Today I broke my streak. And I had a good one going. We’re not talking hours or days here, but weeks. Pretty epic really, maybe even a personal best but I’ll need to confirm that. What is this impressive streak, you ask? Weeks and weeks of groggy early morning anxiety and mental fatigue.
Why have I been feeling like ass in the morning?
- Time management. I’m sucking at it. Like, really sucking. Nothing new, I’ve never been good at managing time and tasks but for years I had an elegant solution…work every waking hour of every single day no matter what. This worked great throughout my 20s and much of my 30s. It’s how I built my freelance business, how Jeff and I built our company, and is why I have a pretty cool life today. This approach definitely has it’s benefits and I highly recommend busting ass. But I’m 39 years old now (the fuck?) and have a whole new set of priorities. Working endlessly isn’t one of them.
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I’ve abandoned all daily practice. Meditation, reading, exercise, biking…psss, ain’t doin’ any of that shit. Fell off the wagon a while ago and just been watching that sucker disappear into the sunset.
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Consumption. Food, drugs, alcohol, media, ideas, information. Each on their own and with proper intention is great. Smashed together and swallowed whole on a daily basis? Less great.
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Sleep. I hear it’s good for you…
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Connection. I’ve disengaged from my community. I go months without talking to the people who mean everything to me. Turns out that’s a super bad idea.
So why do I not feel like ass this morning?
I ate a shitload of Xanax. BAM. Problems: solved.
I kid, I kid.
The actual reason is simple, I jumped back on the damn wagon. Started yesterday with 30 mins of meditation followed by another 30 or so mins of stretching and light exercise. I committed to a useless-media-free day (by useless I mean tv, news, purposeless social media browsing, etc.) by forcing myself to shut it down and yelling at myself when I resisted. I journaled and created a doable list of tasks for the day. Yada yada. All the basic shiz that shouldn’t need to be written about but, well, here I am.
The larger reason for my assless(?) morning, however, has to do with the connection bit. That’s the good stuff. Creating space to connect with people and share and exchange ideas. To know that others care and to express our own gratitude and love for others. Again, obvious, but easy to lose sight of sometimes.
So yesterday was a day of connection. I jumped on Skype for a couple hours with my man Danny Nguyen and talked about everything from entrepreneurship to relationships to family history to passion projects and the challenges of bringing those to life. Hugely enriching conversation that we’re both still buzzing from today.
After that was a brainstorming session with my friend Xavier Anthony Apostol around volunteerism and how we can be of greater service to people.
Finished off the day working with La Toia to build out her website and further tighten up her brand messaging and focus for her business.
By choosing, yesterday, to get back to some simple daily practices and doing the things I find fun and valuable, this morning felt like a breath of fresh air.
Now…to rinse and repeat.