Striking a Balance: The Art of Juggling Career and Personal Life

Are you ready to master the art of having it all without compromising? Ever wondered if you could maintain a high drive for success while also being able to switch off at home and be present with those you love? I did, and discovered that it's not only possible, but crucial.  My gentle rebellion demonstrates that you don't need to give up an essential part of yourself to be successful, and I'll unpack the ways in which I've integrated mind, body and heart living for a more joyful, purposeful existence.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Overwhelming's optional podcast where each week, we find ways to gently rebel against the nonsense that overwhelming exhaustion are just the price you pay to have the life you want. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to this week's episode. So I'm just back from my road trip and I'm really, really excited because I feel like I know something big has shifted for me. So I was thinking about five years ago. I was still in that professional, overwhelmed, cross-exhaustion phase of my life, although five years ago this month, I was actually in the middle of my yoga teacher training. So I just finished my intensive part, working with the Zen Master, and that had completely changed my life. And now I was doing all of the rushing to get everything done before time started again and I had a new job to go into where I'd cut my hours in half or I hadn't cut my hours in half and quite managed to negotiate that, but I'd dramatically reduced my hours and I'd got rid of all of my extra responsibility, which for me was really difficult, and because the extra responsibility was what I loved the most and I'd taken a 50% pay cut and actually probably even more, and that was quite scary, except that I was really, really excited. So I was rushing well, not rushing, but I was intensely focused on completing my hours and my projects so I could gain this qualification to support my new business, which was completely within the realms of what I was capable of doing, what I'd already been doing a well-being business based on meditation and mindfulness and positive psychology and everything, and coaching. And I was just adding in this Zen yoga because I felt the need to get out of my head into my body and do something radically different in my 50th year. So that's where I was five years ago. And then, sadly or not, as it turns out, because we look at where I am now and it's all brilliant, but sadly I then just a couple of weeks from now, I guess. But we know, no, we've still got a month, haven't we? So at the beginning of September I went into this new job and I was full of hope that this was a really good place where I'd be able to work, and that they really understood that I was just working part-time and then I'd be working the rest of the time on my business.

Speaker 1: 2:21

And it didn't work out that way, because it's quite difficult within a school to do that. There aren't really that many people it's an odd behaviour. Teaching is very all or nothing, very, very completely consuming and it's not really done to have a life outside of work. And it's not just teaching, is it? So many professions where we work so intensely that the rest of the world gets shuttered until we come up for AM Realize there's a world outside of work?

Speaker 1: 2:55

Now, if you're like me, you're probably highly driven and I was talking to a client earlier about this and about actually we don't want to lose that part of ourselves, and it can be very easy to think that it's our fault for surfing that verge of breakdown, for working in such an intense way, in such a focused way that we are able to suck the rest of the world out. But then, when we come up for AM, it's really, really hard to let go of the work, switch off, be present with those we love, be that light-hearted, fluffier, lovely person that we are when we're not in that highly focused work mode. But what if you could get to keep the drive, the intense focus, that ability to really kick ass on projects at work and be fully present and switch off in the rest of your life? What if you could have both? Because to me. That's the having. It was a big part of the having it all. I get to keep that drive because that's who I am. It's not who everyone is and I know not everybody I know loves that about me, but I don't really care. That's who I am. I love that drive and I love that passion and I love that ability to focus to the point of the detriment of my health, especially now I've learnt to not do it for the detriment of my health and my sanity and my relationships. So what if you could keep that drive? What if you could actually increase it in a really positive way? Or if you could just be safe to focus really intensely on your work, knowing that you would be able to shut that down, wrap up your work, let go of your day and be fully present at home? What if you could have both? Wouldn't that be cool? Well, I'm here to report on my own personal story of this.

Speaker 1: 4:53

So, leading from the gentle rebellion, from the front of this gentle rebellion, where we gently rebel against the idea that to have the life we want, we have to sacrifice some fundamental part of ourselves our health, our ability to switch off, our ability to be present, our ability to sleep well, our ability to laugh easily, our ability to be ourselves, because we're not just the intense, focused person who's really reliable and good at, and kind of person who will just get stuff done at work. We're not just that person. There's a whole wider part of us that gets submerged in work, that gets crushed through the exhaustion and overwhelm which seems to be demanded at the moment in order to have that success at work. You can have all of it. This is what I've been working on for the last.

Speaker 1: 5:49

Well, I try to work on this in the middle of the madness, in the middle of a very intense career, and I failed. I'm not using that word failure in that sense, but I did fail because I've crushed my health and burnt out. So let's call that a failure. It's interesting, isn't it? That makes sense. You can call it a failure and then you can, but it's no good having failure. Failure is necessary. I don't mean it. To me it's not a failure as in well, that was a disaster and I haven't learned anything from it. No, it's a failure as in how I was going about. It definitely didn't work and I'm really grateful for that, which means that it's not a failure in my life. It's just a failure of an experiment, of working against myself.

Speaker 1: 6:34

So the way I was working was I was overusing my mind and disconnecting from my body and from my heart in order to create a successful life. And I created this successful life, as in was really successful in my career. I helped a lot of people, I Earned a lot of money, I Got my dream home. Lots of lots of good things. Not like it was a terrible time. Lots not good things.

Speaker 1: 7:04

But I was struggling all the time with the work. We call it work life balance. I don't really see it in that way. I see it as I Was struggling to be able to focus at work Because I was getting more and more overwhelmed, because, to me, I was overusing my mind. I didn't know at the time, obviously, if I knew and I could have done something about it. This is what I learned. And then I was struggling to switch off at home and it didn't seem to matter what I set up.

Speaker 1: 7:31

So, however well organized I got, however much I hacked my diet, my exercise, my sleep, whatever I did only temporarily patch things up and I thought I was winning and I also thought I didn't really have a choice, that this is just how things are, because everybody around me was Overwhelmed and exhausted. It was spoken of as but this is how things are, but it wasn't enough for me, because I want more than that. I want to be able to Really kick ass at work and be successful at work, and I want a life outside of work. I want both. I want to have it all and I'm not prepared to compromise anymore. In fact, it was the compromising and believing I couldn't have it. If I there was something wrong with me, like if I just wasn't so demanding of life, then everything would magically fall into place.

Speaker 1: 8:24

And I I did try the downsizing my dreams. So maybe I should just go through work, not expecting to kick ass, not expecting to do such a good job, not expecting to enjoy it as much or something, and just let go of the idea that I can have a life outside of work, apart from at certain times of the year, that kind of thing. We didn't work. None of it work. The more I compromise myself, the worse it got, actually, and I now know that's because I wasn't listening to myself. So the way I see it now, having been through that and now reflecting more and more on my Gender rebellion against that, because I know I learned to see it as a nonsense. It's clearly an onsens that Having a successful life means you have to sacrifice some essential part of yourself. It doesn't make any sense. That's not success by definition. Well, maybe it's success for you, but certainly not for me.

Speaker 1: 9:16

I want it all. I want to feel really well. I want to feel happy. I want peace of mind. I want to absolutely kick ass at work. I love working. I want to earn good money. I want to have vibrant health. I want to have good relationships. I want the ability to switch off, relax and have fun and be present in my life outside of work. I want all of it. I don't want to compromise and it's working.

Speaker 1: 9:41

My refusal to compromise and my absolute determination to find a way to have it all is working, and it's been working for years. Obviously, I've been talking about it on podcast. It's all there. You can read about my story. I blog regularly, speak about it regularly, but something big has shifted for me this month this year. So I haven't been in easy here for lots of reasons which I'm not going to go into because I don't discuss everything. It's not relevant. But it's not like it's easy to think, isn't it? It's easy, I know it's easy for me to look at somebody else, compare myself to them and think, well, it's okay for them, so let's just dump that rubbish.

Speaker 1: 10:21

Life still happens to me. Stuff happens which is out of my control, which isn't necessarily great, and I've had some awful things happen this year, but despite that, everything I practice has worked. So I still am able to choose to be happy, still able to focus at work and switch off in the rest of my life and be present, because I've practiced what I would call moving from living primarily in my mind, where I'm disconnected from my body, which is where my health goes, and I'm disconnected from my heart, which is this kind of like there's always something not quite right because I'm not really living in alignment with who I am in a way that works for me to mind, body, heart living, which is where I accept that my mind has a negative cause of bias I call human minds do safe from threats, and my mind in particular is easily overwhelmed. I don't know if everyone's is. I expect in general we do have that the mind is easily overwhelmed in order to save our life. But not everybody, not everybody's system seems to react in such a highly sensitive way as mine does or my client does. So it can.

Speaker 1: 11:52

This led me. In the past thing was something wrong with me, particularly as I have had from a young age where you're too sensitive, really unhelpful. But now, having done a lot of self-acceptance and getting to know myself, increasing myself, awareness with meditation and mindfulness, observing of myself, what I have developed into my own process called neutral, noticing, I now know that I'm not too sensitive. I see it as a gift, not a curse, and I take it into account. So if I know that my mind is easily overwhelmed, if I know that my whole system is sensitive, then I can nourish my mind, look after myself better and also work out how to use that to my planted. So what I believe now is our minds need the support of our bodies and our hearts. So our hearts are really helpful for finding what brings us joy, moving away from things that drain us and make us feel really sad, moving into more joy, feeling more joy. We can use our hearts to guide us and our bodies have so much wisdom.

Speaker 1: 13:14

Why are we googling how much water to drink when we have first. It makes no sense. Why are we spending so much time googling instead of trusting ourselves? Yes, there's a time for experts. Yes, there's a time for gathering knowledge, but if you're like me and you eat information for breakfast someone who's really good to take a break and just slow down. Go within, go to that silent part, connect, feel grounded, allow the nervous system to reset. Just listen. Listen to the body. What does the body need right now? Listen to the heart. What's going on for you?

Speaker 1: 13:51

Having the heart and the body support the mind allows for even better focus, which connects back to the drive. So when this ability to be very driven, when we connect it to purpose from the heart and when we look after the body so we have the energy to see through those projects, and when we use that to nourish the mind, plus taking note of what supports the mind, what allows the mind to be focused and to switch off, to go from deep focus at work, kicking us at work, to being fully present and able to play and hear other people at home Doing whatever it takes, so learning what works for you. So what I teach all my clients and what I teach on this podcast are what I call tiny, huge life changing practices, because to me, I always want the most I can get for the smallest effort. So let's take the smallest thing we can do that fits into our lives when we are busy, not waiting until so that we've got enough space to practice something. It's too hard. We need stuff that fits in and supports us while we're in the middle of the chaos.

Speaker 1: 15:04

That's what I specialize in, that's what I teach, that's what I use myself. So all I'm doing is creating practices for myself, creating them for my clients. So my one-to-one clients get bespoke stuff. Obviously because I'm all about high level of service and it matters very much that that is bespoke. Pulling stuff in that works for them, holding it with them, holding it with my group program get your life back. Constantly working on that. Holding things make it easier and easier and more playful. I think I know for a fact that one of the things my coaching clients love about me is that I will make it lighter. I'll make it as playful as possible, because we need to take the pressure off ourselves.

Speaker 1: 15:48

That doesn't mean we need to get rid of our drive, and this is really important. If you're really driven and you love that about yourself. Why would you want to get rid of it? It's super useful. There's people who would love to have that kind of drive, passion and focus. People need us to have that drive, passion and focus. It's absolutely fundamental to any place of work, any community. You need that. You need those leaders who can do that. So we don't want to get rid of drive, but we also don't want it to crush us. We want to work with it. And this is how we do it Just understanding that we've been taught to live primarily in our heads and it doesn't work.

Speaker 1: 16:30

When we learn to move to mind-body-heart living, when we use the wisdom of the body, when we listen to the body, the body is amazing, miraculous, self-healing, self-regulating, wellness-making machine. I mean, it's incredible. And the heart, the heart is this incredible centre. When you feel joy, you feel it in your heart. When you feel love, connection, all of the good stuff, it's your heart, it's the centre of your chest and you can allow that to spread out. You can feel that when you hug somebody who's really deeply connected to themselves, when something's full of love and connected to themselves, you can feel that it's very physical. You can feel it when different people walk into a room, the feeling of the room changes Very powerful and when we understand more about our own minds by observing our minds, what brings the chaos, what brings the overwhelm, what releases it, what brings peace of mind.

Speaker 1: 17:32

Knowing how you work matters. So we all have similarities and I work with a very particular niche. So this sounds like you welcome to my world and learning personally about you. So I want to know more and more about myself so I can live my full life and more and more about my niche of lovely, lovely people, driven, busy professionals who want their life back, who want deep focus at work and to be fully present in the rest of their lives. They want the freedom to be themselves. They want to keep the drive and the passion and the hard work not hard work as in I'm going to work really hard for the rest of my life, not in that exhausting way, but in that exciting, kicking ass kind of really deeply satisfied way. So getting to know yourself, that's your project, because it's like learning to fly your own ship. That's what I've been specialising in. And I just want to tell you about this road trip because to me it's a real significant moment in my gently rebellious journey that proves to me this stuff works on a bigger scale. I just feel like it's huge up level. I feel like I can see for miles and miles. I can see the possibilities for us together as a community. So this is what happened.

Speaker 1: 19:00

I wanted to visit lots of places in the north of England because I haven't been for a while. I used to live up there. There were places I was longing to go, hills I was longing to wander through, and anyway I've got a cousin in Scotland and he said when are you coming up? And I'd been promising for years and then we'd had the lockdown. So I'm like I need to go, but it's a long way and I love driving but I don't want, I don't like driving for like seven it's over seven hours away. The idea of driving for seven hours, staying and then coming back, it's not my kind of thing. I'd much rather take in the scenery on the way. So I thought, oh, road trip, road trip. And then I just mentioned it to my youngest son a couple of months ago and I said I'm thinking of going to see my cousin. Do you want a pump? And he said on two conditions one, I get to drive and two, you don't bring the dogs. I'm like that's fine by me. So that was amazing. That worked really, really well.

Speaker 1: 19:56

And the thing that threw me was that he said but let's not make it about accommodation. Now, I don't know about you, but as soon as I'm thinking about going somewhere I'm on Airbnb or hotels I want to find somewhere lovely. I really like good accommodation and I enjoy the process of looking for it. This threw me. I'm not going to make it about accommodation. What does that mean? And then it turned out it meant not even booking accommodation. It meant just going with the flow, just letting go of that. Now, to start with, this really threw me. Okay, this is interesting. This is the stipulation, and I tried pushing back about it when it wasn't working. So it will let go, just let go. Let's see. Let's be curious, or really curious about this. What would it be like to not book accommodation? What would it be like to not know where I'm going to sleep? What's coming up for you?

Speaker 1: 20:56

So what I like about this challenge is it takes me back in time to when I was a student. I went into raiding and I wouldn't know where I was going to be staying and I thought that's a really good thing to bring that back, that sense of adventure and freedom. We can both sit down. So I sat with the idea and the more I sat with it, the more I liked it Because my commitment is to freedom that's my highest value the more I liked this idea because it allowed me to practice this.

Speaker 1: 21:33

Now, what involved is the release of certain beliefs the belief that this wouldn't be safe, the belief that I wouldn't really enjoy it, the belief that I would be constantly thinking about where we're going to stay, that I'd be constantly worried about it. So it was very much the letting go of some beliefs, but it was also an opportunity to notice anxiety, to notice feelings of discomfort with the uncertainty. Now, if you listen to anything I've done before, written about before, I do have this thing about everything you want is on the inside of your comfort zone, and one of the really good practices that I do, one of the pillars of the practices I do with clients, is cultivating feelings of safety, because to me, if you're going to feel the fear and push through it, what you're actually doing is going against yourself. So your body and your mind, your whole nervous system, is involved to produce this threat response. If you then push through it, you're pushing against that, and I believe very strongly in living fully. And you could argue well, that is living outside your comfort zone. Yes, but it's how you stretch and expand yourself. So if you decide that everything you want is on the outside of your comfort zone, you're immediately deciding it's difficult to get, you're immediately bringing up anxiety and fear, unless, I would argue, unnecessarily. So my idea is that instead and we practice this and it works really well if you cultivate feelings of safety, if you tap into the fact that you are safe, if you allow your nervous system to calm and reset from that place of safety, you can find the courage to adventure and expand and grow. But if you decide that the only way you can have whatever it is you want next you have to push through fear and anxiety, well, that's not what's fine and it's also going against yourself, because there's a reason that we have that fear centre and that natural response to threat. Respecting that, but knowing that most of the time there isn't a bear, that, to me, is a really important part of gaining self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-knowledge, in order to have the freedom to be ourselves. So, instead of deciding that I was just going to feel the anxiety about not knowing where I was going to stay. Instead, I just decided to commit to the practice of feeling safe about it.

Speaker 1: 24:02

It's England okay, we went to Scotland. Slightly different country it's the UK. It's one of the best, safest, most lovely countries on the planet. We are so fortunate to live here. I love, love, love my country. The majority of people are kind and friendly and welcoming. We are always going to be near some form of accommodation. So what's the worst that can happen? We have to pay a bit more money or drive a few more miles. Nothing terrible is going to happen. If we booked somewhere we hated, we could leave.

Speaker 1: 24:36

So actually, once I started to look at it and embrace it curiously and as part of the adventure and as a practice of a commitment to freedom from anxiety, it was great and I got really into it and very soon I saw it as an exciting thing, which that in itself and this is even before we left that in itself to me is testament of the work I have done on myself of moving from mind-based living to mind-body-heart living. Because I was able to do that, I was able to commit to the practice, not to push through the anxiety, not to try and convince myself I was going to love not knowing where I was going to sleep, but, quite the opposite, to treat it as an adventure, as an opportunity to practice releasing anxiety and gaining more freedom and peace and peace of mind. And it was a really good practice and it served me really well. So this meant that even before we set up on the road trip, I was already feeling this feeling of freedom and ease and expansiveness. It was still a bit of a trap, but I was feeling good about it. So what else was going on? What else was I practicing to gain this beautiful freedom on this trip?

Speaker 1: 25:50

Well, another big thing was being able to wrap work up. So, whether you're employed or an entrepreneur, the ability to separate work from the rest of your life is essential in my opinion. It's definitely something I want and my clients want. I want the freedom to be fully involved in my work and then to let go. But having my own business, I've actually found that quite tricky. It was quite tricky, obviously, working in a very intense career, but I would manage it in the longer holidays, wouldn't manage it sit me well over weekends, or certainly not in evenings.

Speaker 1: 26:27

But this time I was determined and I don't think I've met. I've obviously had breaks. I take a winter retreat every Christmas time, but there was something bigger about this. There was something more expansive, more free, more separating from work. So I have really really good systems and they work well at being able to wrap work up at the end of every day, but I find it's an increasing practice because it's an intention. You can have good systems but unless you load them with the intention to use them to create more freedom, then you can just get more and more into getting more and more stuff done because they make you more productive. But productivity on its own unless it has a purpose. So for me, the purpose of it is to achieve more in my work and to be able to focus better in my work to do the things that actually matter, because most things don't, to do that top 20 or 5% of things really really well and to know that the rest is safe and can be parked for an hour or dropped or given to somebody else, but also to have the freedom to let go the week during the day it's me on holiday and it was working so the week leading up.

Speaker 1: 27:48

So I was wrapping my work up that week. I was feeling really good about it, but by the time I got to the Friday I was actually feeling a bit anxious. I hadn't recorded a podcast episode for last week and I just didn't like it. But I didn't have anything good to say and I don't want to just be saying stuff for the sake of it. I managed to let that go. That took some work. I also was attending the Mindvalley AI conference online, so that leaked into my first day off, which was the Saturday. That was kind of weird, but it was really good and I really enjoyed it. So I'm glad I did that.

Speaker 1: 28:22

But it meant that I didn't wrap it up on my work up on a Friday. I was still wrapping it up on a Saturday afternoon. In fact, when my son arrived, I was still in the middle of that. When he arrived to settle in, he has a cat. The cat comes here. He was staying the night before. We were leaving early the next morning and I was still in work mode. Not completely, I'd wrapped most of it up, I was just mainly in this conference.

Speaker 1: 28:47

But it was interesting that at the beginning of the week I was completely confident and celebrating the fact that I was wrapping my week up and excited about going away wrapping my business up for two more weeks. By the end of the week I was actually still holding on a little bit. Holding on a little bit was quite funny, but I was able to observe that. So it's not that I did it perfectly, but it was that I was able to observe that, notice it, drop the judgement and put in place practices to wrap up and intentionally let go, and I'm really proud of how I did that. I'm proud of how I noticed when it wasn't working, when it was working, and to do something about it. But I maintained that commitment to myself. I was going to take two whole weeks off. Even though I was only going to be away for 10 days, I was still taking two whole weeks off because that was really important to me. I didn't want to walk into a wall of work. Don't like that, not a big fan, like an ease back into work. That's really important to me, that works for me, what works for you.

Speaker 1: 29:47

And off we went and I'm really, really excited because I did it. I went on a 10-day road trip and I didn't think about my work. I did miss my clients. I must have. Is that a bit sloppy? I didn't miss them as in oh my goodness, I can't let them go. I just missed that interaction because I really really like my clients. But I didn't miss the work. I was able to let go. I knew where my boundaries were and I could see I could have a leaky boundary there where, oh, it doesn't matter if I just check in on them. No, they're grown-ups, they can look after themselves. Everything was pided up in this beautiful wrapping around and I was able to let go of work and be fully focused.

Speaker 1: 30:43

And what I really, really liked about the fact that we hadn't booked accommodation was that, although we had a rough outline of where we were going, so what we did is that we went up the East Coast of England to Scotland and then down the West Coast, and we had rough ideas of where we wanted to go, but we were still deciding as we went, because we get a lot of weather in the UK See, I don't know what's going to happen and our backup was because it was raining on the day we left and it had been raining up until then. Our backup was we can always go and see Mission Impossible, but we didn't need to go because everywhere we went, we bought the sunshine with us. We just honestly, we had amazing weather. Apart from getting rained on on the first day, we had incredible weather. We saw beautiful places and I felt really, really free and very, very present. That's what I'm celebrating Freedom and presence.

Speaker 1: 31:37

I've been really focused at work. I wrapped work up, I went on a road trip, I embraced the uncertainty and I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed myself. It gave me the world of good. I'm really able to reflect on that and say, yay, heidi, brilliant you. Because there was lots of uncertainty and I wasn't anxious about any of it.

Speaker 1: 32:02

There was an opportunity to see so many different places because we hadn't booked accommodation and because we weren't focused on food. There's something about food and accommodation. I guess it's just such a basic need, isn't it? Shelter and food Didn't base anything around either. And do you know how much time there is in the day when you're not doing either of those things? Like you wake up, I don't know. We were out of most places by 8 in the morning, and we would sometimes not arrive till 8 or 9 in the evening Well, that's like, and then you can still go for a walk and do things when you get some accommodation. We've got a proper full 12 hours of just exploring.

Speaker 1: 32:48

This country is so beautiful and there were so many places we went to and it was just beautiful, stunning. Yeah, there were some places which were disappointing that had good write-ups. But another thing I was practicing was really focusing on the feeling of ease, the feeling of freedom, all the good stuff, and also rehearsing the beautiful memories and letting go of the disappointing ones. So we went to one place on the East Coast and it was just a bit rubbish and we got lost on the way out because I don't like to have to be looking at screen all the time at the map, so we dropped the map, went on a bit of an interesting detour down a very dark, damp tree tunnel which took us probably a mile out of our way and it would have been more sensible to just retrace our steps. But who cares? It's an adventure and actually doing that much walking was really, really good for me, so I'm fine with that.

Speaker 1: 33:45

But then I just really let go of rehearsing the memory and all that place wasn't very good. You know how you can hear yourself moaning. Oh, the magazine said that place was supposed to be hidden beauty and it was absolutely rubbish and it was filthy. You can rehearse that and you can talk about it and then you just create more and more of that. Oh, you can just go well, that was a bit rubbish, and then you can focus on. This place we've gone to now is so amazing and you can stand in the most amazing places and embody it. So just absorb the feeling, absorb the beauty, absorb everything. I didn't even take that many photos. I've got some photos which I shall probably share on my blog, but mainly I was just really focused on being grateful, of rehearsing, of savouring, of being happy and choosing that every morning, just choosing happiness, waking up noticing that I'd slept well in a really comfortable bed.

Speaker 1: 34:47

So we stayed in the cheapest bed and breakfast or pubs that we could find and arrived at the last minute and left early. But every single place we went was really comfortable, really friendly and had brand new showers. Honestly, everywhere I slept really really well and actually one of the advantages of not staying in a really nice hotel is that there aren't so many lights. Do you know all those really annoying lights? We stayed in this bed and breakfast once and it had this. It had been done up so it had these fire exit lights, the smoke alarm lights, television lights. There's lights everywhere, cubency darkness. It's just not good. I actually have those blackout stickers you can get and I go around and put them in helpfully everywhere because people need sleep. But one of the really good things about picking cheaper establishments is they don't have all the junk light everywhere that you have to put stuff over absolutely brilliant, honestly. We met the most friendly people and went to just yeah, they were out of the way places to sleep, but they were always on the way.

Speaker 1: 36:03

So, because we were doing a road trip, the rule was you can't go backwards, you can only go sideways or forwards, so that meant we didn't really matter because you could end up in the middle of somewhere unheard of, but it was nearer to where you will go for a walk the next day. The whole thing. I just found the whole strategy really, really fascinating and it really gave me a sense of adventure and freedom and joy and ease and I absolutely loved it waking up every day, having slept well in a really comfortable bed, having really good shower and not worrying about do you get breakfast. So I've talked about this before, but I've been playing with intermittent fasting and that's also given me a sense of freedom, because I know that I won't get grumpy if I don't eat. I know that I'm okay if I don't eat. It's got rid of that constant thought about when's the next meal, because I know it's good for me to miss a meal. So I personally find that really, really helpful and so often we just didn't have breakfast and so then the next thing is okay. So I do like a really good cup of coffee and I'm on holiday. I'm definitely going to find a good cup of coffee. So that would be the first thing. Where are we going? Where's the best coffee? That's it.

Speaker 1: 37:18

I love the simplicity of that and actually I did struggle when I came home with the personally things to think about when you're at home. It's like coming home to complexity, which is odd because I've set my life up to work for me, so you think that wouldn't happen and my children have grown up. But there's the running of a house, the building of a home. You know there's lots going on and also it's partly me. I know that I create chaos because I always have lots of projects going on. So just before I left, the builders were finishing up. I was really grateful to come back to find pretty much that was done. There would always be lots to come back to, because I'm that kind of person, but I really, really enjoyed the feeling of simplicity.

Speaker 1: 38:05

Where do we sleep two hours before we want to sleep?

Speaker 1: 38:09

Where's the coffee?

Speaker 1: 38:10

Where's the best walks? What's the weather? Where's the best views? I mean, it's really simple. It's all about exploration, beauty. It was lovely, honestly. It was so, so good.

Speaker 1: 38:26

I'm rambling now. It taught me that my gender rebellion has worked, is working, but it's unexpectedly expanding in ways I didn't know were possible, but I couldn't have dreamt of. And it may sound simple, but it may sound like not very much, but that trip to me represented a degree of focus and presence and freedom that I didn't know I was aiming for, and I'm celebrating that and sharing it with you. Not so that you can go and have a road trip like that, unless that's what you really, really want. I know one of my clients has said, yeah, I wish I could travel like that. It's not about that, is it? It's about having that freedom, and that's what I'm now working on. How can I bring that feeling of freedom and focus and presence and gratitude back with them, because I already thought I had it in my day to day life, but going away and having it times a hundred, I now want even more of it in my life. So that's what I'm currently working on.

Speaker 1: 39:38

That's my message and link question of the week, possibly the month. How can I embed in fact it's my top August priority in front of me here bring the freedom I felt on holiday into my daily life? So my message and link question would be how can I bring the freedom I felt on holiday into my daily life? So that would be identifying what I mean by that, what it felt like, the practices I use that supported that and how I can develop practices that will bring that even more into my life now and then eventually that will flow into my flight work, because it does, because the more I don't hear about the more my life gets to tell me that, the more we all about.

Speaker 1: 40:27

So I started off talking about how drive matters and I'm ending by saying you don't get the freedom that you seek by dumping that drive and have both. I've put my drive into creating business and life that works for me. All you want to do with your drive, because I would argue it's a good thing when you can harness it to your advantage. Have an honest, especially lovely week and I'll see you next week. Thank you so much for being part of this podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please do take a little moment of your time to share it, like it, etc. To help other people find it. And if you'd like to know more about my work, please go to wwwtidymarkcouk.