Catch Up

Alright. So I mentioned last week that this little writing hiatus has been slightly self-inflicted and I thought now would be a good time to explain. A stoic man may have reasons for this that are rooted in self-reflection. A busy man may justify this absence by pointing to all of the things he’s been doing of late. And a wise man may say that it’s simply not realistic to keep up the consistency and relentlessness of 2 journal posts per week.

But I am different to all of those men. This man you are reading was neither stoic, nor busy, nor wise when he decided to mix coffee with the USB ports on his computer, thus resulting in a few weeks of forced leave on the writing front. I know you could read this and point to other ways of getting things published but when I looked at the purpose of the journal it’s not to churn out content for the sake of it, it’s to learn, enjoy and develop as a writer. So I took a few weeks to focus on what was in front of me, which happened to be at the time, a fair bit of work.

I always love my work but I’ve had a particularly great time over the past few weeks presenting to a very wide range of audiences all over the place. I didn’t want to post this to list each of the presentations I’ve done so rather than focus on the specifics, I wanted to talk about two really interesting concepts that I’ve discovered over the past few weeks.

This first concept is the notion of “going pro”. I heard this on Modern Wisdom a few weeks ago and it really stuck with me. I’m incredibly fortunate to have found a purpose and a line of work that I genuinely love to do and that’s something that I want to be able to make the most of. It’s within this gratitude that the notion of approaching it like a professional athlete holds a lot of weight. Why wouldn’t I train? Why wouldn’t I study film? Why wouldn’t I be in the best physical and mental shape to show up and perform my best when I get a chance to do what I love?

To me, it makes perfect sense that if I am going to not only make the most of this opportunity but to achieve the pretty lofty goals that I’ve set for myself then I’ll have to tailor the approach to suit. And we can learn a lot from professional athletes when it comes to this.

The next lesson is somewhat related to this notion but it also has roots in sustainability and development as a human and a speaker. I think there’s a false narrative around not just athletes, but high performers in general that they’re 100% on all the time, that they’re relentless and they never take a day off. I do believe in hard work and consistency but if I’m taking a leaf out of a professional athlete’s book, then I have to acknowledge that they all have an off-season.

An off-season is a deliberately planned period where one can rest, reflect and regenerate. I know we get these at certain times of the year whether it be weekends or holidays but how deliberate is the approach to using these periods in a way that promotes development and performance over a sustained period of time?

It’s important to note that this mindset is something I am most interested in measuring the impacts on my professional life, but there’s arguably more merit in adopting it for myself physically as well. I have a lot of big challenges that I’m hoping to achieve over the next 12 months (more on that soon) and I don’t think it’s smart, or realistic to be going that hard for so long without burning out or losing the love for what I’m doing.

So I’m interested to see how adopting these approaches impacts my life and my work. I am aware that there is always a risk of taking things too seriously but that’s something I’m prepared to do to make the most of the thing that I love. I’m also confident that I have solid methods to keep me grounded so with a bit of self-awareness, the next few months/quarters could be my best yet.

Stay tuned.