The importance of enjoying the ride

A little innocent research

This weekend, I was doing some digging in the ol' Google to find similar content to what I have here on the blog. I typed in some of the keywords I've been using in my posts to see who else felt the way I feel and to actively start building the community I want to be a part of. I found many amazing Washington Post and The Times Magazine articles about corporate millennials, their challenges, their social-economical context, and even some about burnout, which literally glued my eyes to the computer screen for a few hours and were an absolute pleasure to read. But I failed to find actual blogs that were centered around it.

I knew it was probably an issue with the keywords I was using or even the Google algorithm, which was new to me researching this type of content, although I'm still not sure how it works. So I went straight to Chat GPT. The prompt I gave it, after some back and forth, was the following: can you recommend other blogs that go into the same subject as I do?

The AI tool immediately gave me a list of 7 different blogs that talked about the struggles of corporate life, among some other topics, and I started looking. But man, 7?? Just 7? I guess you'll be seeing a blog post on my theory about why that is, but I digress.

Off I went to explore some of these blogs and I came across a particular post in a blog called Tiny Buddha.

Tiny Buddha, big wisdom

The article was about the dichotomy between what the author called Beast mode x Best mode. She then contextualizes it with her own experience and how she changed her perspective on work/life balance. That spoke to me as this will be one of the probations I'll have to go through when I get a job position somewhere, or even if I make it as a freelance service provider in the next few months. I make a point to register all of my learnings from my burnout and unemployment but how will I act when it actually comes the time?

Here is something about me I haven't mentioned before: I get REALLY excited when

1. I get to go deep into a topic I've been loving

2. I'm new to something and I want to explore

3. I vibe with a new experience

4. I want to prove myself

5. I'm faced with a challenge I find complex but not hard

Honestly, those are also (hopefully) things you would expect to find in a new job, right? If I do things right, I'll hopefully land somewhere that has to do with topics I'm passionate about and the people will be welcoming enough for me to feel comfortable spending my day-to-day with them. As with anything new, there will be the challenges of picking up a new role and I'll want to prove myself worthy, for sure.

In my personal experience, all these lead to the urge to (you guessed it) overwork. It won't feel like it at the beginning, because I'll be too excited to stop but I'll certainly create the impression to my peers and leaders that this is my normal, which might be true for the first few months but is not at all sustainable.

If it doesn't go as well as I hope, if my managers are not so good with learning curves, or if I don't feel welcomed, the overworking will come from a place of fear and anxiety. The mental load it would have for me to learn and complete basic tasks would be too great to make it sustainable.

Both of those behavior types relate to what the Tiny Buddha author calls the Beast mode. The work hard no matter what, work when they sleep, maximum effort, maximum speed, and maximum output mindset is great when the goal is short or even medium-term, but that doesn't translate well into a balanced and fulfilling life.

That, again, takes me to my new core values I discussed here.

Balancing the personal and professional aspects of my life is more than just dividing my time between both of those. Is the mental space you give to both aspects, their intrinsic activities and experiences, and how much energy you put into them. It doesn't mean it has to be always divided equally because that is just impossible. We'll all have phases where we are more focused on one or the other, but there must be a balance there.

So what does balance mean?

For me, it is first and foremost about respecting yourself and your needs. It is caring for yourself and your goals, putting it all into perspective, and doing what feels right. Sometimes, self-care is actually sitting down, researching, and writing a blog post for hours because you have a goal of posting X amount of posts per week, and that will bring you more relief and joy than spending 30 minutes in a bath. Other times, you know you got a list of things to get done but you are so mentally exhausted that a 30-minute bath will recharge you enough to get things going again.

In hindsight, what feels harmonious and energizing to you should be done often. Chores and other life "obligations" are necessary, of course, but we need to feel, overall, just right.

I believe this is a whole topic in and of itself and I really recommend a book by Grace Beverly called Working Hard, Hardly Working that goes in more depth about it!

After all, how do I enjoy the ride?

Enjoying the ride, for me has to do with what feels peaceful, harmonious, and right for you. It's about respecting your pace, your experience and taking action that makes sense with what you realistically want out of life.

Bringing your passions into your routine also makes the biggest difference and that can be in the form of a hobby or fusing it with your income stream, which is what I'm striving to do.

It's also about being kind to yourself when making mistakes because they are unavoidable and a huge part of learning. A mistake does not mean you fail and I'm still trying to get that into my head.

What do you think? Do you agree? How has your ride been treating you?

X.O.

IAS