At last, it happened. I faced and shared several times in the past many moments where sitting down and write has been very difficult, but I always found the motivation to push myself and my heart over the obstacle. This week, I completely gave up for the first time.
I’ll spend some minutes to reflect on what is happening, and take the opportunity to anticipate that next week I’ll be in Paris on a vacation, and I could either miss the weekly post or prepare a very light one in a similar fashion to the ones I prepared to get me some slack during August. Setting expectations.
Takeaways (TL:DR)
Failure shouldn’t be negative, it should always be an opportunity of reflection and growth. A lesson to learn or at least ringing a bell to remember to stop, take a breath, understand what happened and correct the trajectory.
🍊 Welcome to the latest issue of Already, Yet – a weekly retrospective about not feeling ready, but doing things anyway.
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Weekly retrospective
Monday evening is the time I usually dedicate to write this newsletter, and Tuesday noon is usually programmed as the time to publish the weekly post. This Monday I sat down to write and:
I had a dense fog over the memories of the events of the previous week;
I was so tired and craved for distractions and entertainment.
Usually I get myself a shake and up till now I got motivated by preserving consistency in the practice. This time, I gave up.
Let’s give a better look at the two points, going backwards.
Self-care and energy levels
The season has changed and most of our bodies need some energy to adapt to the new situation. October has been a month packed of traveling, events, and very little time to stop and recharge. The higher rhythm at work piled up with my choice add a couple of new activities in my schedule that are somewhat aimed at taking time for or care of myself, but still they involve processes that drain time from my schedule and energy from my reserve.
The fact that I haven’t had enough energy left for writing — something that is not consistently part of my routine and that I’m committed to preserve — is a clear alarm that I’m not managing my health, physical, mental and emotional energy with care and respect. I even noticed I struggled to maintain healthy habits about food and sport. A lot of puzzle pieces that form a pretty clear picture.
It’s probably not a coincidence that this happened the last week before my long awaited week of time-off from work, the one that I didn’t get the chance to enjoy during summer. It’s time to rest, look at things from a distance and make space for what will come in the next weeks to the end of the year.
I should — as well as everyone should — prioritise my health and wellbeing in order to be prepared and effective to confront with all the things that I like and that my daily life presents along the path, take decisions with intention, and be present to my life inside and outside of work. This is vital in order to keep growing and to be the professional I want to become.
Motivation and drivers
Giving up on writing I believe is the surface evidence of me giving up on something bigger related to it. I began to write this newsletter to avoid autopilot at work, to force myself to be present, to push my boundaries and challenge myself to become a leader and do things that could let me grow. But acknowledging the fact that I couldn’t even remember what happened to me in the previous week is the demonstration that I completely failed to fulfil this intention.
At the beginning, knowing that I had to write the newsletter encouraged me to actively challenge myself into situations that could become a valuable story to share in the future. Later on, writing became a moment of reflection to passively find a lesson on whatever happened in the past week. As a natural course of events, autopilot completely kicked in and I found myself in the fog that pushed me into giving up on this week post.
Already, yet is the reflection of the effort I put into my journey of personal growth, from this perspective it keeps proving to be a very effective tool of self-awareness, giving me a sense of my behaviour with an external confrontation.
On the other hand, I have to renovate or revise my intentions, and try to stick to them with more clarity in the future. Hoping it gives a new energy to my professional and personal growth and that it will reflect on better content for this blog in the future.
Have you had any time recently to stop and reflect on what you are doing and being intentional and present to your decisions?
Let me know in the comments if you want.
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Thanks for reading to the finish and see you next week!
Tobia