Never have time to sit still?

On Friday I joined ONLE’s Mastermind session, this month lead by the wonderful Louise Miller, who helps busy business owners go ‘from Frazzled and Frantic to Focus and Flow’. The session focussed on overwhelm, discussing how we recognise overwhelm and what we do about it. There were some great conversations and a number of people shared the feeling of never being able to sit still, always having so much to do etc. 

I resonated with this because that used to be me. I always felt like I was running behind. Every spare moment would be filled with something. Queuing in a shop - answer some emails, driving - planning ahead for my next conversation, social media post etc. Lunch - the odd mouthful in between working at my desk (that’s if I didn’t just skip it completely)… even a rare coffee with a friend would be punctuated with me picking my phone to respond to a message or check an email. 

It just felt like it was the only way to get everything done. I couldn’t be one of those lazy people who had lie ins at weekends or spent the evening watching tv. I needed to make something of my life, needed to hustle and be different to all those average people living average lives. 

At least that’s what the ‘experts’ and business coaches were telling me. Every book I read on being successful told me I had to get up at 5am and work harder and be more dedicated than the others. 

And I believed it. I’d worked hard at school and done well. If I kept doing I’d make it, just have to keep working really hard, keep moving fast all the time…. I felt like I was constantly running and surviving on adrenaline and at the time I quite liked it because I thought it was something to be proud of. People would say to me ‘you work so hard’ and ‘you do so much’ with seemingly admiration. I was proud of being a hard worker - and I knew that would make my parents proud… 

But working non-stop and running on adrenalin is not sustainable. I would burnout, completely exhausted and spend a few days in bed recovering, while still responding to some emails or watching YouTube videos to learn more about how to be a success… and yet it still somehow felt like I wasn’t doing enough. 

At the time I wasn’t really aware of how I was feeling or how exhausted I was… I didn’t stop long enough to actually feel anything! 

The start of the change for me was when I went over to Ghana to work in a school run a friend’s family. The pace in Ghana is somewhat different to London, it has to be because they have a different infrastructure - the power is not as stable and black outs are common, which also means you don’t have internet everywhere you go… and for a large portion of the community they are not concerns because their homes do not have electricity or even running water. 

But while the country may lack in infrastructure compared to the UK, the culture is overflowing with music, song & dance, shared time with family & community. 

My routine there forced me to slow down. I didn’t have a packed schedule. I spent a lot of time alone. I filled my evenings and weekends with reading, some dance and a lot of time for reflection. 

I saw how people with very little by UK standards, actually had so much, and while they lived hard lives, for the most part, they seemed happy. 

Which got me thinking… what are we all running on that giant hamster wheel for? What is the end game? To have more money? To live in a bigger home? To buy more stuff? 

Or to prove our worth? To find our place in society and be in the section of society with money? To make our parents proud? To provide a ‘good’ life for our children? 

I realised pretty quickly that I didn’t want to return to the ‘rat race’ of London. I was already reading a lot about personal development and I started to consider what really mattered to me… what did I want my future life to look like? It wasn’t completely clear, but I knew that I wanted to be more present, I wanted to have time to spend with friends instead of always being too busy working, I wanted to enjoy life! 

The next big shift for me came after returning to UK, at the end of my NLP Practitioner Course.

I’d been interested in NLP for a while and decided it would be a great thing to learn to help my dance and fitness clients at a deeper level. During a ‘chunking’ exercise about what was important to me I kept coming back to the phrase ‘I just want to be me’. It doesn’t sound very profound.. but that moment was when I realised I was tired of constantly feeling like I had to be something else, something more, that underlying feeling of not be ‘good enough’.

I deeply wanted to not have to keep striving for something more.. and I asked myself the question,

What if I never achieved anything else in my life? What if this was all I ever was?’

And my answer to that was, well that would be ok, sure there’s a ton of tuff I’d like to do but if I didn’t would it be the end of the world? Would my family still love me? Had I made an impact with my life? Yes, it was such a feeling of relief, like a sense of permission that I didn’t have to keep striving to be the best, I could just be happy with where I was and who I was. 

Of course that isn’t the end of the story… since then I’ve had a lot of personal development and coaching, and I continue to discover more about myself as I support others as a coach myself. But it was the start of a life with a lot more peace, fulfilment and time to appreciate what I have, without always needing to strive for more. 

I still have ambition and things I’d like to achieve, but my priorities are clear and I try to be present to who I am with and what I am doing. I rest and make time for fun, without feeling the need to earn it. I choose to do work that I truly enjoy and excites me, and say no to anything that doesn’t. And while my life is not perfect, it’s a much better way of living than when I was trying so hard to prove myself by constantly doing and running on that endless treadmill. 

So I’d like to leave you with this question:

What if you never achieved anything more than where you are in your life today?

Of course there’s no right or wrong answer, but the answers might lead you to notice the reasons behind your desire to achieve, and consider whether those reasons are serving you, or not…

ONLE is a fantastic Networking Group I am part of, if you’d like to know more check them out here: https://theonle.network/

Find out more about Louise Miller here: https://www.bettylouonline.com/