Creating time and space to do nothing

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

Life can feel too busy to stop – even in the month of August. It can make it feel like we are on a constant treadmill of doing, with moments of respite few and far between.

But what if rather than needing to wait for moments of rest, it was something we actively created?

This summer has felt more intensive than I planned it to be. I chose to stay in Brussels this year. I tend to move around a lot anyway, and I was craving some stability. So I thought a restful summer would benefit me the most.

What I didn’t anticipate was that I had fewer cues to tell me it was time to rest. Rather than seeing the calming waves of the sea at a sunny beach, I instead saw the rather dreary rain of the Belgium summer.

Feeling like I had not rested made me question my own decisions – should I have gone to some exotic resort to relax? After all, that seems to be what other people do.

I realised I was duping myself into a fallacy. From what I saw around me, I had implicitly understood that to rest, a beach holiday was necessary. Whereas in reality rest is a state of mind that can be accessed anywhere.

Let’s not forget that most people do not get the luxury of a holiday escape. The belief that we need a stress relieving holiday is actually rather problematic. If we are working ourselves so far to burn out that we need a holiday to escape our reality, then the problem is how we are living, not the lack of an adequate holiday.

I’ve struggled with the pace of summer. I was expecting a slowed down motion of work, but this didn’t materialise in the way I thought it would – the working world has become more active and the ‘dead summers’ of old are no longer what they used to be. Now summer is a time for planning for the next period of work, rather than one of calm and rest.

But this is not about blaming external circumstances. In reality, I haven’t really allowed myself to return to a steady rhythm of life. The implicit ‘need’ to make the most of summer pushed me into a state of freneticism. I felt like I had to be doing fun and exciting things. But this was the exact opposite reason I chose to stay in Brussels – I wanted time to be with myself. Yet somewhere the reason I made the choice got lost along the way.

This week has been strange. I had stomach issues and headaches throughout it. I thought this was from overexertion from hot yoga classes. Whilst that may be a part of it, I must have picked up a stomach bug for it to have continued this long.

Perhaps it’s been a blessing in disguise. I’ve really had to rest, with very little activity. For the first time in probably six months, I’m having evenings where I’m not actively thinking or planning. My Friday night consisted of watching silly Youtube videos with no real plan to do otherwise. Most importantly, it felt comforting, rather than a guilty pleasure. (If you’re wondering, I watched videos around comically silly video game dialogues. Stuff like this video from Mortal Kombat 4. It is artistry in its own way).

In conventional wisdom this would sound like a wasted evening. But it’s also why conventional wisdom isn’t particularly useful for our individual lives. For me, having a night where I calmed the mind was exactly what I needed. If I didn’t give myself the time to do it, I would still be in the heightened alert mode that I needed a break from.

Having no plans allows us to do things far more spontaneously. This is very different to the pressure of *needing* to do something. My time has shifted from looking at social activities that I felt I needed to go to, to a more relaxed and freeing state instead.

It was only this week that I realised that there were many things that I had been neglecting – the basic things like doing my laundry, tidying my room and thinking about how I can decorate my space. The fact that my bedroom is now clean and tidy is so unbelievably calming, yet I was blind to how much I had let things slip.

Making space for ourselves is incredibly important, yet it can become a scary idea when we are so used to needing constant social contact.

So the easiest way to give space is creating the time where we have nothing planned.

Our intuition will tell us what to do when we’re alone.

Living life like you have nothing to lose

Photo by Avi Waxman on Unsplash

Last night (rather late because of timezone differences!), I listened to a talk by John Patrick Morgan, a practical philosopher who is highly regarded in the coaching space.

The talk yesterday was around the concepts of living like you have nothing to lose, and the idea of not *having* to do anything. I really enjoy these talks because of how eloquent JP sets out his views, and there’s something I really identify with in the manner in which he speaks. Considering how many people he gets on these calls, I know I’m not the only one!

JP was very open in talking about how life can put the principles that occurred to him to the test in a very practical way. JP lives in Hawaii, and whilst talking about not having anything to lose suddenly found himself with the very real threat of the Maui wildfires appearing on his doorstep.

Yet this experience serves to prove the theory, rather than discount it. Whilst at the time it is important to allow ourselves to feel the emotions, it’s also a way to see that we do not have to be governed by the idea of loss (if that is what indeed comes to pass).

I had an experience of potential loss yesterday (albeit at a much smaller level). When heading home from the office yesterday, I realised that my laptop was not in my bag. I suddenly panicked as to whether I might have dropped it somewhere.

With a slightly more calm head, I realised I had probably just autopiloted when leaving for the day and left it in the drawer without thinking about it. Yet even with this thought, I had the creeping discomfort of wondering whether I had somehow lost it somewhere.

JP made a lovely distinction that I hadn’t heard before – real problems lead to real action, but fake problems lead to fake action.

As I was walking into the office this morning to see if I had indeed somehow lost my laptop, my mind wondered about what I would have to do if I had lost it. Considering it’s a work laptop, I imagine I would have to tell my boss and IT team, as well as explain why I wasn’t logged in today. I teleported to a world of embarrassment and uncertainty of what I’m meant to do.

Fortunately, I snapped out of it. If (and only if) I had indeed lost my laptop – which was incredibly unlikely – then I would figure out what to do. I’m not the first person to lose a work laptop, nor will I be the last. Right now this was a fake problem being created in our head, rather than a real one.

Lo and behold, when I did come into the office this morning, I found my laptop sitting there in the drawer. It was exactly where I had put it many other times. All the fake actions I came up with dissipated. I can write that off as wasted mental energy.

The idea of having nothing to lose is not meant in a maverick, Machiavellian sense. This is not about going rambo style out into the world because our deaths are meaningless. Instead, this is about shifting our view to understand that our attachment to possessions (whether ‘real’ like a laptop or intangible like my status) is not actually one we possess in the first place. JP talked about how this links to the Buddhist idea of impermanence – we do not truly ‘own’ anything. So if we don’t own it, there’s nothing to lose.

Another way to phrase it is that we have nothing to lose because we are going to lose it anyway. Our houses, phone, cars will be lost by us at some point – maybe because we sell them but also maybe because we are the ones leave this world behind. The same goes for the intangible things we have – job titles, reputation and status. They only are with us until they aren’t.

The idea we have nothing can be extremely liberating because it means that we do not have to come from a protective mindset. Rather than fearing loss, we can see life as a playground to do different things or ‘borrow’ new items if we want to.

The talk made me realise how much I had been holding onto the idea of what things like my house, clothes and job mean about me. There’s nothing wrong with having these things, but they are also not me. At best, these are things I borrow. The more I make these things define me, the more I cling onto them, even when it’s time to let them go.

Living life like we have nothing to lose is about embracing its freedom. It is about accepting the transient nature of our existence, which allows us to bring our playful nature to the surface.

Ironically, coming from this playful space will make us far more effective in receiving the new things we want.

Why consistency is so important for our life goals

There are many things we want in life – a healthier body, better sleep, improved skills or a greater income.

Sometimes getting these things can feel impossible. When we try something like a new diet, we can quickly feel discouraged when we don’t see progress. And when we don’t see progress, we tend to give up.

Take learning a language: it can be very daunting starting from a complete beginner level. We have to build layers of grammar and vocabulary to form coherent sentences. When we see a native speaker do it so effortlessly, it can make us feel like we aren’t achieving anything at all. The comparison with others can make us lose sight of the smaller gains we are making.

Most of our skills were built over a longer period of time. Our life experience demonstrates this. It took us years to learn to talk, but we forget the learning journey we undertook as toddlers. Learning a new language is no different. Even Olympic cyclists fell off their bikes multiple times as kids.

Consistency above all will get you much further towards the things you want. I am not telling you something you do not already know.

Whilst the temptation is to often look for the ‘easy wins’ or shortcuts, these rarely, if ever exist. If we want something that we do not already have, chances are that they are not things that can be attained quickly. After all, if it were quick and easy we would have got these things already.

Consistency is both easy and difficult. It is easy because we know what to do, and how to do it. But the challenge is doing it regularly, even when we don’t want to.

What I’ve found recently is how powerfully cognitive dissonance can kick in. I’ve stagnated with my weight loss in the last two weeks. For a moment, I asked myself whether the method I’m using was really working. Although I had lost some weight, the lack of results made me wonder whether this method had now run its course. I spent some time looking up the answer online of what was causing the stagnation. According to the online chats, perhaps the early weight loss was just water weight. Maybe it was time to switch to something else, or push myself harder.

A few days later I realised I was not being honest with myself. When I look back I had been going out more and eating far less healthy food than before. When I gave myself a dose of radical honesty, I realised that this was not the method’s fault, instead it was my commitment to the method that was lacking.

Our goals don’t live in siloes either. My sleep quality has also worsened – mainly due to my use (read: overuse) of my phone and social media. The knock on effect has meant I’m more tired, with far lower willpower. I’ve been more irritable and anxious, which is when I tend to eat far worse.

In the last few days, I’ve recommitted to eating better. And surprise, the results came back. As I got back into the habit, my willingness to keep it up has also returned. The temptation to eat poorly has reduced.

Consistency is understanding that even when we fall off track (which we inevitably will) we are able to get back on it again. If we spend time judging ourselves about why we failed, we end up descending into a cycle of despair.

So if you want change in your life, commit to a new routine.

Consistency will lead you to the greatest results in the shortest amount of time.

Seeing sensitivity as a strength

Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

Attitudes have progressed a lot in the last few years. We see more open discussions around burnout and mental wellbeing. Nevertheless, emotional sensitivity, particularly in ‘professional’ settings, is still seen as an unwanted, or bad trait.

At best, sensitivity is something to be tolerated. It’s okay to be emotional, but as long as it’s done in private, or outside of the workplace.

But sensitivity is what makes us human, and in a world where we use terms like having ’emotional intelligence’, it’s something that is sorely lacking in the business world (not to mention in our personal lives too).

I’ve been guilty of this myself. Back when I worked in the UK Government, I fell into the mindset of being as rational as possible. I thought this was what it meant to be successful. The answer for me always seemed to be about having the best argument or line of reasoning, and it would bewilder me why everyone else didn’t do the same.

Ironically, my journey has been one of reconnecting with my emotions over the course of my adult life. It started with realising that not everything is about winning the argument. It then progressed to realising that the intuitive sense I had came from an ability to connect and understand people in a deeper way. I thought this was normal for everyone. Turns out its not.

The last two weeks have been a very confronting journey for me around sensitivity. Rather than being a brain bot with a bit of emotions as I had previously thought, I’m learning that the opposite is more true – I am a deep emotional reservoir with some thinking behind it.

I had come across the term ‘highly sensitive person’ before, but I never thought it applied to me. Yes, I can be emotional, but who isn’t? Well, it turns out, actually a lot of people aren’t as sensitive as I am. There’s an estimated 20% of people who are highly sensitive, and this holds true for both men and women. But for me as a man, I learnt to push that side away: who would want to be labelled a shy, crybaby in this culture?

But as I’ve been reading The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron, a lot of things in my life suddenly make far more sense. A classic case is my tendency is to seek pleasure, but then get overstimulated and exhausted. I’ve seen this several times this year, particularly after my trip to India in February.

Other characteristics are more trivial – I never really understood why I didn’t finish Breaking Bad. I watched a lot of it – several seasons in fact. But I ended up finding it too heavy to watch in the evenings after work. I just didn’t want to subject myself to the emotional stress that each episode gave me, so I stopped. Turns out that’s a pretty clear sign of emotional sensitivity.

What I am seeing is how much my sensitivity is a gift – subtle shifts in people’s behaviours are things that seem very obvious to me and give me a great ability to read people’s energy. In a business setting, it’s why I’ve had a real advantage in being able to read the room, feel subtle shifts in energy and being able to understand people’s underlying motivations.

Nevertheless, my tendency to get overstimulated can also mean I can get skittish or very critical at points that come as a surprise to other people. This can also play into my feeling that I am misunderstood. So it is really important that I manage my time to give the space I need so that I do not get overaroused.

What I am seeing is how connecting to my sensitivity is allowing me to connect much better with the people around me. I am much more in tune with life and my experience of emotions like happiness are heightened. The fact I haven’t been doing this as much as I could is what has been holding me back.

So from a business perspective, sensitivity is what allows us to connect, and really make things happen by working with others. We can get so caught up in the machines and systems that we forget that the real way to make an impact is by connecting with people at a human level.

From a personal perspective, life is much richer. Feeling is a gift, and one that is to be cherished. Letting down my armour has been very emotionally painful, as it has required me understanding why I put them up in the first place. Nonetheless, my life is much more fulfilling when I can really enjoy it by experiencing the emotional side more fully.

So even if you see yourself as not particularly emotional, remember this – you are human, and you are living as much an emotional experience as a physical one. Opening up further to emotions is what gives the excitement and richness of life. Failure to do so, and life can pass you by.

If you are someone who sees yourself as sensitive then remember that experiencing emotions is a gift (even when it doesn’t feel like it!). It’s what makes our experiences deeper and richer. It isn’t something that you need to push away, even if you are experiencing something difficult. Being open to the bounties of life only makes it more rich when we taste the fruit.

If you’d like to learn more about my experiences around opening my heart to my own sensitivity, drop me a message.

The incredible power of saying ‘I don’t know’

There are so many questions that we answer every day. Some of these are straightforward – ‘what should I eat today?’ or ‘what TV channel should I put on?’.

But we also quickly amass large, existential questions that are so overwhelming and complex that they become frightening.

In our society, we’ve learnt that we must answer every question, as if it were a pop quiz. But what we have missed is that there are certain questions that go beyond the capabilities of the mind – the spiritual, emotional or philosophical.

I was speaking to a friend recently about the end of her relationship. The logical reasons for this end of relationship did not make sense to her – why did it end like it did?

Another instance I see is at work, and in particular people working on large social issues like climate change. A term I’ve recently learnt of is ‘eco-anxiety’ – the feeling of fear of the impending doom of climate change. How can we ever solve the climate crisis?

How about large scale questions about our lives – do I want kids? Where do I want to live? Am I living the life I’m meant to be living?

These questions are anxiety inducing because they are so large and difficult. Our brains cannot create a rational answer with so many data points in a realm of great subjectivity.. But sometimes, the realisation that we do not need all the answers can be the biggest freedom that we can have in life.

Let’s take these one by one:

Why did the relationship end? Well, there may or may not be a clear reason. The chances are it will be a mix of many different subtle reasons. On the other hand, what has happened has happened. The relationship is over, and getting a clear answer of why it ended is actually not really that important. The important part is seeing what can be created now, rather than dwelling on the past.

How can we solve the climate crisis? Well, I don’t know the full answer, but I do work on sustainability issues. Here, I do the best job I can do. But I also realise that spending my life stressed and miserable is not helpful – it just makes me unhappy. And when I’m unhappy, I’m far less effective at my job.

It’s no wonder that there is so much burnout in the space of NGOs and social justice. The constant worry is making people sick. And whilst it is admirable to want to make a difference, it is also massively self-defeating to spend so much time worrying about it because you will both harm yourself and the cause you support because you cannot do what you want to to help.

Am I living the life I’m meant to be living? I don’t know. I see this philosophically in that I only have one life path, and that is the one I am right now. And even if I didn’t believe this, I can also realise how anxiety inducing the question is. If I spent more time enjoying my life and doing the things I wanted to do, I would have a far greater likelihood of living my life to the fullest. Questioning myself only makes me withdraw.

To me, the phrase ‘I don’t know’ is my own acceptance of surrendering to something bigger than me. The important thing here is to not see ‘I don’t know’ as a negative. It can be interpreted as this lack of understanding or stupidity.

But in reality, there is a deeper wisdom in accepting that I am not meant to have all the answers, so I don’t quickly create one to sound smart. It’s no surprise that the best leaders are the ones who are the quickest to admit that they are not sure about something, because they realise the limits of their intellect.

If the larger questions in life are causing you stress. It’s okay to not know the answer.

Releasing the mind through the form of movement

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

This week, I’ve started work with a new coach around body movement. I’ve been working a lot on myself, but an area I hadn’t really addressed was around my comfort in my own body.

I remember being in India in February and seeing people dancing. I felt absolutely paralysed by the idea of it. More broadly, the moment anyone suggested dancing I felt frozen to the spot.

Somewhere along the way I had created body movement to be such a complicated thing that I felt an anxiety cycle the moment a situation came up.

The option I took without realising was to shut off my relationship with my body. If I stopped going to places where dancing or instinctive movement was required, then it would never be an issue. Or at least that was somewhat the logic.

This option deprived me of the pleasures of movement. Dancing can be very fun, and I had forgotten that after so many years since my more exuberant days in university.

I hadn’t realised how much my lack of connection with my body has been showing up. My mind has been completely dominating my existence – I only listened to my body when it was crying out in pain or tiredness. Likewise, I am limiting my impact in work through my ability to project my voice. In a recent Toastmasters speech, I got feedback about how I was quite static whilst speaking. It made it harder to connect with the audience.

Last night, I went out to dance. I was quite tired and stressed from the week, so I didn’t feel particularly energised. When I’m in this state, going to a party can feel quite overwhelming. It feels like a conflict between my mind analysing all the stimuli around me versus my body wanting to move with the rhythm of the beat.

I know that letting go of the analytical thoughts of the mind is what I need. And the best way to do that is moving the body. Meditation can be great to find stillness, but we were not born to sit at a desk all day (which is what I’ve been doing most of the last 5 years of my life!)

Even if I’m still learning, I am seeing the benefits. I’ve lost around 8 kilograms in the last month, and I’ve also been having a healthier routine with skincare and sleep. I find myself naturally feeling the urge to go for a walk, rather than it being a task I have to accomplish during the day.

These activities are so beneficial for me as it takes me away from the world of thought and analysis. I know this is something that would really help other people too – there are so many people who spend so much time in their minds that they find themselves at an energetic imbalance. The sign of this are lethargy, tiredness and ongoing work stress.

If you want to get better in your job or just simply be happier in life, look at how much a movement plays a part in your life.

Finding an energetic balance will put you in a heightened state of being.

The stick-or-twist of whether to celebrate a birthday

I turned 30 this week. And I wasn’t sure how much I should celebrate or not.

I have a somewhat difficult relationship with birthdays. I found it hard to celebrate the occasion over the years because I felt it came at an inconvenient time. It was just after the school holidays, or just as the university term had started and everyone went home. Nobody was really around to do much for it.

On reflection, I think I learnt to dread my birthday. It was a day where I heard a lot about what I should experience, and how it was meant to be such a great day. I found that generally any such expectations were not met. Looking back on it I found the whole ordeal rather painful emotionally for many years.

In my adult years, my newest line has been to reject the notion of birthdays as a concept. ‘What’s in a day anyway?’. It made it a lot easier to just not engage with the idea of it, rather than deal with the expectations that came with it.

There is some truth to the fact that a single day does not make us nor break us. Yet If i’m honest with myself it’s also been a self defense mechanism I built up. It’s become so instilled in me I hadn’t even realised I had created it.

I’ve been travelling a bunch in the lead up to my birthday. I had a few social engagements dotted around before and after, so it got to the point where planning felt inconvenient. In the end, I didn’t really do a whole lot. And whilst I think ‘regret’ is too strong a word, a few days later I feel I probably missed an opportunity to mark the moment more vividly.

The beauty of personal development is that every opportunity is a moment where we can learn deep things about ourselves. This experience fits in with my journey of the last few weeks, notably realising how emotionally sensitive I am as a person.

I am reopening my heart to the world. Honestly, it’s a pretty painful experience. I am letting down guards that have been up for so long I didn’t even realise they were there. And opening up means both reexperiencing things I had shut away, but also coming into a deeper state of vulnerability. I’m having to reevaluate things like my ‘who cares’ attitude towards birthdays. I’ve also noticed that the bitterness towards my own experiences has been souring how I show up for others in their celebrations too.

All is not lost, birthdays are a great opportunity to reflect no matter how much or little we actively celebrate them. I’ve heard someone describe them as our own personal new year, which I’m quite fond of as a concept.

This last year has been a crazy journey for me. I’ve had many people talk about how much I have changed and evolved. I’ve had achievements like writing my book. But more profoundly, friends around me talk about the way I have shown up for them in a deeper, more powerful and loving way.

Life is opening up in ways that I didn’t think possible. I feel my 30s are going to be more fun and wild than my 20s, which is an exciting feeling. I am clearer in who I am choosing to be.

I’m on the path to self betterment and creating the life I want to live.

Constant ordinary action creates the extraordinary

This weekend I’m at another personal development intensive in London. Over this weekend, we have spoken about the way in which we create the different aspects of the things we want in life.

I continuously go to these learning experiences because I learn something new each time. I’ve found that hearing something the first time sometimes doesn’t mean too much for me, but revisiting it later can make a profound shift.

Yesterday, we spoke about how we create the extraordinary. The idea of running a marathon, getting a six-pack or writing a book may sound unfathomable because of the colossal nature of the goal.

But if we gave ourselves a few minutes to figure out ‘how to’ do these things, we could most likely figure out a way. Want to lose weight? Eat better and exercise more. Want to write a book? Schedule writing sessions several times a week.

We generally know the answers.

When we break down the extraordinary tasks into multiple ordinary ones, it can be empowering because it makes it achievable. But it can also be daunting – suddenly the weight shifts towards our own responsibility. It’s up to us to achieve what we want.

This newsletter is an example of that. Recently, I saw that my subscribers passed 1500 – amazing! I couldn’t have imagined that so many people would receive what I write week in and week out. The statistics show that I’m probably getting around 500 people reading what I write each week. To me, this is an extraordinary achievement.

Now, how did I get to this point? Well I just started writing articles. I began in 2020. I started erratic, but learnt to build consistency. By 2022 I recommitted to writing an article each week. To me, this is doable. One article each week takes me about 30-60 minutes. I avoid making it a big laborious task. Most people I know could do this. Writing an article in of itself is a pretty ordinary task.

Fast forward to today, I haven’t missed a week since January 26, 2022. I’m on a 75 article hot streak. This will be my 131st article I’ve written. My articles are around ~700 words each, which means I will have written around 92,000 words. Unsurprisingly, my written expression and creative thinking have blossomed through the process.

These achievements have been as a result of doing the ordinary consistently rather than any particular magic formula.

Another related distinction we spoke about was the difference between ‘can’t’ and ‘won’t’ – where we are labelling things we can’t do. If we are radically honest with ourselves many of the things we say we ‘can’t’ do are actually things that we just don’t want to. A good check as to whether a task is one where you genuinely can’t do it, ask yourself whether if someone was willing to pay you a million dollars whether this would change whether you could do it.

I used to think that I couldn’t lose weight because when I tried I would often rebound back up. But if I look at myself really honestly, I was playing victim by blaming other circumstances. For example, work getting busy is not a bonified ‘reason’ that I cannot eat healthy. Now I am getting far more committed through sticking with fasting and I am seeing the results start to show – I have lost around 5 kg in the last few weeks.

I write these articles to give you the tools to better your own life. The irony is that deep down, this is all information that you probably already know. Yet we can all forget these things as we get caught up in the daily travails of the world.

But if you want genuine change, get honest. Find the ordinary tasks that you need to do to create the extraordinary.

Then start doing them.

The ultimate freedom of seeing life as a game

This week, I took it relatively easy.

Well, that’s how I felt anyway, the reality was that I actually did rather a lot. It was the first time in a long time I’ve been into the office five days in a week (my own choice!). I also had evening activities on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I also went to a 4 hour Toastmaster officer training on Saturday too. I’ve also been on a diet where I eat one meal a day for a while, so that includes each day of this week.

So why do I feel like this week was relatively relaxed?

Well it is relative. Essentially, it felt like tasks took far less effort this week than what they did last week. During my immersion in Kent a few weeks ago, we spoke about the distinction of living and the game of life, based upon an audio by George Pransky. This distinction has completely changed the game in the way I respond to the stressers from the world around me.

Living is a state that we are constantly in, and we do whether we choose to or not. The game of life are the games that we choose to play. These can be literal games such as tennis, or more abstract games.

Our jobs are elaborate games that we play. We sign a piece of paper and we choose to embody the title of ‘systems engineer’, ‘film critic’ or ‘IT consultant’. There’s nothing wrong with playing these games – they can be fun, rewarding and entertaining. But the issue arises when we mix up the game of life with living. This shows up when our job becomes our identity, or we carry on thinking about work when we leave the office.

I realised that pretty much every thing I do in my life is a game. Work is a game. Play is a game. Once I see these things as games, suddenly the amount of pressure I put on these things start to fall away. I can start to enjoy them far more because I see that they’re actually just games.

I’ve been going to a poker night the last few months. I actually went the night I came back from the immersion. It was the best I played in a while, because I remembered that it was just a game. In the past, I would get psyched out by the odds. I would start playing differently in the late game because the blinds (cost to play) increased, so I felt things were more risky.

But games are there to have fun. It adds a challenge and entertaining element to our lives. If playing a game is making us stressed or miserable it means that we are playing the game wrong.

Once we have fun, we also tend to play better. At poker, I no longer was second-guessing myself. I had a greater level of conviction with my plays, and unsurprisingly I played better. This wasn’t a fluke either as the same thing happened the week after.

Bringing the idea of everything being a game is extremely liberating. The same activities that stress us out can turn into sources of joy simply because of the shift in the way we look at them.

This major shift is available for all of us, including you. It’s simply a matter of seeing it.

The best way to learn is by getting into action

When we are looking for change, we can often get into the trap of constantly searching out more information. A new book or course can be helpful to learn more, but in of itself doesn’t really do anything until you do something with it.

We can get so addicted to learning that we actually learn to infantilize ourselves. Whenever we find a problem we search friends or the internet for guidance, rather than genuinely learning how to do things for ourselves.

For me, this looked like constantly looking for new personal development books and courses. I would finish one non-fiction book and move straight to the next one, without stopping to reflect what I had really learnt. It was more about finishing the books that I told myself that I ‘should’ read, rather than changing myself. whilst I did learnt some things, I didn’t get nearly as much as I could if I focussed on applying my learning.

There’s a reason that we stay in this information-consummation cycle: it’s comfortable. When we don’t have to apply the insights, we can outsource our problems. And let’s be honest, actually making changes can be scary.

Last week I wanted to deliberately break this cycle. I wrote about how I wanted to create my new Make Diversity Matter To You Programme. It’s an experiential learning group bringing people from being unsure about how to deal with diversity issues to becoming active champions.

I’ll be honest, it was nerve-wracking. I created something that I thought would be valuable, but I didn’t know whether people would want it or not. This is not a fairy tale – the results were mixed. Some people were not interested, whilst others were. I got some a few no’s in a short amount of time too which felt like a blow.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel disheartened at some points. I felt like I put myself out into the world and was bearing my soul. But the reality was that I was gaining key information about what people want and what they don’t. Besides, I hadn’t thought about the commitment I was asking for, and how realistic that would be for people.

I wanted to start this programme in July, both putting me under pressure to find people in a few weeks and also expecting people to commit with little notice. In the end, I’ve decided to shift my programme back to September. It gives far more time to prepare for it, both for me and people who want to participate.

I could frame this experience as a failure, or I could frame it as key learning. The only way I could know as to how people would respond to what I create is by sharing it with the world. So rather than sitting in a sense of personal sour grapes, I choose to make this a meaningful learning experience.

If I had sat in inaction, I would have not known whether there was any interest in the programme or not. Now I have a much clearer idea, as well as a key learning about the things people need before committing to something over the space of a month.

So if you want to genuinely learn something new or change something in your life, there is only one real choice: action. Materials are extremely helpful to give the tools, and it’s definitely worth investing in them. But the investment goes down the drain unless you choose to do something with it.