You’re in a place that opportunities come your way like crazy. You already have a job and a side hustle, plus a hobby that you want to invest more time at. Even though your 24 hours of the day don’t seem to be enough you are not willing to let go any of the above. Each and every one of the opportunities seem to have great potential and you start to believe that the solution to balance all this stuff is to better manage your time so that you’ll be able to excel at all of them at the same time.
Well I’ve got news for you and they are not that nice.
Almost always it doesn’t end well, when you try to manage multiple things simultaneously. So the first thing that you need to make is a decision. De-cesion. When we decide we need to cut off a bunch of other stuff. The way that I personally make decisions is by focusing on what’s the outcome from each situation. What do I want? Because how can I make a decision if I don’t know what I want, right? What path should I take if I don’t know where I’m going?
Most people say, “I want more money”, “I want more time”, or “I want more opportunities”. But all these are too vague. You need to be really specific of what it is that you want. For example, when it comes to professional life and career, what it is that you really want? But before you start ranting about all the things that excite you and you are working on at the moment let me tell you a story.
Five years ago, and only a year after I’ve just graduated from the Interior Architecture Faculty, I was working in an interior architecture practice, had some clients of my own as a graphic designer / photographer and was running an independent magazine along with my best friend from scratch. Needless to say that I was burned out, I had little money and I was super stressed about what the future would bring. On the bright side, I was doing some super cool creative stuff though, right?
The thing is that we don’t need to be compromising financial security for happiness and vice versa. We can have both. What helped me in the long run, even though I couldn’t see it back then was to identify what outcome I would like to have from committing myself to one thing entirely. Identify how I would like to feel in my future ideal state. I am craving for creative expression, but also to be understood and appreciated as a creative person. Money is a top priority for me too, not for the sake of it, but for the security and stability that it brings, the feeling of relief and of freedom that I want for my life.
What we all want really is a feeling. We want to feel a certain way. But here’s the crazy thing. There’s a difference between vehicles, the things that we thing they’ll give us these feelings, and values, which are those feelings themselves. The mistake that I was making is that I was chasing multiple vehicles. And you can’t chase more than one. What you need to do is to find one vehicle to meet all of your values. You need to find a way to get your emotional needs met in one vehicle. The cool thing is, that kind it doesn’t really matter what that vehicle is. Because when you find a way to get your values met, you don’t miss all the other things that only keep you busy. Focus on how you will get this feelings day to day and all the other things will come.
The trap is when we chase the vehicle. Should I do this? Should I do that? And what happens when you chase multiple vehicles at once? Well, you won’t get any of them!
Be clear about those values; about the emotions that get you up from the bed every morning and chose realistically the one vehicle that will allow you to achieve these feelings. Those that are missing you can create by asking yourself: How do I create that into that vehicle? What do I need to do to get that same feeling? You need to find a way to get these feelings each day by…(fill the blank space), not wait to feel in a certain way at some point in the future.
Whatever path you’ll take there will be some hard parts along the way and this will suck. it is inevitable. But if you can still find a way to get your values met, then they gonna give you those feelings and this, I think, is the way to a fulfilling life.
Music to listen to while reading this post: https://youtu.be/mPymRFeTJa4
Taste: Organic Greek Saffron Herbal Tea
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