Why it is okay to stop, breathe and start over.

Don’t worry, what you’re feeling is valid.

Either you stopped loving the only thing you’re good at and have lost interest in anything that used to spark enthusiasm into your very soul or just became tired of everything.

I myself is a witness to this, to my very own skin; on how I became a pessimist then turned Optimistic pessimist (see what I did there? calling Paramore fans? anyone?). Yes, I feel like I’ve lost my magic, I’ve lost myself, I’ve lost the drive and will to continue, burned out. I just had to stop and step back and think everything over.

Well let’s talk about it, I’m sure if you haven’t closed this tab you wanna find out a few little quirks I did (Don’t get me wrong I’m no life coach, I’m merely an average guy trying to make something out from the coffee he drank at 3:32 in the morning).

Disclaimer: This is no manual, we cope in our very own ways, this is the writer’s perspective and feel free to do you, we encourage that.

Going back to losing yourself in the process of trying to put a dent in this world (Steve jobs is that you?), you’ll face a few roadblocks and one of them I call it “Believing”, yes I started a revolution in my head, and yes your greatest enemy of all, we all know who that person is, Ourselves, he/she’ll ask you and say things; if you’re “worth it?”, if your “virtues/principles” matter, do “You” matter?, are you “Enough”?, “You’re wasting time”, “you will not amount to anything”.

Whether you’re a teenager, young adult, or whoever you are this is so common with us in this millennia. I have asked myself these, more than a million times, different terms, different ways. It’s frustrating, I sometimes call myself an “Anxiety” with legs and arms, because I developed them, they became the ghost that haunts me every day of my every waking life, but I’ve learned to deal with them.. somehow?

You’ll face a few roadblocks and one of them is “Believing”

But stay with me here, like what they say you’ll have to know the root cause to find the solution or a temporary workaround.

I didn’t develop these questions in my head one day just because I wanted to, they are all the product of the people around me, the people I associate myself with. In this world, there’s positive and negative, yin and yang, light and dark, and they affect each and every one of us even when you don’t say it, it has influenced the person you are now.

You know the quote that says “You are who you associate with” it’s true, I’ve been in a bad company a few times that made things worse, but I picked up a few learnings but it stopped there and my fight or flight response just kicked in and kicked them out of my circle, and I’ve never felt liberated.

Yes, this frees your mind from the words in your head that used to have power over you, over your perspective, over your future.

We’ve determined the root cause what now?

So what to do now about the things you’ve used to love? how will it help me to reignite my passion? Simple, your mind has unloaded a few unnecessary tasks like replaying the unnecessary thoughts people sown in your head for over and over, now Breathe! Feel how vindicating it is, feel the air! You have more power in your hands now. Stop for a few days get that leave, get that vitamin Sea, plan your next travel, I know it still doesn’t feel like you’ve restored your H-U-M-A-N-I-T-Y, but it’s not an overnight thing, you have to work on it every day.

You were planning that leave right?, don’t bring work in your vacation, because you’re there for Healing, you’re there to feel carefree of all the world’s drama and judgment, you have to stop being the person at work and become the person you needed for yourself right at the moment. You’re like reformatting your head to get a better view of things then reinstall the necessary things when you get back from that healing session you had.

“You’ll only move on if you accept your reality and forgive yourself of what the world has done to you“

One thing I did was I started to unlearn. Unlearn? you might say, you have to remove the unnecessary, remember you’re still removing a ton of things you’ve picked up along the way of your journey, you gotta remove/unlearn your mindset of “achieve them all at once” nope there’s no such thing as doing all at once, you may only do one at a time, yes at a time, give yourself time, and fix your focus on the next practically possible thing that you love, that you think you’ll keep working on and will never get tired of, drop some of those side projects or do them one step at a time. As for me there’s a lot of things I wanna do and I ended up overthinking about it and procrastinated, I know I know you wanna achieve a lot of things, but this will only give you decision paralysis. Yes let go of those side projects get back to them later remember we’re focusing on you here.

Learn something new

Drive your focus somewhere else completely once in a while, find something new, like picking up a new skill that’s very different from what you usually do, might it be painting, photography, ice skating, chess, something that stimulates your head, for me, it worked, it created contrast, it broke my routine. You can’t just do the same thing over and over you know, we need a refresher, we’re tired because it doesn’t give us the same excitement like before, we’re designed to never settle and just like staring at the same colour for a long period of time you start looking for a new one.

to be continued on Part 2…