Time to jump

It’s easy to put things off and get caught up in analysing every possible outcome.

You might find yourself visualising the path you’re considering, hoping for a sign that the time to do it is now.

Or maybe you go online and do some research hoping to find a story that resonates from someone that took a chance.

There are only ever 2 choices, do nothing or do something.

Staying still, stuck and stagnant rarely feels good. Often once the moment to choose passes and you do nothing you end up regretting it.

But when you decide to take action and do something you open yourself up to the possibilities of life.

It might scare you but sometimes it’s time to jump.

Marathons and sprints

At some point in your life you’ll be faced with the decision of taking a break or keep pushing on.

When you’re running a marathon you know from the beginning that you have to pace yourself for the long haul.

But often we live our lives like it’s a sprint. We want the end goal too quickly without being committed for the long haul. Then you run out of steam before you’ve reached your goal and end up feeling like you can’t go on.

Good things take time so, slow down, be patient and focus on the journey more than the goal.

Settling with age

Most of us start out with big dreams of what we want to do with our lives. Then slowly, bit by bit, as the years go on we start to settle.

We settle from setbacks that lower our self-belief until you’ve convinced yourself that they were unrealistic anyway.

Other times you have people tell you that your dreams are too big, that they won’t work and that you need to be realistic.

Sometimes you’re aware of it but other times you have no idea until years have gone by and you’re wondering what happened to those dreams you used to have.

Busy is a choice

One thing I’ve notice is how busy we all seem to be. We’re constantly going from one thing to the next and wishing for more hours in the day.

But how often do you consider that it’s a choice?

Do you ever consider that you can stop, slow down and do less?

We fill our days with meetings, social media, main projects, side projects, shows, music, YouTube, socialising and so on.

But what if instead you decided to be a little more intentional about how you spend your time.

Instead of filling up your day with a bunch of stuff, why not be more selective? Why not pick and choose what is actually worth doing?

Furthermore, you could even block out time each day or week to do specific things or even just time to do nothing.

What do you gain when working from home?

For a large group of people they’ve spent most at least 4 months of the year working from home. They’ve had to adjust and adapt to a new environment whilst still maintaining the same work output that would be delivered in the office.

Despite the difficulties I think everyone gains something working from home. For some people those gains actually outweigh the losses.

The main thing is that you have more control over how you spend your time.

It could be starting early and finishing early or starting and finishing late.

Spending your morning working on personal projects.

Organising your work time to give you a few hours of leisure in the late morning to early afternoon.

Perhaps it’s being able to dress however you want and cook meals instead of just buying something or heating something up in the microwave.

Maybe, you’ve gained more time to spend with the people you love because you no longer have to commute.

As much as it might be difficult, challenging and inconvenient to work from home, it’s worth acknowledging the good bits.

Overstepping boundaries

I wrote about boundaries in a recent post but upon reflection I had more to add.

Sometimes even when you are aware of a persons boundaries and you know it has nothing to do with you, you still try to overstep the mark. A person will do it in small or subtle ways because they are curious whilst also being aware they have to tread carefully.

But when you catch them overstepping in the moment they’re likely to respond by telling you that they didn’t mean it or that they didn’t relaise that it was an issue. perhaps they try to tell you that there is no issue at all.

When it comes to over stepping a boundary it’s really about respect. When you can see a clear boundary you have to decide if it is more important to follow that curiosity or to simply respect what the other person does and doesn’t want

How to know when you’ve made the right decision

It’s all in how it feels.

When you find yourself with a choice to make between A and B, the main challenge will be wanting to make the right decision.

You don’t want to pick an option that you might later regret. But the truth is most of the time, you never really know how you’ll feel a month or a year down the line.

And as much as you can go back and forth, at the end of the day you have to choose.

I find that that it helps to put as little pressure on the decision as possible. Sometimes even make a game of it, put your options into an online hat that will pick for you or pick flower petals.

Whatever you end up choosing if you feel calm and at peace granted part of that will come from no longer having the burden of deciding on your shoulders but the feeling of peace will also be from having made the right choice for you.

Feels like freedom..

What does freedom feel like to you?

More specifically what sort of life does it consist of?

Perhaps it’s less work and more time for creative pursuits. Maybe spending time less time with people that judge and criticise you. It could be feeling like you have options and not feeling obligated to do certain things. It could be more of that feeling you get when you’re around the people you love.

The feeling of freedom is easy to create in some areas of your life for example simply stop spending time with people you don’t feel good around. But on the flipside it might be slightly more challenging.

If those questions aren’t easy to answer, it’s something worth giving them some thought.

Once you have an answer, think about how much it aligns with your current life.

If gap between them is wide, what can you do to change that?

Changing long-term plans

Most of us have some idea of where we’d like to be in 5, 10 maybe even 20 years time.

But sometimes the gap between now and then, is pretty hazy.

You know what you want but you’re not quite sure how you’ll get there.

And sometimes long-term plans change.

Maybe you happened to find something you care for more than what you’re currently trying to pursue. Maybe you realised that you don’t really want the thing you were working for. Or maybe you just feel like like doing something new.

For many people they actually end up having a better sense of direction when they change their plans. The gap becomes a little less hazy.

The reason for this is changing plans is a risk and they want it to be worth it.

Rest, reset and refresh

If you go through a period of stress or anxiety, something that can work wonders is taking a break.

It might seem counter productive and you might feel like the better thing to do is pull yourself deeper into what ever has gotten you off balance.

But further exposing yourself to thing that isn’t making you feel good is probably not going to make you feel any better.

What you might need is to take a break.

In this day and age, in our go, go, go society it can be challenging to really take a break from your day to day life.

And so I think it’s important to figure out what helps you rest, reset and refresh your mind.

It could be a walk in nature where you’re away from buildings and cars but surrounded by greenery and wild flowers.

It could be a massage, something that forces you have to stay still and you have to put your phone away.

And once you’re done you’ll know that it worked when you can go back to thing that had you feeling stressed but you now feel calm and at peace.