It’s easy to get your head so into a project or a piece of work that you don’t come up for air for days. When you’re ambitious, and you want to make stuff happen it’s seductive to throw your whole being into what you’re creating. For most entrepreneurs you become your project and your project becomes you, it’s hard to separate yourself from the work.
On Monday evening UK time I arrived in Sydney, Australia to relax with a wonderful friend, soak up some sun and do a little bit of work. The travel and the jet lag (and distracting beauty of this place) meant I’ve been on a work hiatus for the past five days.
Yesterday I took the opportunity to go on a 10K walk along coastal paths and through lizard littered forest. It was just me and the wildlife. No electronics, no working phone, just me and nature and my thoughts. It was that chance to come up for air and it was overwhelmingly beneficial in re-aligning me to myself.
The act of stopping, letting go of to-do lists and strategies and let’s face it, anxiety gremlins about ‘doing and being enough’, gave me the opportunity to breathe in the beauty of turquoise water and soft sandy beaches and feel the warmth of the sun on my winter weathered skin. This alternative perspective gave me the chance to remember I’m a being in a world full of opportunities and variety. Even though my work is incredibly important to me, I was reminded that there is always so much more out there. This re-realisation has ignited an internal lightness, flow and insane optimism.
Working on projects you love is wonderful and fulfilling and worthwhile. But such projects should never be so intense that you forget to focus on the most important project of all; who you are and how you feel.
