Early in my career, I worried about being a ‘streaky’ character. I would often ask myself – can I really be consistent over longer periods of time in the workplace? After all, I had done several internships of shorter timeframes ranging from 2 to 6 months.
In fact, this article is actually a particular achievement for me. It marks a year since I last missed writing an article for a week in this newsletter. In other words, I’m on a 53 week streak. It’s crazy to think that I’ve managed to keep up this level of consistency for such a long time.
The consistency worked because it worked for me. It is a personal thing after all. But equally, the way that I am being has shifted to naturally be more consistent.
The way I see and act in the world is very different to when I first started publishing articles.
Tag: #wellbeing
Our anxiety is stopping us from making positive change
Through my professional and personal life, I’ve come across many extraordinary, driven individuals who want to make a positive impact in the world.
Unfortunately, what I also see is a lot of stress, anxiety and overwhelm. There is an increase in the amount of burnout which is negatively affecting people’s personal sense of wellbeing. This is sad in of itself – everyone deserves to live a happy, fulfilling life.
But also, when we are stressed or burnt out, we are also becoming far less effective in making the change we want to see in the world. This means the positive change is severely limited.
But the great news is that we can change our outlook. One of the big revelations for me was recognising that the barrier to my own performance was the way I treated myself.
I thought 2022 would be less remarkable than 2020-21. I was wrong.
I’ve found this holiday period a good moment to slow down and reflect on the year – and what better day to do a reflective article than on 31 December?
I’ve firstly noticed how much residual fatigue I’ve been building up, particularly in the last few months. I got hit by an illness for the first two weeks of December, and since then I’ve felt myself battling to return to my previous routines of productivity. Of course, this isn’t a real battle, instead it’s one being waged within my mind.
Looking further back through 2022, I thought this year would be a period of stability and foundation-level building. After 2020 and 2021, years which felt like a period of survival (and physical upheaval for me moving to Belgium) I was hoping for something a little more solid but a bit less remarkable.
Spoiler alert – 2022 felt very different to what I thought it would – it certainly was more remarkable than I expected.
Welcoming our unpleasant feelings as friends
In the quest for the nice feelings, we implicitly learn that the unpleasant feelings are bad. So we look to avoid the pain and sadness, after all, why feel those feelings when we can feel happy?
Many of us spend a lot of time avoiding things that make us uncomfortable, or look to distract ourselves when we are sad. Even when we are finally forced to face these feelings, we bare through it with gritted teeth.
I have been reflecting on this theme as I have battled through a biting cough and severe sore throat over the last few days. In the past, this would be the cue for me to be frustrated at my body, and look at how inconvenient this all was.
But this time, I took time to appreciate what my body was telling me. It was time for me to slow down and heal
The mind is self- cleansing. You don’t have to do anything to fix it.
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.
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.
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.
Life is an ever-shifting enigma. Embrace it.
What is change?
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.
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.
Why a £2000 cheque doesn’t make you as happy as you think it would
Yesterday, I was running around a little frantically between meetings. I take my lunch breaks seriously, but I also try and cook a proper lunch within them when I can.
I saw an ominous letter on the table. It was from HMRC, the UK’s tax authority. It had been redirected from my old flat in London. Cue internal fear as to whether I had broken the law in some way, or owed a lot of money to someone, despite not having even seen the letter contents.
The reality was the opposite – I had overpayed tax in the UK over the last year.
What’s in a birthday anyway?
How much does a birthday really matter?
I had my birthday this week. I was visiting the UK and in the end stayed for a bunch of work meetings for the day, including for a conference on concrete – which is a slightly different thing to do, but unique nonetheless.
I actually spent the day staying at my parents house. My mother bought a giant cake, then realised it would be too much of a faff to open it when I was about to travel. So instead I packed a Sainsbury’s chocolate cake and took it to Brussels the next day. Supplemented with my annual tradition of buying a Colin the Caterpillar cake (a British institution for my international friends), I am in no lack of sickly chocolate cake for the next three weeks.
The importance of cultivating a healthy network around you
If a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?
If a worker does an amazing piece of work, but sits in a siloed team where nobody talks to each other, did they really do an amazing piece of work?
Since the world has opened up post-pandemic, I’ve been a lot more intentional in reaching out to others. Rather than seeing friendships and connections as a by-product of the rest of my life, I’ve looked at is as something that needs love and attention to foster.
Are you awake or asleep at the wheel?
Work. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.
Are you living life or is life living you?
When I lived here, I followed the rhythm that I thought people were supposed to do – going to work and chasing more money to pay for a nicer room (due to the exorbitant rent prices), without even noticing the negative impact my obsession on my work life had on happiness or health. I’d come home shattered after spending so much time and energy on things that now I can’t even remember.