I don’t know what I want but I know it’s not this
I’m still not sure about this title… its kinda long… but it’s also pretty late and I’m about two glasses of red wine in, so the good old (half drunk) “Ah, f*ck it” prevailed — as it always does — and I decided to run with it.
Dont judge me.
Today I want to talk about work and how SMILEY ON THE INSIDE it does (or doesn’t) make you feel. I’ve been feeling for a while that, while I’d probably prefer to just sit at home all day, make-up-less, in gym clothes (have I worked out, have I not? You’ll never know) and left alone to work on my writing projects — that wont get me paid, and so I embarked on a “How to work while also feeling happy and fulfilled” journey, which was mostly about figuring out how to do what I want to do but still make a living (so I don’t have to live in a tent in my parents backyard and eat two minute noodles).
Let me paint a picture for you
My 5am alarm starts blaring, marking the beginning of another day. I imagine it like that scene out of that movie ‘Groundhog Day’ (will anyone get my dinosaur Bill Murray reference here?) Someone’s got to — it’s Feb 2 and his clock radio wakes him, blaring out that song “I Got You Babe’. He crawls out of bed and starts the same mundane morning routine of getting ready for work. He steps in the same pothole out on the street and greets the same old annoying friend, having the same exact conversation with him. Over and over again, this day (Feb 2) repeats until he realises he stuck in some weird karmic cycle
I feel ya, Bill. I feel ya. My days sometimes feel the same:
- 5am alarm;
- Morning walk (did I mention coffee? coffee gets several special mentions)
- Writing/reading/etc etc FUN TIMES IN MY LIVING ROOM (but only for 1 hour)
- *Puts on Legal Secretary garb* (dress in something corporate and stuffy) and make my way over to my second home (the work office), where I diligently fulfil my Legal ‘Secc-ing’ duties — take an hour lunch break — then back to Legal Secc-ing duties.
- After that it’s home time, I have a few hours for more ME TIME activities, if I’m not too tired (but yes, I usually am) followed by dinner and/or wine and bedtime.
And on and on we go, the next few dayssssss looks much the same
Now, look, I DO genuinely like my job. For the most part, its mentally stimulating and interesting. It’s just, I can’t shake the feeling that, in the grand scheme of things, I come to my place of work, sit uptight at a desk all day, typing things and emailing people I’ve never met, stapling and filing, for the vast majority of my week.
Kind of like I’m stuck in a hamster wheel routine of:
WAKE; WORK; SLEEP; REPEAT — with no real bloody point to my days.
On top of that, lately (the past year or so, actually), my mind’s been relentlessly chiming in with:
“Not this. This isn’t for you anymore, mate”
Like it’s trying to tell me to stop faffing about, wasting time and to get on with my writing and Life Coaching escapades…
I’m sure you know what I mean
If I were to ask you: “Would you be really DEVO if you lost you job tomorrow?”
and your answer was “OHMYGOD, YES” then you obviously got something right and you’re in the right industry, claps for you clever human
But if you’re answer is that you would be stoked/relieved/thankful…. Errr…. Well time to move on to your next project, isn’t it?
My latest writing muse, Ash Ambridge, says:
“Too often we do things ‘just because’
Because that’s the way things are done;
Because someone told you to;
Because that’s the way the world works;
But most importantly, because we don’t want to have to think too hard about it. Thinking is work. We don’t want to have to do more work.”
Disclosure: I didn’t write that. That was an excerpt from: “You don’t need a job, you need guts” — by aforementioned babe, Ash. Get it, honestly. It’ll be the best $22 you ever spent on reading material
So, anyway, the point –
2016 seemed to be the year that I was no longer of an age to be dismissing my “ARE YOU LISTENING!? I SAID NOT THIS!” that my mind was yelling at me about my safe — but boring — work/life choices, thus far. Hence the decision to dive into a Life Coaching Course and starting my own blog. THEN things started to look up. I found that little voice (Nance) had started to say: “Yes — f*cking finally, babe” rather than the usual: “No, not this, you moron” .
It’s important to listen to, and be guided by, that internal gut feeling -no matter how whiney and petulant it seems.
If you greeted the New Year with the same sort of dread over your “groundhog- day-like’ work repetitiveness, I encourage you to, first of all at least acknowledge it and second of all, see what you can do about it
“Ah, but Rebecca, it’s all too hard”
I know, I feel ya –
BUT, is it really? Doesn’t your 9–5 hamster-wheel life feel harder?
Suppose you’re still working in the same dead-end job that JUST PAYS THE BILLS but is the psychological equivalent of sniffing paint fumes, or suppose you’ve found a new venture this last year and you’d really like to pursue that but you have no goddamn idea how, SO YOU HAVEN’T or maybe you’re just a wee bit stuck…thinking, NOT THIS, BUT WHAT ??
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?
Have you noticed that, generally, your mind has an immediate response? You usually know exactly what it is you’d rather be doing if push came to shove…
We’re pretty cluey things, us humans
A few seemingly clever people have suggested you revert back to when you were a child and think about what it was you remember having a passion for back then. Most children know what they want to be, with fierce determination. That is, of course, before they grow older and are tainted by what us adult’s tell them is, either:
- a good idea;
- has the best earning potential and/or
- would make their parents most proud.
Thanks dream squishers!
I always wanted to write. Since I was about 10 I’d write my own short stories and proudly parade them in front of my parents faces, staying up late at night to make my own book (like literally, I’d make a cover page and bind it with ribbon and everything). I didn’t think about the details very hard, like what a writer’s average annual wage is or how impressed other people would be (or rather, not be, when I told them). Funny, that I’ve come back to writing, after all those years of stuffing around.
While my income as a writer is not yet sustainable to pay for all the adult things I’ve accumulated, it’s definitely growing and I can now see this being a viable option for me.
Think back to when you were a wee one. What did you LOVE to do and say, with childlike confidence, that you would be when you grew up?
How can you combine that with something that people NEED and are willing to pay you for so that you can carve out a more meaningful career for yourself?
What are you good at that sets you apart from all those other shiny, special humans?
I wrote some more about this MESHING together of:
- What you’re pretty nifty at, and;
- What people will pay you to do
You’ll find it in the form of my blogs under the “10-DAY BLOG CHALLENGE (with Natalie Sisson). Check it out on my site.
One more thing i’ll say is that, truthfully, if you’re pursuing something that you’re madly passionate about and that makes you TINGLE with excitement then I’m pretty certain you can’t really go wrong.
x Bec
(Originally posted here)
