You do not have to know where you are going to be headed in the right direction…
I began my term with those remarks, and they still hold true, but sometimes, we do in fact get lost. Up until just recently, I fell into what I’ve coined the dreaded triple “O” space – Overwhelmed, Overworked, and just Over it. Amid those feelings, I lost myself and, day to day, I no longer had a clear direction. My mental and physical health took a tumble, and I became very isolated because I simply did not have the energy to engage in many activities outside of work. I have always been a huge proponent of self-care, so to find myself in that Triple “O” space was incredibly disappointing.
This happens to most, if not all, of us at some point in our lives, but emerging from this space can be challenging. It was challenging for me; it took months for me to emerge into a brighter, healthier space, and I was able to do so by using some of the tips and tricks I learned from fellow MCB members. I’m going to share with you how I was able to break out of that dark space, and I hope that at least some of you will find this helpful.
My emergence began when I was home for the holidays. My family inquired about my next fun-in-the-sun trip, and I had nothing, not one thing planned. Immediately, they recognized that was unlike me and in that moment, I realized that I had barely touched any of the top three things that have kept me grounded over the years – traveling, staying active and learning. And that shook me. Even though I was still going to the gym, I was less motivated and not as consistent as I used to be. I even stopped practicing Spanish via Duolingo and other online platforms. I was missing recreation in my life, and I had to figure out how to come up with a way to recreate my outlook on work and life through recreation (see what I did there? 😊).
For me, recreation gives me something to look forward to. Without it, I’m just trying to make it to the weekend, and the weekends are never long enough. To that end, I decided to tackle the first thing I dropped from my life – travel. Every year, I try to schedule a solo trip and at least one trip with family and friends, but by the time the new year rolled around my calendar was still blank. I was determined to fix that. So, I perused several travel sites looking for deals for a quick getaway and landed on a Caribbean island I had yet to visit. It was the perfect spot for a solo trip. I booked it while simultaneously putting in my request for PTO. And the next week, I submitted those days to the court, so I was covered. As easy as that was to do in that moment, it wasn’t until my family highlighted the fact that I had not been myself that motivated me to get it done. And that spark led me to addressing my other recreational needs. There was momentum in the family chat to have a sort of reunion trip, and I could see things starting to fall into place.
Also, at the beginning of the year, I signed up for my first individual novice CrossFit competition. Before you judge me for being 40-something doing CrossFit…you know what, go ahead and judge me, I’ll address that at another time. But in all seriousness, signing up for that competition gave me something to look forward to and provided another layer of motivation for me to get my tail in the gym more consistently.
Lastly, staring at the Spanish apps on my phone clearly wasn’t getting me any closer to learning Spanish, so I decided to put some skin in the game and pay for weekly classes. For some reason, paying for the classes made me show up, participate, and learn. Sometimes you have to invest in the things that will get you to your next goal.
To be clear, getting to this point was not easy and I had to fight myself to get here. Planting seeds for future activities is what works for me. I’m not dreading watching the clock or counting down the days to the weekend as often as I used to. I’m looking forward to things that make me happy and keep me healthy. This process taught me that you must be a beacon for yourself. Build lighthouses across your calendar and relationships, so if you ever get lost, you have a means to find your way back to yourself.
With this being one of the last times I’ll get to speak to the masses as the MCB president, I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for your contributions to the MCB and the lighthouses we intend to build for our members. I would not have found my way back to myself had it not been for thoughtful notes and continued support from my fellow MCB members. While I hoped we would be further along in the bifurcation process at this time, we are still in a good place because of the strength of the MCB. I look forward to continuing to work with you all in the future. Thank you for being a light for the MCB.
Read the full newsletter here: MCB Newsletters (meckbar.org)