The past year has been very hard for me in terms of motivation. Dealing with a broken tail bone for the last few months has definitely not helped the situation but in no way is responsible for it. I have struggled to figure out why and how in a short period I have gone from being active and involved in as much stuff as possible to fighting with myself just to do stuff. I think the failure on my part is looking for a single event that explains everything. Don't get me wrong I am not saying that I have been hiding in a cocoon for the past year. I have had a great deal of life experience and have had some opportunities that have provided great fulfillment. My struggle is that I believe that I can do more. I am not living up to the expectations that I have for myself.
There is a decent chance that we can chalk this up to a midlife crisis and that I should buy a sports car and be done with it. Oh that would be so nice, top down, hair blowing in the wind. Wait a minute it might be too late for that. All kidding aside there must be something that contributes to the extreme lack of motivation.
I have heard and read lots of blogs, have seen tons of motivational propaganda but it never really sank in. When you think about what has the greatest affect on your life, it seems pretty clear that it is likely the thing that you spend the most time doing. When I was able to spend a great deal of time either at the Kwoon or at the gym I felt awesome. Even at the height of my working out every day I still was only spending about 17 hours a week doing this. When you think about that over a six day week, using the word only may not make a lot of sense. Compare this though to how much time you spend doing other things. Work, school, sleeping, even the things that you say you love to do. When you do this you start to realize that the things that you love doing actually rate pretty low on the list. Or at least that's what I started to notice.
I have always been really good with math. I am not talking about multiplication or addition but in predictive theories. It shouldn't take long to figure out that the one thing that you spend most of your time doing will have the largest impact on your life. For me, and I am sure many others, this is work.
Back to the blogs and motivational stuff mentioned above. One of the things that most of them refer to is doing something you love. This always made sense but maybe not to the extent that it does now. There will always be struggles. There will always be days that don't go so well. The thing that I have been finding is that theses days are now outweighing the good ones. After much soul searching and fighting with that feeling in the pit of my stomach, I finally made the decision to leave my job. This was not an easy decision, but as this week went on it has been like a huge weight has been lifted. Any time in the past there was always some anxiety about leaving a job. Where will I go? What will I do? This time there is none of that so i am certain I have made the right decision.
This week we are flying to Ontario to visit my family. I am not looking forward to the plane ride as my tail bone seems to be giving me some grief this week. Being able to spend some time with them without constantly worrying about work will be nice. When we get back in mid July my plan is to get back to working out every day and spending time with the kids. I have had some people ask me about doing some consulting which I have wanted to do for some time but was always afraid to take the leap. I have already started working with my accountant to get a business model set up. I am super nervous and at the same time really looking forward to starting this new adventure.
