Why Am I Getting A Puppy When My Life Is Already Busy?

Why would someone already 100 miles an hour like me choose to get a puppy? 

Because it’s not about being less busy - it’s about adding the right kind of energy. 

This episode explores playfulness, grief, connection and designing a life that actually fits who you are. 

Key takeaways:

1️⃣ Busy Isn’t the Question - Alignment Is

 It’s not about how full your life is.
 It’s about whether what fills it aligns with who you are.

2️⃣ Know What You Need - Then Build Around It

 Clarity about self makes decision-making simpler.
 Not easy, but simpler.

3️⃣ One Word Can Be a Compass

My word is: Playful.

Playfulness isn’t trivial.
It’s a regulation tool.
It’s a processing tool.
It’s a survival tool.

4️⃣ Playfulness Is a Doorway to Hard Emotions  - Not an Escape From Them

 Humour and play can create safety around pain, without diminishing it.

5️⃣ Design Your Life Around What Works for You

 Instead of asking “Does this fit my current life?”
 Ask “Can I design my life to support who I want to be?”

6️⃣ Focus on What It Says Hello To - Not Goodbye To

Expansion requires choosing where you place your attention.

7️⃣ Structure Isn’t Confining - It’s Containing

Sometimes the thing that feels like “another commitment” is actually regulation disguised as responsibility.

8️⃣ Connection Is a Non-Negotiable Human Need

The puppy becomes symbolic of leaning toward:

• Companionship
• Love
• Presence

9️⃣ Choosing Growth Despite Nerves

If you’re both nervous and excited, you’re probably expanding.

Hit follow/subscribe, and if this lands, send it to someone in your world who needs a push to press go.

About the host:
I am a mental health and wellbeing coach who supports adults with busy brains — including ADHD — to find calm, clarity, and self-trust.

Support beyond the podcast:
I offer a free, no-obligation 30-minute call.
You’ll find my contact details below:

https://www.goodtothinkdifferently.com/coaching
ben@goodtothinkdifferently.com

Transcript

Ben (00:04)
I tried recording this episode earlier this week, but I've been trying to juggle so many different plates that I felt incredibly overwhelmed. I tried recording, but honestly, I was so low on brain juice that what came out of my recordings was really not fit for sharing. Creating these weekly podcasts has been wonderful structure and commitment for me.

I've been feeling so, guilty as this week has crept on without me having committed my voice to a recording. So what I've done is I've taken a few gloriously failed attempts and made myself a script based on those recordings. Because sometimes when we feel a bit broken, we need whatever scaffolding works for us. Friends or in this instance, structure and clarity. So here I am sat on my sofa, 642.

recording my scripted podcast. Over the weekend, I chose a puppy with the kids. Anyone that knows me knows I am a hundred miles an hour with loads of different things going on, loads of commitments, and they would be completely forgiven for saying to me, why on earth are you getting a puppy Ben? Don't you have enough shit going on in your life? The honest answer is yes.

But I would say I don't have enough of the right kind of a hundred mile an hour positive energy in my life. It's not about being busy. I'm already busy. It's about the kind of energy I'm living inside. These days I know who I am and I know what I need in my life. And that always makes it easier navigating my way forward. My approach is not rocket science.

When there's so much noise in the world, you can make navigating things and creating more, a more harmonious life simpler when you know what you need as a person. And for me, that's playfulness. I have a playful approach to life. I'm living my best life when I'm at play. Playfulness is a huge part of that. I love being that person.

When life can be all consuming, if I can ask myself the strangest of questions at those times, how can I make things a bit more playful? How can I introduce playfulness here?

No matter how uncomfortable or strange that question might be at the time, I invariably find the answer through that one word, playfulness. And I guess what I'm saying here is that playfulness hasn't just been a nice little add-on for me, it's been a survival tool. It's helped me through some of the most challenging times in my life. It's helped me navigate the loss of my daughter, the loss of my best friend.

Incredibly challenging points in my life where I've maybe been trying to write a funeral speech and things have felt so heavy, so unbelievably cloggy. And the key to unlocking that has turned out to be being playful. But being playful doesn't mean making light of things. It means sometimes for me finding a way to bridge that gap, to start processing things.

to unlock other emotions, to make talking about things feel easier. For heaven's sake, I started off the funeral speech for my own daughter with, when a man loves a woman and you know the rest, sometimes there is cause for a pregnancy test. From Wee on a Stick, a plus sign had come when we first did Marvel at what we'd begun.

It relaxed me. It relaxed the audience in the crematorium.

And it paved the way certainly for me to processing those raw emotions, not making light of them, actually creating a direct pathway straight to them. So finding my way back to my earlier point about playfulness. I decided well over a year ago that I was getting a dog. I've always wanted to have a dog.

And I'm choosing to design my life around a lifestyle with a dog because that's a lifestyle that will work better for me. Not because my life is calm, but because I know what helps me feel more like me.

So what does that bring me?

Getting a puppy certainly brings playful energy.

It's going to be incredibly demanding. I have never raised a puppy before.

But most importantly, I need to concentrate on what it's saying hello to.

not the commitments, the restrictions and all those things that can overwhelm you. It's welcoming play. It's welcoming love. It's getting me up and out every day. It's holding myself accountable. It's giving myself structure, routine. It's giving me company when my kids aren't with me. It's finding something that can match my own puppy dog-like enthusiasm for life.

It's getting me out to exploring. It's making playful more of my default setting. Sometimes what looks like just another commitment is actually structure. Sometimes it's containment. Sometimes it's actually regulation disguised as responsibility.

and I'm going to see what this dog can teach me.

But it also brings me as connection. A word that I am so deeply, deeply passionate about. We all need connection. But we don't always know what connection is until we found it. Or until we've lost it. We don't have to go back very far to look at what disconnection felt like with COVID. Well, I choose connection.

I've had 30 years where I've struggled with cycles of poor mental health.

And the more I pay attention to myself, the more I realize when I lean into companionship, when I lean into love, when I critically lean into playfulness, life softens. Well, I'm leaning into companionship. I'm leaning into love. I'm leaning into my word, playfulness, to see where it can really take me.

And bloody hell yes, I'm nervous. I'm absolutely shitting myself. But I look forward to what I can teach the dog and what the dog can teach me.

that word connection. In the same way I learned from my kids about life, I'll learn from a puppy. So maybe this episode isn't just about getting a puppy.

Maybe it's about asking yourself, what's your word?

What kind of energy are you designing your life around? And are you saying no to things because you're too busy? Or because they're not aligned with the life that you want to live? Maybe your version of a puppy is something that brings routine, connection and a bit more aliveness into your life. Is aliveness a word? Anyway,

Maybe I'll have the cover of this podcast episode as the puppy.

Yeah, maybe I'll do that. But right now I think I'm about to start rambling. So I'm off to get myself a cuppa. And I'll see you in the next episode.