Upon embarking on this new chapter, I’ve noticed there is a shift in how I evaluate my day. If I compare how I spent my day during my career to how I am spending it now, I could quite easily feel like I am in “slug-mode.”
Honestly, it feels more like floundering and not all that joyful.
That being said, perhaps we need to shift the scale, expectation and mindset to make it feel less meaningless and more purposeful.
Our days were filled from beginning to end in our careers, with the result being exhaustion—but a lot of boxes checked—and then doing it all again the next day. I think it begs the question, how sane was that in the first place?
Being spent at the end of the day doesn’t sound like a fabulous goal. But I think this is a result of the “leave it all on the field” mentality. The goal was different then.
How might you shift that perspective? I am playing with a different scale of satisfaction to measure/judge/evaluate my day.
Here’s something I’m playing with:
- What will make me feel like I haven’t “wasted” a day?
- What can I celebrate?
- Did I learn something new?
- Have I connected with someone meaningful?
- Did I move my body?
- Have I made any inroads in investigating something interesting?
Using your work-life scale to judge your post work-life day doesn’t seem appropriate.
What do you think?
