Finding my balance
Obstacles - what’s been getting in the way?
Ever feel like you can have too much of a good thing? For me, it’s recently been socialising. A lot of my friendships are siloed or solo, save for one friendship group close to where I live. This means I usually have quite a few one-to-one conversations lasting 1-2 hours. Add all those up and that becomes a lot of hours over the course of a week or month!
Maybe this is common for you too? Maybe even more so now after the pandemic. I have friends where I grew up, friends from uni, friends locally, all geographically dispersed. When we were younger we likely were to be able to socialise with our friendship groups all at once at school or in after-school activities. As we get older, all of that changes.
Relationships mean a great deal to me and I’m 100% willing to invest in them but I think I’m at capacity with what I currently have right now.
Solutions - what’s been helpful?
So while I value relationships I also value my creativity and I need to make room for both. I feel I currently have enough social time to feel sustained, supported and not lonely. But trying to put out a video a week was just unsustainable when trying to balance all my other values and goals.
I struggle between wanting to commit to a deadline and publishing schedule so as not to get complacent, but also not running myself into the ground or sacrificing too many other things in the process.
So the solution has been continuing to say ‘no’, setting clear boundaries when capping social time, and also committing to at least a two-week publishing schedule which is a much more sustainable target for me.
Output - what have I created?
I published this video about how I (practically) sold all my furniture and returned to a simpler home environment. So far I’m very happy with the change and the small footprint of my life allows me to dedicate more attention to my values.
Behind the scenes, I’ve got a lot of footage already filmed so I now need to get my head down and EDIT! I’m very excited to see how my next video comes together as it’ll be the first of its kind for me.
Reflection - a question for you
Is there something that you value but is feeling more of a burden than a pleasure? What might a sustainable level of that thing look like and what action might you need to take?
Onwards!