Since leaving my Monday to Friday, 9-5 media agency lifestyle, I’ve had to let go of the stability, both financially and in terms of routine, that came with it. I am using some of my savings to move into this new life which has been a calculated risk I decided I just had to take for once and for all.
This has been disorientating and liberating. Adjusting to a new way is taking time and time itself has been as elusive as always. I feel a sense of freedom I have never felt before. However, as is with life, there are restrictions framing the situation I am currently occupying.
With a schedule that is changing daily, it’s been difficult to find a stable routine. I don’t start work at 9 am and finish at 6 pm anymore. My part time job involves random long hours and my own work happens at all sorts of times. Weekends are no longer “weekends”, Wednesday is not a ‘hump day’ (most annoying office term ever, followed closely by ‘Friyay’) and Sunday evenings no longer fill me up with a sense of dread. Finding time to organise plans with friends and family is harder. But shopping for groceries at 11 am on a Tuesday is easier.
My old self is so conditioned to staying up late that I have found mornings unproductive. Everyone in books and on the internet is always saying a morning routine combined with a regular sleep schedule is essential to increase productivity, but how is this achievable when the schedule itself is the antithesis of consistent? It’s a problem I can’t seem to reconcile.
Unsurprisingly I am writing this now and it’s almost 1 am when really I should be going to bed. But the calm alertness that comes at this time when everyone else is sleeping, provides me with a sense of clarity that only seems to flourish in darkness. Maybe the same logic applies to the morning people.
I envisioned myself doing yoga and meditating daily but this has been less frequent. It’s the thing I need the most to calm my overactive mind but it’s also the easiest to erase from the list when there are deadlines and endless goals I am piling on myself to justify this life change. Could a stable morning routine solve this?! Looking after our mental health is critical. Stress never helped anybody.
I am struggling to understand what a day off is. I’m juggling painting + art related activities, with my part-time restaurant job and freelance social media work. The boundary between work and play has blurred massively but I am noticing I can’t switch off. There always seems to be something I have, I need, to do.
Even socialising with my closest people is starting to evoke some guilt. Should I be out, when I could be painting? Where do I draw the line at sacrificing things that are taking up precious time and a limited pool of money? But at what risk do I put myself in if I hibernate too much and burn out? Personal relationships are so important for our well being that to sacrifice time with our favourite humans feels foolish.
Exactly how disciplined do I need to be for this all to work? I just don’t know.
It’s been exactly two months since I left my job. I feel like an entirely new person and my life feels like an entirely new life. My cousin told me today when I told him what I’d been up to that “it’s not a life update, it’s a paradigm shift!”. I suppose it has been.
Perhaps the key takeaway at this point for me is that change takes time, that achieving the things that matter most to us takes time. Patience and perseverance have a way of illuminating the right path. And it will all be, a-ok.
*knocks wood*