BACK TO WORK FOR ME!

The pendulum of life is about to swing again for me.

Those that know me, know that I’m a big believer in balance.  This concept was first introduced to me by my coach many many years ago.  It wasn’t until about 3 years ago that I finally took note of it.  Now, every couple of months I redo the Life Balance Wheel exercise.  This helps me focus on the areas of my life that need it most.  If I ignore it, other areas of my life will get dragged down too.

Tomorrow I start back at a job after being off on a 2-year leave of absence.  Even though I’m only planning on being back for 2-3 months, it will be interesting to see the impact it will have on me with my new mindset.

My emotions over the last couple of weeks have been up and down.  Part of me felt shitty because I was going back to a job and losing much of the freedom I had over the last couple of years, and part of me was excited about the extra flow of money and what it would allow us to do in the short term.  As it got closer and closer to my first day back at work, the feelings of excitement outweighed the shitty feeling.  I’m sure I will continue to have my ups and downs over the coming weeks.

You might be thinking, if you are so happy being away from your job, what the heck are you going back for?  Good question.  One that I have been asking myself many times over the last couple of weeks.

For the money!  Well…not just for the money, but that is a big reason 🙂

There are some things in the short term that we would really like to do, and having some extra cash will make these things happen sooner.

I created a vision board years ago.  I put it up in my house in a spot where I will look at it often.  On this board are pictures of things I would like to be/do/have.  There is a handful on there that focus on adventure and nature.

I want to share a quick story with you.  A couple of weeks back, I was at one of our student rental houses.  In our houses, we have a landlord drawer in the kitchen, and every time I do an inspection, I check this drawer for any mail that came to the house.  On this particular day, when I went to open the drawer, it would not open.  It appeared to be jammed on something.  I was able to open it a little, and peak in.  It was a magazine that was put in the drawer the wrong way and got caught in the tracks.  I maneuvered a hand in there and was able to free the magazine and open the drawer.  When I did this, I must have caught the track with my finger and cut myself.  It was a good-sized cut and was bleeding for a bit.  This got my attention.

Another interesting part of this story is what happened next.  The magazine that caused me all this extra hassle was from a company called G Adventures.  One of my previous tenants had subscribed to be on the mailing list.  G Adventures focuses on group travel for people who like an adventure.  In my high school days, my nickname used to be G, as that was the initial of my last name.   I love adventure, and the name of the company is my nickname, so I thought I would open it up.  As I was reading through it, it was almost like it was written for me.  G this, G that.  Lots of pictures in the magazine were similar to the ones on my vision board.  This made me pay even more attention.

For whatever reason, I took the extra time to open that drawer that day.  This led to more questions.  It’s almost like I was meant to see this right now.  Why?  Who knows.  Looks like I’m off on an adventure trip to Costa Rica or Peru at some point this year to find out 🙂

Over the last couple of months, I’m finding that I’m more mindful of signs like these.  I’ve really made an effort to simplify and get rid of the clutter in my life.  I think this allowed for greater peace of mind, which created the space to be able to be more aware of the things going on around me.  These signs were probably always there before, I just never noticed them, because I had too much shit on the go.

I’m also super excited to be going to see Robin Sharma in a couple of months for the first time.  He is one of my top influencers.

Going back to my job now will also help me expand on my ‘Escaping the Rat Race’ program that I’m currently working on.  This will give me a fresh perspective.  In hopes of inspiring others, I share strategies and tools that I used to help Escape from the Rat Race.

When starting back in my job, I will be mindful of…

* Healthy eating habits

* Peak physical health

* Regular exercise routine

* Energy levels

* Happiness

* Strong relationships with family and friends

* My 5 am wake ups

Watch for updates on my experiences in my Happy, Healthy & Wise newsletter.

Thanks for listening.

Mike