500 Words a Week - Remembering Your Why
Life involves testing periods, where the costs outweigh the benefits. This may be for an extended period of time. It’s the start up entrepreneur not paying themselves a salary to invest everything they can into the business. It’s the artist quitting their job to spend more time honing their craft. It’s the individual giving significant amounts of themselves to their job, for the hope of something more down the line. These are costly periods that many individuals go through, what makes them more difficult is it can be hard to see how what we are currently doing will pay off down the line. Whether it will be worth it or not.
Unfortunately the burden of this weight can at times become too much for us to carry. Causing us to sink into feelings of overwhelm and angst. The question of what are we doing with our life temporarily overpowers our feeling of working towards something meaningful. We’ve temporarily let go of the life ring that was keeping us afloat. If we don’t catch our thoughts before they start to turn further negative, we may end up realising too late that we have drifted from the life ring keeping us afloat. That we have allowed ourselves to forget our original feeling of why keeping us afloat, as we begin to drift off into spiralling thoughts of “what are we doing”.
I had one of these moments during the week. A question of what am I doing with my life. So much so that it led to me applying for a random internship in a field I know I definitely don’t want to work in. But the pain of uncertainty temporarily got too much to handle. The cost felt too high.
What helped me was remembering why I made the decision to try to become a coach, and share ideas and concepts to help us live a more meaningful life.
It’s to help other people through these times of uncertainty and doubt.
It’s to remind others that we aren’t alone in our struggles.
It’s to try to help another see the small flicker of hope in their own dark room. That they are more resourceful than they believe.
That we can all live a life of more meaning and intention.
The catalyst for me remembering my why was in a programme I was watching, it showed a scene of a young man breaking down in tears in front of his friend. He had an overwhelming sense that something was wrong, something wasn’t right, and he didn’t know what to do. It was a moment of honesty and vulnerability. It reminded me of my own journey, and why I’m now trying to help others on theirs.
I think when we start to feel lost and uncertain, can we pause, can we go back to the why that caused us to make our decision in the first place.
It was world mental health day during the week, and so this is a friendly reminder that if you do find yourself drifting into these spiralling thoughts, unable to find yourself back to the life ring keeping you afloat. It may be time to speak to someone.
