Personal Questions to ponder
This past week my wife and I were blessed with the birth of our beautiful second boy.
People would congratulate me and I all I really felt was stress and guilt that I didn’t feel the same excitement.
We knew on paper it was going to be a rough ride bringing another Bub into this world just due to logistics and all that goes with parenting in those early stages.
For me I wasn’t expecting and maybe wasn’t ready for the amount of stress that I would feel – when from the outside my life hadn’t changed too much. I explained to my wife that for her it had been immense physical stress (carrying a baby for 9 months, birthing a big bubba naturally, sleepless nights, feeding problems and the list goes on. For me it felt like psychological stress, like maybe being caught out by something that you are not ‘ready for’.
After much soul searching, frustration, arguments, therapy sessions, writing and pondering I realised my stress was not so much from these superficial inconveniences and time pressures but more on a bigger scale. I share this today because as I sit and look around me whilst writing this on a train and also having done lots of people watching recently I suspect many of you are in a similar position.
This bigger scale I am referring to is living and partaking in a life that feels like it is not one you signed up for or one that your best self would be living.
From an outside perspective I have it all.
A beautiful wife, 2 gorgeous healthy boys, a crazy loveable border collie, a house on the Sunshine Coast, a thriving business of passion where we make a difference, a healthy fit strong body and good people around me.
When I write that down I know I am very blessed and I am so grateful for what I do have.
But still there was this feeling of stress that I knew was from things not being aligned with my values.
After a conversation with a friend and colleague I got super inspired about living on some land and bringing my boys up knowing nature. It was always in my DNA and really is the origins and principles of my business.
I realised that my stress was not the new baby. It was the distance and difficulty being away from my passion and the invigorating culture we have created at my Business. It was the sitting in traffic for hours each week. It was the lack of ability to take my dog, Zeus for walks without getting in a car. It was the mortgage repayments that were not leading to an inspiring outcome, purely financial. It was seeing exactly what my life would be in 5 years and 10 years time and not being inspired by it. It was all of this that was the psychological stress I was feeling and describing to my wife at the worst of times (don’t do this to your wife after child birth).
The first step in change is always awareness and identifying the triggers and decisions that are going to make a difference.
I plan to work with my wife and make some changes so all of this ‘good fortune’ I have can be thoroughly enjoyed again.
I hope this small share inspires you to maybe look at your life and investigate if there are any areas that you feel don’t align with who you really want to be.
The latter part of the above probably requires some acknowledgment in itself. Many people seem to have lost disconnection with who they actually want to be in the first place. It’s potentially less of a matter of going off course as it is to just drifting and following along blindly. If you look at the majority they are unwell and unhappy (67% of Australians are overweight or obese, 47% divorce to marriage rate in 2019 and 48% are actively looking for new jobs – ABS).
If this is you and you are curious as to what other potential you have as a human being I really believe the first step is believing there is another way. Another life that you could be living.
The most simple way is to pull out a pen and paper in a quiet thought – provoking spot and write down your perfect day without placing any limitations (very hard to do) on yourself at all. What would it look like? How close is it to that currently?
However far away it feels or looks start with either A) something small that can make a difference and start a snowball effect of change, or B) Rip the band aid off and make the big change that carries over to everything. Working in a job you don’t like and have a burning desire to start a business? Do it. Unhappy in your relationship? End it. Take the power back and own it like you deserve.
See you on the flip side – hopefully that grass is greener and lusher and the human condition of wanting more keeps us growing so we can enjoy the journey as well.