Storm and Silence

2023 is over.

Returning from Mexico, I had big plans on March '23 regarding starting my own little business, this website and a lot of other things.

In May I started a new job, with a four day work week and I thought I would use the 5th day to work on my own projects. Turns out - that was much harder than I thought and it did not go very well as you can see by this poorly hosted blog and the progress in my own operations.

Why?

Storm.

Working a four day week in a "one woman show department", was much more challenging and demanding to my head space than I expected.

Each months carried a new surprises, cancelling a contract, a new joiner haunted by its past and mental health issues affecting work, implementing new, rather unpopular policies, just to name a few.

Too often I would do work stuff on MY day, replying messages, solving minor things, etc. No biggies, I thought, 5 minutes and I am done. And then sometimes 5 minutes turned into 2 hours... My boundaries and my projects were less important to me than performing good in the new job and pleasing everyone there.

Bad habit, that I know from the past. It resulted in

Silence.

People and Culture Manager - sounds fun and can be very draining, too. In general working with people, no matter in which field is pretty demanding. For me it resulted in silence. When I had time off, I basically wanted to be with myself. The main exception were a few dear friends and my yoga classes. Other than that social contacts felt very tiring to me.

For this blog, the website and Habit Hut I was lacking energy and inspiration.

I felt stucked. On the one hand I did want to express myself, to grow this project, to keep learning and to search for others that could help me with it.

On the other hand there were MY days, when I just starred at the screen unable to have any clear thoughts or create anything at all. In some point I stopped forcing myself and started to use the MY days to see my friends, to just wander around and decompose myself. It seemed that was what I needed after a lot of stormy times in the past 3 years.

"I have learned that whenever I think "I don't have enough time to do that" what I usually mean is "I don't have enough energy" or

"I am not actually interested in doing this."

What I need to do a better job of is not managing my time, but rather caring for myself and identifying my true interests. When I am well rested and working on something I am genuinely excited about, finding time is rarely a problem."

(James Clear)

Returning from a 4 week trip to Guatemala I feel energised and inspired again to invest into MY days and my projects. I met a lot of inspiring people, had great conversations and it triggered the urge in me again, that I want to change something major in my life, that I need to be investing in that and that I need to be brave to do so.

After one week back in the Berlin bubble, the urge is still there and so are all the day-to-day things that are asking my attention and head space. The goal is to find balance and a bit more discipline to show up for MY days and my projects. It is necessary, if I want to make progress and if I want to be in a different situation in the future.