My two biggest lessons from 2019

Learning how to potter.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, … we had everything before us, we had nothing before us. - Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

2019 started out tough for me. It was a dark winter. Both literally and figuratively. I burnt out. And then I took a six month break from blogging.

Part of that was strategy - I focused on the actual coaching I was doing (rather than my blog), and on getting my coaching certs.

But let’s be real, it was about surviving.

I was doing what I had to do to survive. Does that sound melodramatic? Maybe it is. Maybe I could’ve survived just fine in that twilight existence. Wake up. Work. Home. Coaching work. Sleep. Autopilot.

Maybe that would have been fine for me. But, I think the surest predictor of the man my son will become is the man that I am. I may be able to suffer the twilight state for myself, but I will not suffer it for him.

And so, through a myriad of ways, I turned it around. 2019 ended up awesome. And I learned a few things along the way.

Burning Out Is A Slow Process

Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. - C.S. Lewis

I didn’t get there overnight. It took months.

It took months of pushing myself, following my purpose, and ignoring the warning signs that said “you’re running on empty”.

Well, at some point fumes don’t power an engine anymore. And so here I was, burnt out. The gift of this work (my coaching), is that it can’t really be done if I’m not in a good space myself. So I need to constantly focus on walking the walk and living in alignment with my values.

The reason I call that a gift, is because it means I CAN’T just ignore the warning signals. And so I paused, and recharged, and … (let’s call it was it is) I recovered.

I learned a few things in the lead-in to that burn out.

Lesson 1 - Purpose Alone Is Not Enough

I was trying to sustain myself on purpose. Knowing I was changing lives. Knowing I was making a difference in the world. I still receive the occasional message telling me that a blog post really resonated, or that someone was inspired to take action.

It’s awesome to get those messages (and if that’s you, please let me know). It also can mask how much it takes to work a full time job, be a father, and build a business.

I was trusting the passion hypothesis. Find what I love to do, find what I’m passionate about, and the rest will come.

I always assumed that “the rest” meant “the results”. Now I think it means “the lessons”. Because I learnt, the hard way, that I can’t run on fumes. That I need time to just “be.”

Lesson 2 - I’m Responsible For My Life

And you’re responsible for yours.

This responsibility is actually really scary.

It means that if I’m sad, it’s my fault. If I feel like I’m living my life’s purpose, it’s my fault.

It means that I get to (and have to) take credit for both my successes and my failures.

Which means that if I’m burnt out, it’s my fault. And, if I manage to recover, that’ll be my fault too. Which meant that I couldn’t wait for anyone else to do it for me.

This responsibility is both scary AND enabling. It means that the world is our oyster.

As an aside, I’m interested in how this theory is reflected in people who are always Victims. My theory is that they understand (on a deep level in their bones) that they’re responsible for the hurt they feel - the hurt of how they’ve failed themselves. And so their conscious tries to protect themselves from by making it everyone else’s fault.

A Note On Hyper Responsibility

I heard Esther Perel recently denounce this “hyper-responsibility” view. She said it ignores that we live in relation to other people, and that we’re not responsible for them. It ignores that relationships are made up of more than just ourselves.

And she’s right.

And yet, it doesn’t mean that we didn’t contribute to the outcome we didn’t want.

Maybe you could’ve set a better boundary. Or maybe you could’ve lived with more love. So you may not be responsible for everything but you’re almost always responsible for something.

So What Are You Going To Do About It?

To my friend (you know who you are):

I know you’ve felt yourself running on fumes. I know you’re doing it right now. What sort of stand are you going to take for yourself?

Will you have the courage to look the responsibility in the eye and say “I’m up for this. I may not get it on the first try, but I will get it.”?

Because I know you can. I know you have what it takes. The only question is whether you’re ready to do something about it.

To the rest of you:

In the words of CS Lewis, what gentle slope are you on and where is it leading you? Is that somewhere you want to go?