would spend most of my time in bed. I remember the days where my main activity was simply to go to the supermarket. It was my big activity for the day, and by the time I came back home, I was completely exhausted.

It’s been nearly a year, and I still am not able to function at the same level as I did 18 months ago. I’m hopeful that in the next 6 or so months I’ll more or less be there. Nevertheless, I also am ready to accept that I may never get there.

But then, I also realise that I don’t want to. I don’t want to live a life where I’m constantly stressed and worried, surrounded by stressed and worried people. It’s not fun, and it’s certainly not productive either. If stress and worry were the fuel for positive change, we would have already reached utopia by now.

I’ve learnt a lot about myself over the last 12 months. My Autism assessment explained a whole heap of things that I never understood. One of those things was my hypersensitivity, which often serves as an ability to feel things a lot quicker than other people.

I am like the proverbial canary in the coal mine – one of the earlier people to feel these things with avengeance. But just because I felt it first, doesn’t mean it’s not coming for you.

My belief is that that around 30 to 50% of people that I’ve come across in my career will succumb to burnout. Yes, I am basically saying that you, the reader – I believe you’re quite likely to burn out in the next few years. It is really that bad.

Over the last year, I ended up befriending a whole bunch of people who also ended up on burnout. Not because I went to some special burnout, alcoholics-anonymous style meeting, but because it is so becoming so commonplace.

The problem is systemic. An increased pressure to deliver from a globalised capalistic system. This then being dealt with by unskilled managers within organisations that have forgotten about how to do the basics of treating people like human beings.

Far too much pressure is put on the individual to deal with these situations. I remember when I was working in Government during Brexit, we did a training on ‘VUCA’ – volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. It wasn’t bad training, but it essentially was focussed completely around the employeee and how they respond. There was zero work being done on how the systems and processes were practically designed to drive anyone insane.

And yet, I also acknowledge that the thing that we are most in control of is ourselves. And it’s in this space where I believe that the most change can be made. And so it’s also the area where I think the most powerful action can happen.

And so, this is where my current path leads me towards. My aim for the next few months is really focussing on this holistic, coaching work with individuals. There are ways that we can completely shift the way we experience our reality, without needing to actually change it. And it’s only from there that we can make meaningful change.

A dream of mine is to shift the world of politics to be one coming from innate love. A key part of that is revolutionising the way that the industry is run. If we were all simply happier in our jobs, that in of itself would create a revolutionary, positive impact for the world.

If this idea speaks to you, I’d love to connect. I’m currently in the midst of seeing how best this dream can become a reality.

P.S. if you’re worried about succumbing to burnout right now, feel free to drop me a message. I would love to help people who want to avoid the same fate that I did.

Conviction and walking our ‘right’ path

Photo by Sebastian Unrau on Unsplash

How do we know we’re on the right path? We decide it.

I’ve recently realised how much I question myself. I regularly wonder whether what I am doing is correct, and whether I should re-evaluate or choose a different tact.

I have gotten so used to using my brain to find the ‘correct’ answer to social situations, discussions, arguments, problems, and, well, everything else.

But when it comes to life, it is far more about conviction than it is about logic. After all, It is no less ‘correct’ to be a school teacher as it is to be a President. The only thing that can make it ‘right’ or not is whether we are happy with our choice.

Which puts the onus on us. How do we choose? How do we know what we are doing is right?

With these sorts of quandaries, the more we ask questions, the further away we get from the answer.

We choose what we feel is right. We may choose randomly, or we may believe it is our destiny. Or we don’t even think about it at all. We just simply live our lives without even needing to worry whether it is ‘right’.

For me, I see my path as one to bring greater love and wellbeing into the world. Why? Because it feels somewhat natural, especially considering what I’ve experienced in my life journey.

My challenge has since been how to stick with my ‘right’ path.

Wanting to bring more love in the world means change. And change means disruption. Disruption can mean conflict.

It’s easy for me to start questioning myself:

But isn’t ‘love’ about nothaving arguments? Is this really the best way to do this? Should I have said that?

It’s in these moments where conviction is more important than logic.

This all comes to mind because of an experience I had this week.

I was in a ‘debate’ (well, argument) recently in a group chat. It was around the creation of a separate ‘FLINTA’ group. FLINTA stands for Female, Lesbian, Intersex, Trans and Agender.

In principle, it’s a nice idea to have a space which allows some space for marginalised people.

But in practice, I find such groups problematic. It essentially is on the basis of no cis men. The explanation of this is because they benefit from the patriarchy.

I find such an argumentation overly simplistic. It ignores the issues that gay and bisexual men face, including higher mental health problems and rates of suicide.

In practice, I find such spaces are dominated by white (cis) women who then can dominate the space and actually talk on behalf of marginalised groups. To be accepted you have to look ‘womanly’ enough to be accepted, which is problematic in of itself. Trans Men are theoretically included, but in practice may just look like a guy. After which they have to ‘prove’ they are trans. Intersex people can also be cis men, whilst agender people could also look ‘male’ and thus not be included.

So in summary, I think creating such groups actually does harm, rather than helps. I think there is some well-meaning stuff there, but the language and thinking is outdated.

So, the solution is using more updated language. The stance needs to be more about inclusion than about exclusion.

We’re probably due a conversation to highlight the inconvenient fact that being a woman does not suddenly make you a more tolerant person. In fact, my personal experience has been that white women have done more damaging racialised action against me than white men. Historically, the majority of white women have supported all sorts of oppressive actions and racist movements. Nice White Ladies by Jessie Daniels was a very informative read around this subject.

And so, I highlighted these points. Did I need to? Probably not. Did I want to? Yes. Why? Because it aligns with my principles and my life direction.

It wasn’t a popular thing. I was told that I’m being aggressive. I had someone saying the only person with a problem is me and I should stop on my personal crusade. I also had a white person tell me that I don’t understand because I wasn’t born a woman so I need to ‘check my privilege’. (as a side note, it’s funny that the only people who have told me to check my privilege in my life have been white people who actually have far more privilege than me).

There were ways that perhaps I could have argued ‘better’ or differently. Or perhaps this wasn’t worth the emotional energy it required.

What really helped me in this moment of self-questioning was returning to the idea of being on the ‘right path’.

With this idea, I realise that these smaller, tactical questions don’t matter so much. It’s more about the direction I’m going in.

I’m following my principles, and it’s leading me to where I am meant to go

Grounding ourselves in a whirlwind of emotion

Photo by Lucas K on Unsplash

For the first time in quite a while, I’ve been waking up feeling lighter and sprightly.

This was in sharp contrast to the last few months: I would often wake up with such a heaviness and anxiety that it was hard to get out of bed, let alone start the day.

These weren’t any quantifiable anxieties either. It was more of a base feeling of heaviness that was clouding my existence. It was extremely debilitating. The ‘logical’ solutions weren’t working.

But a few days ago, something changed quite dramatically.

In a nutshell, I felt more ‘myself’. In fact, I intentionally spent more effort feeling into myself too. I shifted the focus back onto me and solely on my own existence. This is subtly, but fundamentally different to what I was doing before. Before, I was looking at me, but only insofar as my relation to the wider world – what my role is and what I offer within it.

It’s a little crazy how such a small tweak has brought about a real energetic shift. It’s as if I’ve plugged in a big missing puzzle piece. Suddenly everything feels brighter and makes more sense.

I never really understood the term ‘grounding’ before. I kind of got it – I heard it during yoga classes or meditation. I thought it as some form of being conscious of our breathing and returning to the body.

Now, I understand that there is a far more transcendental nature to truly grounding ourselves.

The true effect of grounding is transporting ourselves to a separate, quantum realm. It’s like the scene in the Matrix where Neo is put into a training simulation and everything apart from him is just white space.

In this realm, our responsibilities, relations, expectations and identities melt away. We just exist. All that is left is us.

It is in this space that we can strip away all of life’s stresses. It’s the place where the only thing to look at is ourselves. It’s here that I can see that actually, I am happy with myself. I have done the work and my path of self-actualisation to see that things are good. I can also calm the worried thoughts. Anxieties such as thoughts that I’m not enough, not likeable enough, too fat, or too complicated. Such thoughts can be left to evaporate into the emptiness.

When I return to the ‘real’ world, I am calmer and more focussed. When I access that inherent, internal joy, it becomes my starting point on how I react to the world.

I realise that such a grounding ritual has become fundamental to my existence. My capacity for emotional sensitivity and connection has increased exponentially with further spiritual work. But this means I am ever-more susceptible to being sucked into the negativities of other people or events. It’s in these moments I now realise it’s vital I return to ‘my self’. It’s critical that this is the starting point for all my interactions.

I did start wondering what this ‘self’ I am returning to actually is. I’ve avoided the question for a long time because I found it an impossible one to logically answer. The rabbit hole of trying to rationalise it is a path to insanity.

Now, I come to the conclusion that being our ‘self’ is something that is felt, not thought. It is beyond words and rational thoughts. Our self is paradoxically our most stable basis for existence, yet at the same time is an everchanging creation which we can meld to our will.

True grounding is returning to this zen like state whenever we need it. Whether it’s during a moment of anger or in a prolonged moment of anguish such as coping with death.

It is available to all. Including you.

Creating access to it will change your life.

If you’re interested, I can help.

Creating 2025 as the Year of Delusion

Photo by Mohammad Alizade on Unsplash

I’ve already started hearing stuff around vision boards and resolutions. I’m personally not a super fan of either. Not because neither of them can work, but because a lot of it comes out of societal pressure. And societal pressure rarely is conducive to meaningful change. In fact, I wrote a rather dry articleabout resolutions at the beginning of 2022.

My views have mellowed somewhat. When I wrote that article, I saw the use of a calendar date as rather arbitrary. I still hold that belief, but with the added belief that creating goals are arguably always arbitrary anyway. So if a calendar date is a useful prompt, then why not?

The most important method, whether it be manifestation, vision boards, resolutions or anything else is this: that you actually use it. We all know about resolutions that only last a week, with no genuine intention to actually meet them.

This year, however I was prompted around the idea of doing a theme. This is as part of my Creator’s Journey programme work by John Patrick Morgan. It was by no means obligatory, but it sounded like a nice idea to play with.

I’ve been noticing that I’ve been a little aimless (in the non-judgemental sense) over this year, and redirecting myself towards a vision would help frame myself and my goals.

My first idea was to have it around my insights of “unreasonableness”. I liked the idea of just really tapping into something that was beyond what was expected. But I found that unreasonableness didn’t go far enough – I ended up going into ‘I want to create x+3 vs x+1’ type thinking. It’s still based upon the practicality, and essentially adding some stretch goal too it.

What I want is batshit crazy level of visioning.

So I like the idea of 2025 being my Year of Delusion. Delusion in the sense that I strive for what is just insane. It’s not realistic. Nor is it meant to be. By being clear that my dream is impossible, I can take away the pressure of actually delivering it. In a weird way, that can actually be very freeing. I randomly think of a quote from a video game of all places (FFVII Crisis Core for those wondering). The quote is a throw-away line, but it is the following words: “unattainable dreams are the best kind.”

Delusion feels nice as a theme because it is not only in ambition, but also in emotion.

I can be delusionally happy, no matter the situation. The aim is to enjoy everything, despite the realities of the world.

2024 has been a year of burnout, self-realisations, political and economic hardships. and 2025 might continue in a similar vein. But I do not want the external events of the world to dictate my happiness. I want to be in control of my own destiny.

In March I wrote an article around living our own fantasy. In it, I mused about the idea of just living our happiness, even if it is delusional. I’ve come to the conclusion that I would rather be a delusional, crazy airhead that was happy then a super-grounded, serious miserable person.

So my aim is twofold: aim delusionally high, whilst also being delusionally happy in doing it.

I recently came back to a vision I had created in 2022. I had somewhat put it in the back burner because it was ‘too ambitious’ for now.

My vision is to revolutionise politics and the way people relate to it to be one coming from innate love.

It is an insane idea. After all, politics can’t be changed, right? There are a million reasons to explain why things are the way they are.

Yet I want to change that. Having been in the centre of policymaking, I’ve seen the massive difference coming from heart-felt intention has on the direction of politics, policies and laws.

How do I do this? Well I’m not really sure.

I’d love to write a book around it. That would be fun. It’d also be challenging.

I’d also love to spend more time speaking to people around this idea of coming from love and why it’s so important.

And I’d love to work with people to support them do the inner work for themselves. People can only come from love if they’ve healed their own wounds.

This is my delusional ambition for 2025.

Creating my life’s impossible dream

My view of the moon

Without a vision, we are doomed to wander aimlessly.

2024 has felt quite aimless for me. I haven’t really known where I’ve been looking to go. That doesn’t mean I haven’t achieved things. I released a new book in the last weeks, despite being at the lowest ebb of my energetic vibrations.

I’ve also done more in understanding myself through a scientific lens than I’ve ever done before. I received an Autism assessment, did numerous other tests including an IQ test and gained a ‘highly gifted’ evaluation, learnt a bucket ton on neurodivergence, built a better understanding of taking care of myself through facial and dental routines, as well as learnt more about health and nutrition than I’ve ever previously done.

Yet there’s been a sense of not knowing what my next step forward has been. Much of my focus has been on the shifting sands beneath my feet, rather than up towards the stars.

Understanding myself has been incredibly valuable. It’s allowed me to ground myself more vividly into my own unique reality. Without the things I learnt this year, I wouldn’t have the foundations to now radically spring myself forward.

As the year comes to a close, I’ve found myself returning to the bigger picture – my big ‘why’.

I’ll be honest, I’ve had a lot of fear around this. The idea of having a big vision had become a daunting thing – when I dared to ‘dream big’, I found myself confronted with practicalities. This quickly turned into a game of logic: rationalising my dreams to the point of making them more ‘tangible’. But in doing this, I was also massively toning them down.

The point of dreams are to aim big, to stretch our thinking beyond what we currently think is possible. By going into the rational, we are losing our connection to what is beyond ‘realistic’.

One thing that’s really shifted my mindset on this is the idea of having a dream so big, that it would be literally impossible to achieve.

It might sound bizarre, but actually having an impossible dream can be very soothing. When I know that my dream is impossible, it actually takes away the pressure of needing to achieve it. There’s suddenly an access to a greater creative freedom and play. I can focus on doing things that fit towards my vision without getting too worried about the result. From this point, every success is a bonus, rather than needing to be quantified as one step out of a million.

So what is my dream?

In April 2022, I went to The Ultimate Experience in London. It was here that I made the commitment to finish my first book, Make Diversity Matter to You by that year. A commitment I kept.

During the event, I wrote myself a vision of what I wanted to create. I had to find my old phone to find the note, and exactly what I wrote. It read:

Revolutionise how policy and advocacy work is done in Brussels and London through better organisational structuring, stronger management capability and greater employee empowerment and wellbeing

This vision still resonates, but I’ve since refined it to be simpler and closer to language of the heart:

Revolutionise politics and the way people relate to it as coming from innate love

My dream is to change the way politics takes place. I dream of a world where policies and politics plays out in a way that comes from innate love as the first, and most important place.

This simple change would revolutionise the world. We would rise above the amount of petty squabbling, misaligned political goals and lack of empathy for one another.

I don’t doubt that many people will scoff at this vision. It is far too naive, lacks understanding of how politics ‘works’ and is delusional about how people ‘really’ are.

I refuse to believe that things have to be this way. In fact, I would say that change is coming, one way or another. The status quo is not working for a growing majority of people. New ways of being are necessary for us to move forward in this world.

I don’t know if I’ll ever fully succeed in my goal. But what I do know is that by pursuing this vision for the rest of my life, I’ll get much further than if I compromise.

P.S. if this vision resonates with you, I would love to chat. Sharing ideas is how we bring them closer to reality.

Understanding the realities of living abroad

I’m back in London for the final time this year.

My family doesn’t celebrate Christmas, so I much prefer to come back a little before – it’s both more economical and far less stressful that way.

There’s something about spending a few days at home that gives space to notice the things that can easily pass you by. Perhaps because I have more time and space whilst I’m here. It’s a refuge from the responsibilities: even the most banal ones like doing the washing up.

But for me, going home also means going back to my home country. I’m fortunate that for me it is a very easy ride – a two hour train from Brussels means that I can get from door to door in around 4 to 5 hours.

Yet despite the close proximity, the undeniable fact is that I now live in a different country completely. It has its own rules, customs, administration(!) and language. Coming back to the UK, there are all the familiar ways that things work for me – knowing how the banking system works, general way that government works here, and wider connection to people and culture. I’ve become so used to the switch back that I can jump off the train and go about my business in London like I’d never been gone.

When people talk about moving abroad, it’s often done in an idealised state. Perhaps to live the glamorous ‘continental’ lifestyle. Some speak of shifting to the hot weather in the south. Others fantasize of going off to live the American dream.

These aren’t necessarily untrue – I do feel happy and settled in Brussels, and I have no desire to leave any time soon. Yet the bit that is often missed out from this fantastical imagery are the things we leave behind.

I’ve been away from the UK for about 4 years now, and yet I would say I probably still have more connections to people in London than I do in Brussels. There’s also so many opportunities to do more things, connections to make here, and old networks to tap into.

I do feel a sense of loss by no longer living here. These things that I had built around me for many years are now harder to connect with. It’s a basic cost to being geographically distant. I say that as well as someone who can come back quite easily too – there are people who live on the other ends of the planet and only return every year or two.

With reflection, I realise that I also get caught up in the rose-tinted version of being at home. I think spending too much time staying with my parents would probably drive me crazy. Meanwhile, the tiring lifestyle of London, along with its exuberant prices, were the reason I wanted to move away in the first place.

The paradox of this place is that there are more people here than you could ever hope for to connect with. Yet finding genuine connection is tricky, both due to the culture and the additional logistical pressures. After all, who wants to travel 90 minutes to go see a friend at a round trip cost of £14? If you dare to go for a drink, that will be an additional £8 (per drink!).

This weekend has been a helpful reminder of the life choices I’ve made. It’s reaffirmed the reasons that I chose the things I did. There’s a general sense of euphoria I get by living in a different culture to the one I grow up in. Everything is a little bit more of an adventure.

But it also helps me understand why it often feels like there are additional barriers. The things that naturally come from staying close to home aren’t things I have access to as easily.

In the search for freedom, we cast away the comfortable safety net.

And it’s okay to miss that safety net

Insights for finding meaning in the modern world [new book]

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Next week, I’m releasing my second book, Become Your Best Self: Insights for finding meaning in the modern world. The book is a compilation of my writing here.

If you’ve been reading my articles over the last four years, I would love for you to consider buying my book – either for yourself or as a Christmas gift.

I have been freely giving my labour for thousands of hours. I am very unlikely to make substantial money in any case, but it will at least help support me as I continue on my path of learning. This way, I can ensure I can continue providing more value in the years to come.

I started writing publicly in August 2020. I wanted to share my thoughts in a way that others could get something from them too.

It’s no coincidence that I had just finished my coaching qualification. It suddenly occurred to me how much I had to say. I also realised that sharing these thoughts could help other people.

200 articles, 160,000 words and four years later, I’ve decided to put this my learning into a book.

It’s hard to describe, but now I feel like the words flow through me. When I restarted with avengeance at the beginning of 2022, I just found myself in a much better groove.

By the end of the year, I realised that I hadn’t missed a week. This trend continued into 2023. Then into 2024. Suddenly I had written two years’ worth of articles without missing a week. I’m soon to close in on doing this for a third year.

Yet this was not without its challenges. 2024 was a tricky year. It’s probably the least energetic I’ve been ever in my life. Yet partly through knowing that the routine helped me, and partly through a sheer will not to let my writing streak stop, I carried on writing.

The creation of this book has been a fun endeavour. If nothing else, it allows me to see how much I’ve created despite having next to no actual financial gain attached (this would be the first time I’m using the content in a way that has some sort of pricing on it).

But it’s also allowed me to see how much I’ve grown, and how much my depth of thought and living has really progressed. My writing has also come on leaps and bounds from the beginning too.

If you’re wondering, I never ‘pre-cook’ articles. Every article I’ve written has been actually written that week. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issues with those that batch create content, but for me, it wouldn’t feel natural.

The book is available on Amazon via this link here [available in US/UK/EU/Aus]. You can order it on Amazon Kindle now and Paperback from 9 December.

Getting comfortable with life’s uncontrollables

I’ve gained ten kilos in the last 2-3 months.

I find this fact totally confounding. It’s not clear what’s really changed. If anything, I’ve probably been more healthy in the last few months. I’m exercising more, and paying more attention to what I eat.

Logic would say that I ought to have lost weight rather than gain it. In fact, I think it would be a challenge for anyone to gain 10 kilos in such a short amount of time even if they tried.

So how do I wrap my head around the facts in front of me?

Weirdly, this has also not been a visible thing. I’ve looked at myself in the mirror, and it doesn’t look like I’ve gained weight. I even looked back at photos over the last few months. I don’t see a dramatic change – perhaps it’s hidden by the fact that I’ve shaved my face now so I look different anyway. I’ve even asked others, and they haven’t noticed a particular difference either.

The only logical explanation I can give is that I came off antidepressants around the time the weight started to rise. It’s not unheard of that weight can increase after stopping them. Though usually it’s the other way around – people gain weight whilst taking them, then drop it afterwards.

My hope is that this will therefore have a natural rebalancing effect. The weight will drop down with time on its own. In the meantime, I’ll look to live healthier (without overdoing it either).

But even then, this is only speculation. In reality, I don’t actually understand what’s happening.

From a philosophical perspective, this demonstrates a viewpoint I learnt recently. We often hear to accept what is not in our control, but then to change the things that are in our control.

This is helpful to bring back the idea that we need to change things that are beyond our reach. But the issue is that our control of any external event is flimsy at best.

In this way of thinking, my weight is in my ‘control’. And to some extent it is. If I eat a lot more, my weight will probably go up. But it only tells half the story. I heard John Patrick Morgan talking about this instead as a ‘dance’. For something to happen, we have to show up. But we need someone, or the world, to dance with us. We cannot unilaterally make things happen. In this sense, we are not in control. Because we do not get to single handedly make things happen.

Now for some, that can sound quite triggering. The idea that we cannot control things can be scary, and shift us into an idea of having no agency or purpose in life.

That’s not the point here. Instead, it’s highlighting that we are never fully in control. If things don’t turn out the way we wanted, we can recognise that there are more factors at play than simply our willingness or effort. This gives us the saving grace to be kind to ourselves when things don’t work.

Playing with this perspective, I can see that my actions are not the cause of the outcome. I can see that I’ve done the best I could in the circumstances given to me. And yet, the way it has played out hasn’t been what I wanted. And that’s okay. It’s not my fault. It could just be a result of hormonal shifts, or something else.

It also doesn’t negate the progress that I have made – I am definitely more muscular than I was before, and my understanding of nutrition and health is far better than it was three months ago.

I won’t pretend it’s not frustrating. Simple logic would suggest that putting effort into something will yield results. But the world has too many factors at play for simplistic views to work all the time. They might do for many cases, but not all. And apparently not mine.

But by seeing that this isn’t my ‘fault’ or a failure of me as a person, the less time I spend feeling bad or guilty. Instead, I can put myself in a place where I can keep progressing, rather than giving up.

Understanding life as a dance is a great way to accept things that don’t go our way. Sometimes we do everything perfectly as planned, but the result doesn’t go how we want.

That’s life.

Where there is discomfort there is growth

Yesterday I had the authentic German experience.

I woke up after an overnight coach in Hamburg. I had a few hours to kill before the train arrived.

Well, it turns out I had longer than that. My train was delayed. At the beginning it said by 30 minutes. No big deal I thought. Until it got delayed again, by 20 minutes. And again. Eventually it came 80 minutes later.

The experience was a testing one for my level of zen.

I had woken up from my coach with a mediocre level of sleep. I felt caught unawares of my surroundings. I’m usually someone who is very conscious about where I am, yet here I suddenly was in Germany, a country I somewhat have forgotten about over the last year.

I felt like I had hit a bit of a blindspot. I do travel a fair bit, yet recently this has mainly been through countries that I speak the language and know pretty well. I barely count going to London as travel since it’s just going back to my parent’s home.

I noticed that I had an extra level of vigilence to my surroundings. I remembered small points around road crossings being far stricter in Germany and that you had to wait for the green sign. I felt a lot more exposed as well with not understanding the language.

Waiting for the train was generally okay, but it was a test of patience. When I got on it though there were a lot of announcements in German which I didn’t really understand. I had brought a bigger luggage which didn’t actually fit properly in the overhead spaces. I put it in as best I can and I didn’t feel it was particularly secure.

At one point it actually fell down mid train ride and caused quite a ruckus. In the past I would probably have felt super embarrassed by this, though here I carried on quite industriously and moved it to a space at the front of the carriage. People around me settled down.

Later, one of the conductors told me I couldn’t leave my luggage where I put it. When I asked where I could put it, she replied in German basically just telling me to move it. I tried shifting it to a place which was less out of the way. Later I saw the conductor move my luggage across to the other side of the carriageway.

It’s a little bit embarrassing to admit, but I thought I might have been put into some sort of ‘naughty space’ because I had done something wrong. I had this anxiety building, to the point where I ended up checking where it was after. It turns out that she had just put it in a space on the other end. Perhaps it would have been nice for her to tell me, but at least I noticed her moving it anyway.

In the end the travel was fine. But my experience brought out quite a lot of interesting things.

I noticed that I generally want to be a good citizen/customer. I try rather a lot to do so. Whilst this sounds like a positive trait, I’m not really sure it always is. In a world where lots of people don’t seem to care so much about the rules, the level of extra energy (and often anxiety) I place at doing things right seems quite mismatched to the world.

This totally corresponds to a profile of an Autistic person – I like to follow rules. But in a world where the rules often don’t make sense and many people don’t follow them anyway, it’s not actually in my interest to care so much about them. It’s actually where a lot of Autistic people get stuck.

The other thing I noticed about myself was how important it is for me to understand my surroundings. My brain went into overdrive the moment I walked out of my coach and into the cold air of Hamburg. I become hypervigilant of people and the way things worked. I wanted to make sure I didn’t accidentally do something wrong. I noticed a lot of these prompts were based upon fear, rather than curiosity.

For a lot of people, the point of growth when travelling is to open our minds. For me, it’s probably the opposite. It’s to relax, and not get so caught up in mimicking the behaviour of the people around me.

I haven’t lost sight of the fact that my ability to blend into new spaces has served me extremely well through my life. It’s allowed me to navigate different cultures, languages and countries with relative ease. Yet it can also be a way in which I lose touch with myself as I reflect other people’s behaviour rather than my own.

The key point here is that the discomfort I experienced was life’s way of demonstrating that the way I operated which was creating additional stress.

So by examining the stress, I can see that a shift in my mindset can actually make such experiences actually a lot more enjoyable. For me, that means becoming more comfortable with the unknown, and getting back in the habit of experiencing it.

In fact, we can go even further and love this process. Life is giving me a gift with these new challenges, and it’s showing me ways in which I can grow further. It’s something I’ve been telling myself a lot recently – love the process.

Each of us have particular challenges, and that’s okay. The more we embrace them, the more we grow.

The way you do anything is the way you do everything

Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

Who knows someone who is so focused on their own goals that they totally forget how they’re showing up in the other parts of their life?

For example, the friend who no longer turns up now that they’re in a relationship. Or the colleague who is so caught up in work that they fail to see that the deadline is not actually life-or-death.

It’s annoying right?

Well, newsflash. This also includes you.

The concept of consistency in action is well known. Yet even then, we fail to do what we said we were going to do. We want to lose weight, but we fail to take the actions needed to make it happen.

So often, the idea is to overcompensate. We decide to suddenly commit lots of time and energy to that one thing of weight loss to get the results. We go through the fad of health shakes, gym classes in the morning and skinny salads.

Aside from the fact that these behaviours are not likely to last, they also fall into the trap of over-absorption into a single goal.

When we write ambitious goals, we forget about the context of the rest of our lives. And so suddenly, we start to neglect other things. But these things are important – spouses, friends, family, health, wellbeing.

As a coach, I invite people towards a different way of looking at things. Let’s look at your life as a whole. Because that’s where the real clues will come up on what is holding you back.

The reason this is so powerful is because it demonstrates the unhealthy behaviour that is probably the reason we’re not attaining the goal in the first place. To carry on with the weight loss analogy, we might get so hyperfocussed on it that we forget to actually listen to our own body. The sudden shift of diet leads to dramatic mood swings and unhappiness. But rather than listening to ourselves, we power on, through ‘willpower’. Until we don’t. Because this is not a system for success. If we’re not listening to our gut instinct when it comes to health, well no wonder we’re still also in a relationship with someone who doesn’t treat us right.

Most fundamentally, I see people who are frustrated that they aren’t getting the things they want in life. Issues around finding a suitable partner, or wanting a better role or promotion. Yet what they also fail to see is how the way they are showing up in their life is having a large impact on that.

I know a lot of people who disappear off the face of the earth for a few months. Now, I’m empathetic to mental health issues, and I understand the importance of taking time if we need it.

Yet, there is a failure to see that this also has an impact on their relationships. Unsurprisingly these people feel lonely, when they return. This leads to a period of intense socialisation, often with new people. But to cultivate truly valuable relationships, there needs to be a better level of reciprocity, even during ‘difficult’ periods.

I’ve made a conscious decision to spend less time with certain people, because I know that the energy flow was based upon only when the other person was available. Honestly, I’m recognising that I can do much better.

In a workplace setting, the one thing I never understood was how acceptable it became to simply not reply to emails. It’s a systemic failure – so many people don’t know how to manage their email inbox (despite spending over 30 hours a week in front of them, and will do so for the next 30 years). And so they miss crucial information. These are letting key opportunities go by, and it comes from a lack of recognising that sorting out your email inbox ought to be much, much higher a priority if you want to be more effective in your job.

These same people also want promotions. Sure, I’m not naive to the realities of how promotions work, in that it is often very much not meritocratic. Yet, it doesn’t hurt to actually demonstrate that you’re good at your job. And most fundamentally, it’s worthwhile to get to a place where you can actually manage your newfound responsibility because you’ve actually worked on your blind spots.

I replied to an Instagram story asking for advice in Brussels: they were visiting the week after. I received a response today – 3 weeks afterwards about something different (probably because they forgot about the request). It’s an extreme example, but it’s what we do so often.

The most successful people are the ones that realise that life is beyond just getting good at a single goal. It’s about building a wider life, and building ourselves as well-rounded, good human beings with a proper support system and life perspectives.

So take this as an opportunity to really look at how you’re showing up in your life. If you’re struggling with your goals or with finding clarity, it’s probably because you’re neglecting what other areas which are crying out for your attention.