I generally like to keep on top of my work, but recently I’ve found myself procrastinating. Sometimes I know a deadline isn’t coming for a while, so I can put it off. I believed that the time to do it was sometime in the future.
In fact, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the things I am meant to do in the future, even in moments when I can’t do anything about it. I’ve spent more time than I care to count worrying about things I’m meant to do, even though the worrying is not helping me at all.
But it’s not just the future – it’s also the past. I found myself lingering around past thoughts. A conversation someone had with me. I relive the frustration or anger, as if it were happening today. Suddenly these emotions are seeping into the feelings I’m having right now.
Most of us tend to see-saw between these alternate realities. Either we are stuck in the past, or wondering about the future. But what if neither of them actually exist?
The past only exists in our memories which we bring into the present through our current thoughts. The future can permeate in all sorts of different ways that we cannot predict, and yet we spend a whole lot of time thinking about it. Think about the things that you might have worried about – how often have you found that they didn’t actually happen? For me, it is most of the time.
If there is no past or future, it only leaves the now. Now is a beautiful, powerful place in which we can create whatever we want, and we can do it. Right here, right now.
By taking the emphasis away from what might have happened in the past or what might happen in the future, we take control of our own destinies. It stops us from creating our lives based upon the past. It also stops us from putting off making changes in our life to some distant future. We can do these things now.
Author and Coach Steve Chandler talks about non-linear time management. The idea behind it is that we work only in the now. If the action is something we can do, we do it now. If we cannot do it now, then there is no point in thinking about it.
This mindset shift has been a revelation for me. I’ve found a newly gained freedom from life. I’ve found the walks I’ve been on recently some of the most joyous moments of my life. Not because anything particularly profound happened, but because I’m increasingly letting go of the illusion of the past and future. When I return to the fact that there is only now, I can really just be. From here, enjoying life is easy. When I have a task to do, I just do it. When it’s done, I don’t have to worry about it.
A big shift was realising that thinking about the future actually does nothing to change it. All it does is leave me feeling less happy and more anxious. From this place, I’m less likely to actually do the thing I wanted to.
For the past, forgiveness is key. When we can learn to truly forgive, we can forget. It leaves us feeling way lighter. We can then be ready to embrace the now fully.
The irony is that it’s been there the whole time. In the same way it is available for me, it is available to you and everyone else.
There is no past. There is no future. There is only now.
I’ve been having a lot of insights about my life this week. Travel can really help – it gives us a chance to get out of our daily rhythm and notice our own habitual patterns. Last weekend I went to Paris.
The decision to go for two days to Paris was quite spontaneous. I went to Stockholm a few weeks ago and enjoyed the space of exploration, so I thought it would be good to have another opportunity to travel. Rather than leaving that to some distant future, I decided to book this impromptu trip for only two weeks later.
I’d previously studied in Paris too for a year in 2013, so perhaps I felt some level of calling to return. I thought it would be a good opportunity to take in some nostalgia whilst also enjoy a whimsical tour around the city.
My experience was different to what I expected. I thought I would plan out my time there and jump around the different ‘cool’ spots to see. I did go and see the Eiffel Tower, but in the end the majority of my time was actually just spent walking around the city.
On Sunday, I was planning to head into a few of the museums. When I saw the queue for the Louvre, I followed my gut to head across the bridge towards the Musée d’Orsay instead. But half-way down, I started getting a few different flashbacks of my time sitting by the banks of the Seine in the evenings. I followed my feet. I ended up walking down the banks by the side of the seine. I enjoyed a fun exploration of the arts and book stalls (where I spent quite a lot of money on different pieces..) as well as just recalling different memories of the city.
Some memories were more light-hearted. I remembered seeing the Louvre in the early morning after a night out, when it was completely empty. The light was just rising and the streets were so empty. The glass pyramid looked so still and impressive. It was a completely different scene to the one I came across – filled with tourists queueing to get in, with the hustle and bustle of street sellers and people taking pictures.
I also walked past Les Halles – a big shopping centre right in the middle of the city. I was confused to see it actually complete, in my mind it had always been a construction site, so to see it as a fully-fledged mall was a surprise. I wondered in to see an advert saying ‘Follow-nous’ on social media. I imagined someone from the Acédemie Française probably had a heart attack from seeing that!
I took a turn down Le Marais, which is also close by. I suddenly had memories of a student job I had – English-speaking babysitting. I remember picking up a 6 year old from school here. That child had behavioural issues, so I have no idea why the parents wanted to also teach him English when he was failing school. My sense was that there was no discipline in his life, but I only saw part of the picture.
I don’t particularly miss those days. A lowpoint was when this child went to the toilet and presumably(?) was not properly potty trained. It was at the point where I had to wipe the backside of this child that I realised I wasn’t being paid enough. Funny to reflect now at how much had changed for me since.
I also had more intense memories. I walked back past the place I used to live. I had a rush of pretty heavy emotions – something I didn’t expect. Although I remember getting a lot out of my time in Paris, I had pushed away some of the more negative memories. There were long stretches of feeling isolated and stressed around money and studies. Like many men, I internalised my feelings and thought the best way to deal with these things were to handle it for myself.
I didn’t particularly reach out to friends or family about these things either. It was surprisingly emotional. But returning to the place was particularly valuable for me. It let me revisit parts of my past which were buried somewhere. Sometimes we have to revisit these emotions to realise they are there. From there, we can accept and let them go. The process leaves us feeling lighter.
This made me reflect about how I ended up coming to Paris in the first place. There was no particular reason I decided to come back, yet I ended up doing it anyway. My walk around town was not my usual ‘planning’ self, instead it was me following my own intuition.
I’ve come to the conclusion that something within me led me to return to Paris. It was an important part of my own journey to grow and heal. Whilst my mind did not plan it, my intuition knew that there was something for me to uncover.
This was one of the first times I hadn’t properly planned a trip. Instead, this was me wondering around and seeing where the path would lead me. In stark contrast, whenever I had previously visited a place I would usually build myself a tight itinerary of museums and places to visit. I would usually criss-cross around a city to get the ‘most’ out of a visit.
Instead, I slowed down and let my wisdom guide me. Yes, there were things that might have been nice to see. I did go to the Louvre the next day, but I took it slowly. I could have gone to see more museums, or even to see different parts of the city like Montmartre to see the view again. But when I realised that I have my whole lifetime to enjoy these different sites, I realised that there was no real benefit in rushing. All I was doing was losing the enjoyment of the moment.
I see my trip to Paris as part of my shift towards living more intuitively, compared to the mind-driven planning with which I have been directing much of my life. Whilst the mind can be a powerful tool to comprehend complex and detailed questions, our intuition can comprehend much bigger things. I see our intuition as bringing the link of our mind with the wider understanding of our body and spirit.
In our logic-driven society, we lose sight of the power of intuition. The quiet, knowing voice of ourselves often gets drowned out by the busy mind. But when we know, we know. Our minds can sometimes fall into overthink or anxiety, but deep down we have the answer to all the questions we have in life.
My trip to Paris was just an instance of me following my own intuition. But the rewards I got for it will be far more impactful than the additional photos I could have taken from rushing to visit more parts of the city.
The lesson I have learnt this week is that the more I find myself tapping into my intuition, the more I am finding I have a guidance of what to do in life. It is a powerful tool that we all have inside of us.
Intuition is always there. All we have to do is listen for it.
I woke up this morning at 6:40 for a yoga class starting 30 minutes later. When I woke up, I felt heavy – I still am not sleeping amazingly and I didn’t have a whole lot of will to actually go. Despite this, I went anyway, but I wouldn’t say I particularly enjoyed it. I was tired, and my mind was waiting for it to end from the beginning.
I was speaking to someone recently about this phenomenon – the trap where we programme ourselves to stop enjoying the things that we actually usually like. We reminisce about the excitement we had before, but now the idea of doing the task feels like a chore, or another item on the to-do-list which doesn’t fit into what we see as our busy schedules.
The funny thing is that the activity doesn’t really change much. The yoga class I did was the same Friday morning class I’ve done for months. Yet the energy I was bringing into it was heavy and lethargic. Unsurprisingly I didn’t feel particularly fulfilled when the class ended, instead I just had some sense of relief that it was over. It was hardly the joyful sense of achievement I often get when doing a morning class.
So why is it that if the class is the same, the outcome is completely different?
It’s all about me. Just like it is all about you. We get to decide how we show up to a session. My mind was not particularly focussed, and I found myself thinking about what I had to do later in the day whilst in class. When I am in a space of tranquillity and stillness, I’m able to fully experience the joy that the things I like give to me. I wasn’t in that state today.
So what can we do? Well firstly, it’s important to identify the fact that the way something makes us think and feel is the determining factor, rather than the activity itself. We can make any activity either the most enjoyable or most painful if we bring that energy into it.
I recall a cold call I got earlier this week. It was for an offshore investment, or something of the sort. I had a similar call a few months ago, and I ended up getting annoyed by the guy and ending it quite abruptly. This time, I wanted to simply enjoy the interaction, whatever it was. I actually decided to have a little fun.
“Hi Tahmid, my name is X. I’m calling from XYZ company. How are you doing today?”
“Hi X, I am doing well thank you, for asking. In fact, I am going through an intense transformation in my life as I re-evaluate what I would like to do and how I want to be in it. I am going through numerous shifts including with my living arrangements with a new housemate moving in. I am also committing to be a better person in my life through how I interact with people which has felt a challenging but humbling experience and makes me realise where I can do better.”
I did this because I was amused to see what the response of the guy on the other end would be. To his credit he tried to respond to it, but I don’t imagine that response was on his sales script!
I told a few people about this as one of my funny stories of the week. I made what could have been an annoying phone call actually one of my highlights. The difference was the energy I brought into it.
So how does this all relate to the activities that you do? Well, it means that keeping our mind open and curious is the best way to enjoy the things we do. When we are enjoying life and willing to have fun with it, everything just feels so much easier.
When I began writing these articles, I really enjoyed the opportunity to express my creativity. It was great – until I made it a thing *I had to do*. It then became a chore, and I went through a period of lacking creativity. I ended up stopping for several months. After a break, I restarted. I learnt the importance of enjoying the process, and not getting too bogged down with it all. I’ve written weekly articles now for probably a few months. When I haven’t written one, I usually get an itch (like I did this morning). It doesn’t feel like a chore, instead it feels like an opportunity to express what is happening in my life. Basically, it’s fun to write.
So if you are finding that you are not enjoying something that you usually do, it’s most likely not about the activity itself, but how you are doing. If your thoughts are making it a burdensome or complicated activity, your response will be a natural repulsion to the idea. But when you let go of the negative thoughts that you might bring into the situation, and take the activity is at its face value, the joy of it will return.
So if I can leave you with one tip, it is to move away from the thinking about what you have to do, and instead just diving straight into it. That way, you don’t have to bring all the excess baggage into it. From there, you can enjoy it to your hearts content.
This week I travelled to Stockholm. Although work trips are an exciting opportunity to travel, I must admit I wasn’t particularly energised by the idea. I’ve been somewhat worn out over the last few weeks. I had just travelled to London, I had a fairly intense work period and I’ve had to do quite a few tasks with contracts for my apartment.
But it was important for me to go. From a professional perspective, I attended a conference which was extremely rewarding. I ended up meeting at least 5 key contacts who I had previously emailed but never met in person. I also spoke to new people with fascinating perspectives. In all, I probably got several months’ worth of knowledge in the space of a few days.
And for me personally, it was also an opportunity to go out and see more of the world. Travel can be enriching for the soul, and taking new culture can be deeply inspiring. I’m really glad that I managed to have some time to go to the Vasa Museum. which holds the warship Vasa.
The ship sank on its maiden voyage in 1628. The ship was commissioned by the Swedish King to demonstrate Sweden’s power. It was to be a massive, impressive ship with 72 cannons and over 450 staff.
Unfortunately, whilst the ambition was sky-high, the planning didn’t match it. The boat was built too thin, and the weight of the cannon were extremely cumbersome. The ship’s short voyage out the dock only lasted around 30 minutes. It tilted so far water started flooding in. The ship had barely made it outside of its harbour in Stockholm.
333 years later the Vasa was found and pulled out of the water. It is 98% original, and over 40,000 artefacts were found buried in the sea.
Both travelling to Stockholm and taking time to visit the museum were me realising what was important, over what was urgent. For my work, it was extremely beneficial for me to leave my day-to-day grind and meet people in a new environment. I could have succumbed to thinking it would be too much effort, or perhaps a lonely experience as I was travelling solo. But going out of my comfort zone landed me with a world of opportunity which I would not have come across otherwise.
Even when I landed in Stockholm, I could have just sat in my hotel to catch-up on emails. After all, there were quite a few ‘urgent’ tasks. I could have told myself that I didn’t want to fall behind on work. Yet, what is the point in travelling to a vibrant city when there is no time to learn from the experience?
In reality, few tasks are genuinely urgent. In the working world, we create workplans and deadlines. These are important to overcome inertia and to drive a project forward. And yet, when is it really that big of a deal when a single ‘urgent’ action is delayed?
The irony is that people who are constantly focussing on the urgent tend to be ones who are finding it hardest to meet them. Those people who can balance the important activities with the urgent ones can bring much-needed perspective. It can also break the of a hamster-wheel cycle of work.
To give a concrete example, I am a huge advocate for proper file structuring, perhaps to the point I’m rather pedantic on the point. I saw this as an important piece of work, because I realised how the effort of spending a few hours organising files correctly would improve efficiency exponentially. Now, when someone asks me for a document, I can find it within 10-15 seconds. The same goes for my team. This is in stark contrast to having to dig around files and cause more stress, which I see soaking up a whole lot of time for others.
But this is not just about our work lives. If we are too busy to invest quality time into our relationships, family and friends we will find ourselves increasingly distanced. We’ve all seen marriages break down over a lack of intent; it is due to the urgent tasks constantly taking over the time spent with a spouse. It can also show up as burnout, which can often mean someone disappearing for a few weeks on sick leave or simply grinding through at low levels of output.
The person who can balance the important activities with the urgent can keep themselves and their relationships happy and healthy. When life hits hard times, they have a good networks of friends, and they can see that there is more to life than the next email.
When you move to a state of focussing on what is truly important, the shift in your life will be truly transformational.
How much are you prioritising the important over the urgent?
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash
In the last two months I’ve been doing various interviews for roles within our office. It made me reflect at how jarring the interview experience can be for someone who may be looking for a new role, particularly if you’re just starting your career.
Interviews are a weird dance of assessing a candidate, usually filled with a set of corporate speak that can feel quite alien if you’re not familiar with it already. It took me a long time to understand what was really asked for in interviews for office jobs. Now, on the other end of the table it’s interesting to observe how different people come out in practice. So I thought I’d share these reflections which might help you avoid the pitfalls if you’re in the midst of applying for a new role.
It’s important to highlight the point of an interview. The aim is to see whether someone would do well in a role, whilst also creating a process that allows fairness to assess a candidate’s ability. But beyond that, it’s also a sense check of whether a person seems like one that would work well within the team. We also wanted to check that the role was appropriate for the individual noting their career aspirations and interest.
Here are some of the pitfalls I saw:
Being uncomfortable talking about oneself
Many people are uncomfortable talking about their own achievements. This is problematic when the point of an interview is to highlight why an individual is the best for the job. This often shows up in constantly highlighting what the team had done, rather than them as an individual. Individuals also use words like ‘I’m quite good at…’ – saying ‘quite’ devalues their own skills and experience. If there was any time to be bold about your strengths, it’s in an interview. If you don’t know what your unique selling point is, it’s going to be hard to convince the panel.
Getting stressed around minor details
I recall speaking to someone about the exact words they put in the email when sending a CV and cover letter. I get it, we’ve all been there. We don’t want to make a glaring mistake that causes an issue. But whether you address the inbox as Sir/Madam or Dear Hiring Manager doesn’t ultimately make too much difference. What hiring managers are interested in is whether you can do the job. Obviously if you put something overtly offensive that will undoubtedly be an issue, but anything beyond that doesn’t really matter.
Not really knowing the role or the organisation
When interviewing for a role, some individuals get caught out somewhat when asked about why they applied for the role, or why they wanted to work at an organisation. On the one hand, I am sympathetic that it is hard to become an expert on a whole organisation for each interview, particularly when people often have lots of different interviews at a time. On the other hand, it’s a fairly basic question that you will get asked in pretty much any interview. So it’s worth prepping a good answer for this.
An additional tip would be to anticipate what questions you think you might be asked. Although each organisation will do interviews differently, there are fairly typical staple questions like career ambitions, questions around skills and experience and other areas which will probably come up (unless the organisation specifically tells you that the interview will be organised differently).
Self-sabotaging quirks and self awareness
I saw a few self-sabotagers in an interview, which was a bit uncomfortable to watch. Some got extremely stressed by some computer issues whilst we were doing online calls. To note, most employees are very used to hiccups on voice calls by now, so it’s really not a big deal. Another issue was that they may not quite get the social cue that a question about something did not require a 10 minute response. From the point of view of an interviewer, it makes me nervous when someone is spending so much time speaking because we may run out of time to actually ask all the questions.
Giving a reason not to hire the person
Another issue was where candidates would essentially highlight that they did not have the experience for the role, making it fairly easy to put another candidate above them in the pecking order. I would also recommend not saying that you would understand if the interviewers went for another candidate – I saw this and just thought to myself how it was making it easier for me to choose someone else over this person. You are doing yourself a disservice if you make it easier for them to not hire you!
I’ve been having issues sleeping in the last few weeks. I fall asleep quite easily, but I have a tendency to wake up in the middle of the night. Sometimes I manage to fall back asleep for a mediocre night’s sleep, but some nights (including two nights ago) I woke up in full alertness and was awake from 3am.
When I’ve mentioned my sleeping issues to friends and colleagues, a few tips come up – perhaps doing more exercise during the day, or doing something relaxing to help me fall asleep. But, I’m already doing these things, and whilst there is always room to improve, small tips and tricks don’t actually address the underlying issue – my mind is overly stimulated and I spend more time in alertness than relaxation during the day. I don’t think this will be ‘fixed’ overnight. But I also recognise that I don’t need to be defined by my tiredness or lethargy, nor let it overly negatively affect my life.
In previous times, I would start cancelling plans, stop going to yoga classes and spend more of my time ‘resting’ at home to solve the issue. I now realise that if anything that would just make things worse – I would cut myself off from the things I enjoy, fall back on my commitments and spend more time focussing upon the fact I feel tired, which would inevitably make me feel worse. So instead, I continue with my life, even if I feel tired.
I’m glad I’ve had this shift. For example, I’ve had a few calls that I was tempted to cancel, only to do them and feel massively energised by a stimulating conversation. It’s also nice to see the gains I’ve had with my own fitness and health goals despite a lack of sleep. Naturally I do not want to overexert myself, but I can simply go about my life and do a bit less, rather than cancelling everything which would probably lead me to wallowing in self pity.
Since I’ve had more waking time, I’ve also had more time reading. I’ve been revisiting Michael Neill’s Inside-Out Revolution, a book which explores Sydney Bank’s Three Principles and how we frame the world. It was here I came across something that genuinely blew my mind, and shifted my perspective on how I ‘deal’ with the problem I have;
“Another example of this pre-existing intelligence is the human body. It’s designed to heal itself. If I cut my finger, I don’t need to get overly involved in the process of clotting the blood, creating the scab, or growing the new skin. That’s the intelligence behind the physical system at work.
As far as I can tell, the same thing is true of the mind. It’s designed to clear itself out all the time and return to quiet and clarity. It’s like a self-cleaning cat litter tray – the cat poops, the tray senses the extra weight, and the arm comes up and clears the poop away.
Now the moment you understand that, you’re off the hook. Because the system is designed to take care of your mental hygiene, you don’t have to.”
Our minds go through pain, but we don’t actually have to do anything to heal it. If we trust the process of letting our minds be, it will return to its natural state of health and wellbeing without us interfering with the process.
This was an absolute gamechanger for me. Even if I’m currently in the midst of stress and anxiety, I don’t have to do anything to actively ‘solve’ it. I don’t need a long holiday, health detox or three hours of meditation. The mind will return to health anyway. I can simply relax and let life be. Even writing this statement gives me a massive release from built-up anxiety.
The reason we do not return to this state of mental wellbeing is ourselves. It is ultimately us who spend time fixating on our own thoughts, often either in the past or in a future that won’t happen anyway. . The solution to a past trauma isn’t to do something nice like a spa day to counteract the negative feelings from a past trauma. The solution is to let the past trauma go.
The wider premise of this book is that our realities are created based upon our own thoughts. We may believe that our wellbeing comes from how other people treat us, but the fundamental point here is that it is instead our interpretation of the world, rather than the world itself which governs how we feel. This shift is incredibly powerful and liberating because it gives us back agency to live our own lives how we want to, rather than being victims of circumstances.
So for me, I don’t have to do anything to ‘solve’ my lack of sleep. I am going through a period of intense change in my life, but that will pass. I’ve slept well before. And I’ll sleep well again.
Do you find yourself constantly at the wrong side of a never-ending to-do-list? The stress and overwhelm can take a massive toll. Worse, without remedial action we’re doomed to a cycle of overwork, burnout and always needing a holiday.
People often talk about prioritisation as the key to a good life – indeed I’ve even posted around that recently. If we don’t prioritise things, we’ll end up getting spread too thin. No matter what our abilities, we cannot do anything and everything.
But one thing that is less talked about is how we make the process of living our lives far simpler. In other words, how can you make your daily tasks feel far less burdensome, leaving you feeling lighter and in control of your life, rather than being controlled by your tasks.
I once joked to a colleague that the best way I keep on top of my to-do-list is to simply not have one. I said this in jest, and obviously I sometimes do make a note of the things I’ve committed to, but in general I keep my ‘to-do’s’ to as empty as possible.
You might be thinking ‘oh what a luxury, I wish I had such an easy life like you’, and perhaps you’re right. But I also think that we have a far stronger
ability to manage our tasks in our life than we realise.
For example, the reason I can get through life without having a big to-do-list hanging over me is because I tend to deal with things as I see them. A classic case in point are emails. I sometimes look at people’s inboxes and am shocked at how stressful it all looks. Hundreds of emails with no sorting system, leaving a constant sense of never-ending work.
When I get an email, I tend to sort it in my head in three different ways – action, archive or flag. So this means that if an email is for information, I read it and I archive it (the shortcut for this is backspace in Outlook. You can thank me later). If I want to reply, I tend to reply there and then. After which, it is ‘dealt with’, and I can archive it. In the rare occasion I have something I want to dedicate more time to (e.g. to review a document), I will flag it and come back to it. To note, this is fairly rare, and at the moment I only have one flagged document in the whole of my inbox, and the rest of the inbox stays below 10 emails nearly all the time.
Considering we spend most of our time on emails, the shift I made when I read about this as an effective system was life changing. I feel far more in control, and people know that they will get a response from me very quickly. I also save an unbelievable amount of mental energy by not having to return to an email for a second time. When we put emails into a ‘I don’t know what to do with this’ bucket, we tend to return to it and have to spend more mental energy deciding what to do. This accumulates to become extremely draining.
I’ve gone quite specific with the email example, but the truth is that this optimisation can be said of most things. We can make our lives far easier by making the way we respond to them simpler. And the best thing is that you already know how to do this – you’ve already learnt to optimise many things already. Think about when you first learnt to ride a bike or drive a car. It was an arduous task of learning, with intense concentration throughout. Yet as you got better, the skills became automatic. Now you can get to where you want to go without even thinking about it. You also know how to turn on the TV, use the toilet or run a bath. These do not require your active effort.
Within work, when we know we have a discussion to be had with someone, we can just put it in the calendar. That saves us having to hold it in our heads, and gives us peace of mind that we aren’t going to forget anything. Outside of work, many of us have goals of wanting to eat healthier or exercise more. These days, I commit to going to a yoga class when I book it. I don’t overthink it or decide how I’m feeling just before (unless I’m genuinely injured). I plan it, book it, forget about it then check my diary for the day and get dressed and go. I spend little time debating whether I should or not.
The underlying shift is moving to a state of overthinking to one of graceful action, making our tasks feel like we are doing it without putting effort in. The biggest blocker of our activities is when we stop to think about them too much. How often have you found yourself putting off something you feel you need to do, only to find it not that bad when you actually do it?
Fundamentally, there is an immense power in realising that our thoughts do not have to dictate our reality. When we think something might be hard, we might be tempted to succumb to that idea. But these are thoughts, and the reality of it can be drastically different.
But this is also not saying that we should just simply try to block out thoughts – that doesn’t tend to work too well either. It’s very hard to actively stop thinking about something. Instead, it’s accepting that our thoughts are just that – thoughts. They can help, but they can also hinder. We have thousands of thoughts everyday, most of which we let drift away harmlessly. But the moment we fixate on the idea of all the things we feel we need to do, we suddenly give these thoughts an incredible power over us. This can leave us in debilitating anxiety.
So my invitation to you is to find ways in which you can shift your activities to this state of graceful action, rather than one of paralysing overthink. Even a small change can make a massive difference to your life.
If you’d like to explore more around this idea of changing our relationship with thoughts, drop me a message.
When we make decisions, many of us try to look at things very logically. We research information or ask friends for guidance. Maybe we’ll write a pros and cons list.
But can we really make a pros and cons list to as big a life decision as getting married? How about having kids? How about moving country? How about doing what you love?
One of the biggest downwards spirals I had with my life was trying to logically decide what I wanted to do. I would turn my brain to overdrive to figure out what the answer to my career and life were. I saw life as a puzzle – if I simply stared at it longer and spent more time trying to figure it all out, I would know what I was meant to do.
When I found myself unhappy with how my life was unfolding, I decided to figure out why I was unhappy. I thought that if I could understand the why, I could then go to the root of the problem. This would allow me to solve the issue. That’s the general logic we learn to cherish – analyse the problem and then find a solution.
What I did not anticipate was that trying to figure out why I was unhappy only served to make me more unhappy. By focussing so much time on what was wrong in my life, I just gave more power to the idea that these outside forces were the reason for my woe. My conclusion was that my life was unhappy due to my job, so if I changed that I would get the happiness I sought.
When I did change my job, I found a lot of the same issues still existed. Sure, the circumstances were different, and some of the details also changed, but ultimately when I was relying on my job to give me my sense of happiness I was putting my wellbeing in the hands of my circumstances rather than myself.
It reminds me of a story one of my old yoga teachers once told during a class. She recalled the tale of an apple on the tree. The apple sat on a tree branch, growing bigger each day. One day, a bird flew and landed on the tree branch. The next day the apple fell to the ground. So what caused the apple to fall – was it the bird landing on the branch, or was it the time for the apple to fall anyway?
It does not matter. Either way the apple is now on the ground. We do not need to understand why things happen, nor do necessarily benefit from satisfying our minds craving for clarity in things that we can never fully understand.
I learnt that the mind is not always the best tool to understand or decide bigger things in life. It can be an extremely powerful tool for digesting and analysing information to make a criteria-based decision, but it will also quickly get overloaded and succumb to traps of negative thinking when we attempt to comprehend something as big as the meaning of life. In other words, deciding what I wanted to do with my life wasn’t a decision that had to come from intellectualizing the question.
But if we don’t use our brain, what do we use?
There is something deeper than our thoughts which can tell us what we are meant to be doing. I am best guided by a deeper knowledge and power. This shows up when I quieten my own mind and go within to really what my inner wisdom is telling me.
For example, when I was ready to resign as a full-time Government employee, I knew it was the right thing for me. It was not a case of spending more time thinking about it, doing a SWOT analysis, nor project planning my future. It was a sensation that went deeper than my thinking and feeling – the connection between what I saw, felt and thought came together to recognise that there was a future for me outside of the comfort zone I had created. I understood the opportunities out there by going out and experiencing them, and now I wanted more. I saw that the future of staying in my job was not one that would allow me to live my life how I wanted to. So I knew. And I left.
The best part of this is that it means I don’t live with regrets. Our thoughts can create all sorts of alternative paths or reasons why what we did might have been wrong. But the reality is that any decision we make will be the right one if we make it so.
So if you’re finding yourself in the space of making wider life decisions, I would invite you to pause and look at how you are approaching it. If you are looking to stop and think your way to a solution, maybe you would benefit from taking time away and connecting to something beyond your thoughts.
Because when you know the decision you are meant to take, you will know.
There’s been quite a few notable events in the UK over the last week – The Queen’s passing, Liz Truss as the new Prime Minister, and most dramatically of all, Thomas Tuchel being sacked as Chelsea Manager.
I joke with the last one (well, somewhat), but sometimes it can feel like a lot of things are changing. The idea of change can quickly feel overwhelming, as if we are being washed up in a tidal wave of uncertainty and the comfort blanket of normality is being tugged from our clenched fists.
What we don’t often think about is how every day our cells are renewing themselves, and we’re experiencing a new rotation on the earth each and every day. The way we experience the world will always be unique based upon the exact moment we are happening to see it. So it’s not that things are necessarily changing more, it’s that I’m spending more time focussing on the change.
The more I’ve focussed on the idea that everything is changing the more jaded I feel. The human mind looks for patterns to explain why I feel the way I’m feeling – if I feel a sense of insecurity, I look for a reason. So I can then explain to myself that it’s because of change. My brain then looks for all sorts of change (including a new Chelsea manager!) which helps explain this to myself. This is the weird and wonderful way our brains work.
If we look for change, we can find it everywhere. I changed what I had for my breakfast this morning. I travelled, so was in a different bed yesterday. I had a different set of meetings and responsibilities this week. I can use these changes as a reason that everything feels insecure.
But when examining this thought process, I can reflect that I’ve had many weeks before where I’ve been doing lots of different things without feeling insecure by change. Two weeks ago, I met a bunch of people, did some writing and did some additional yoga classes I’d never done before. I didn’t go on about how much my life was changing then.
So perhaps it’s not really the change that is making me feel jaded. Perhaps instead it’s how much I’m thinking about how everything is changing. In reality, not much has physically changed in my life. I’m still doing pretty much the same thing – sitting in front of the computer, writing emails, reading, watching old youtube videos and sometimes writing this blog. It doesn’t seem all that different when I put it like that.
So I’d prefer to reframe this idea of scary ‘change’ as life slowly shifting like waves in the sea crashing on the beach. The waves never truly stop, but sometimes can go faster. Even when there’s a storm, ultimately the water and the beach are still there, come what may. We can choose to try and stop a storm from coming, or accept that the next day we will have sunshine anyway.
When I accept life as a beautiful, ever shifting enigma, I can let go and simply enjoy life. I don’t need to get caught up in my own thoughts around insecurity.
From this space, I have the freedom to do what I want.
How much time do we spend questioning ourselves around what we should be doing?
Should I go to the gym today? Should I find a new career? Could I be more fulfilled right now?
At some point, we all go through a period of questioning ourselves. Sometimes life throws us curve balls which make us reassess what we want – I questioned what I wanted to do with my life after getting turned down for numerous promotions whilst working in Government. But I was unclear of where I actually wanted to go. I was spiralling around the different possibilities and feeling lost.
without clarity of thought, it was hard for me to focus on any single thing. I thought about whether I might want to move to a different job, sector or country. The possibilities could sometimes feel overwhelming because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I was basing my life upon a bunch of general job descriptions.
Later down the road, I became clear that I wanted to move to Brussels. Partly through circumstances of Brexit putting a deadline on my decision, partly because I wanted to build a new life for myself. Once I had made the decision, I put a lot of commitment behind it. In total, it took me about four months from working through my CV, applying for jobs and practising my interview skills before I ended up making the move. I had to be very intentional that I would prioritise finding a job that I wanted, whilst also being open to the possibility that it would not fit exactly into what I might have imagined. Without this clarity of thought, I probably would have questioned myself mid-way through the process. I may have simply gave up, returned to the drawing board and looked at plan B, C or D.
Unsurprisingly, being unclear on what you want makes it hard to ever achieve it.
Evidently being clear is an extremely beneficial thing. It means we have figured out what we want. But people often don’t know how to get this clarity of thought.
Clarity comes from all sorts of places. Some people have divine inspiration which demonstrates to them what they want to do. After all, there are many stories of people who simply wake up one day with a grand vision that they dreamt of, after which they go ahead and put all their effort into it and often even achieve it.
But this inspiration only comes when you’ve immersed yourself enough in a field to understand about it. I’m not going to suddenly wake up tomorrow believing I want to be a carpenter. I know nothing about carpentry, nor have I ever examined a piece of wood with any particular fondness or inspiration. But if I were to spend time around carpenters in my spare time, or get more into crafting as a pursuit, it makes it much more likely I might consider it.
Unlike carpentry, Moving to Brussels was something I’d thought about for some time, and my background was in EU affairs. I visited it for work several times and did a Masters in Belgium already. It wasn’t some crazy decision that I chose by throwing a pin on a map, but rather a related activity to what I’d already been doing that would set a new, exciting chapter of my life.
If you want to know what you want to do, but you’re not sure about how to go about it, then its perhaps time to go out into the world and explore the options out there. There may be something that you want to do that you simply do not knows exist, or do not know enough about. So go out, speak to people. Go out and explore. Get out of your thoughts and into the real world. See what people are up to. See what makes them happy, or makes them unhappy.
It’s best to do these things before you find yourself in a crisis of confidence, so that you have places and people to call upon when those moments might hit. Equally, now is better than never.
Over time, you will start to gain an idea of the different options you have in your life, you can start to look at what those might mean. You may expect to simply find something that captures your imagination – a new hobby or cool sounding job – and are clear straight away. For many of us, this’ll take more time. Quite often, we need to dedicate ourselves to a pursuit for a while to genuinely learn to love it. Professional cyclist would have probably not enjoyed biking too much when they were kids and were constantly falling off their bikes. It was probably frustrating and may have left them hurt. But once they got the flow of it, that’s when it got interesting for them.
When we’ve done the process, it becomes a lot easier to get clarity. I started writing and coaching just to try it. It was okay at first, but it wasn’t amazing. I actually stopped for a long time because I got in a rut. I ended up feeling pressurised to do it, and ended up losing the enjoyment of it all. But once I had a break, I got back into it, and now am really committed to them because I have built a genuine enjoyment out of doing both. From there I’ve seen how I can fit my pursuits into my life – hence the birth of this newsletter.
I now have absolute clarity that I want to be writing these articles weekly. I have no intentions of stopping for the foreseeable future. I also made a clear commitment to finish the book I’ve been writing by November, and to have more coaching conversations with people over the next few months.
I made these commitments because I was clear in my head that this is something I want to do. Without the noise and doubts in my head, it’s a lot easier to be bold and ambitious. Writing a book or setting up a coaching business was not something I would have seriously considered a few years ago. Yet I am very clear now that this is something I want to do. Because I have this commitment, I’m willing to do what it takes to make it happen, even when that means working on them in evenings and weekends.
What you want to do will look very different to me. You may not really know exactly what that this right now. But if you follow the process you will get there. Being clear with yourself doesn’t mean you have to make grand life decisions forever – committing to something does not mean you can never change your mind. In fact, sometimes being clear of what you want actually means deciding to stop doing something. Yet, the clarity is so beneficial because it takes the focus away from ‘should I be doing this’ to ‘what do I need to do to make this happen’. And this is an extremely powerful shift.
When you are clear on what you want to do, the biggest barrier to achieve it – your mind – is no longer an obstacle. You then are in a space where you’re ready to go out there and do it.
