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How to quit salmoning around and get clap-hands-togethery about life

Making Decisions & Finding Passion

For the last couple of weeks since Bloody Good Chap left I’ve been floundering a bit over here in Bali. I wanted to come here and relax and do just enough work to coach my lovely clients and group programs and keep my work ticking over while I take some semi downtime from my workaholic ways and work out what’s next for Project Self.

Mouthful!

So I’ve been sleeping in, starting work after midday, having $10 massages and doing yoga, but you know what?

I feel unmotivated, lazy, and rather meh. I’ve craved space and downtime for so long that it came as a surprise to me that only three weeks into my time here in Bali, I seem to have lost my excitement for life and gratitude for how amazing my life is!

What the hell!

Logically I know that my life has never been better and I hear the words in my head “this is amazing”, but I can’t quite feel it as an emotion.

I remember this feeling clearly from when I used to travel around the world, lost and directionless and seeking something, before I learnt mindfulness.

I was living the most extraordinary life, exploring all over, working for billionaires, meeting amazing fold from all over, yet I didn’t feel satisfied or elated as I knew I should.

I certainly used to have the perception that if I could just win the lottery and just live the dream chilling by a pool and scootering around Bali with no work to do, I would be blissfully happy.

But instead I find myself craving direction and purpose.

Us humans aren’t that different from plants I reckon.

Apart from the greenness and stuff.

And also we like tacos.

Plants have one purpose (probably, according to no research): grow.

And as humans, so do we. We love, in fact, we need, to grow.

Since we stop growing vertically at a certain age, we need to grow in other directions.

We need to master new skills, grow our ability to handle our emotions, grow our business, grow our work talents, grow our families, grow our parenting and relationship skills. Grow our sex skills. Grow by eating too many tacos.

I’ve been getting into Tempeh tacos lately… Ubud does that to you. But yum!

Anyway.

So humans, growing, yes.

“A good life means to always be growing, to always be learning, to always be stretching” – Karen Salmansohn

Like a salmon doing yoga.

Sometimes I feel like I want to stop growing and just wind down. Sometimes the simultaneous excitement and stress of growing gets all too much and I want to chillllll. But I think my capacity to do this do nothing but chill is a lot less than I thought. Or at least, I think I confused downtime with a complete lack of growth. And I’ve ended up stagnating instead of chilling, and it’s not that nifty.

So, I’ve decided it’s time to grow again, at least a little bit.

So I’m going to do a course in Indonesian and start practicing everywhere I go in Bali, even though I feel like a knob when I accidentally say “What is your name” when I really mean “Goodnight”.

I work with so many people who are feeling lost and directionless, it’s a normal phase we all seem to go through over and over – but here’s the secret that keeps bashing me over the head with a papaya:

You don’t need to know your one and only direction to feel satisfied and energised. You just need to grow.

In any area of your life, diagonally or sideways.

And it doesn’t have to be in your career. In fact you’ve probably already got that one in the bag after one million years of putting everything you have into career development and ladder climbing.

Look at your outside-of-work-life, and go where your curiosity takes you.

Then take up Zumba. Or Sri Lankan cooking classes.

And notice your leaves unfurl towards the sun.

Ps — To learn more about regulating your emotions like the kind of legend that doesn’t throw coke at me, head over here to check out Bloody Good Life, an unconventional mind-taming program for overthinkers.

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