Yesterday I went to morning yoga, got a pedicure in the afternoon and went for an after work beach swim at 4.30pm. I worked these things around the work and meetings I needed to get done that day. People often message me back and ask “do you ever work?”
It took 6 months of hustle, perseverance, not being disheartened at the constant “nos” or “not right nows” and a whole wad of savings to set my consulting business up so that I can now enjoy my life and work and not just work to live. People forget about the process and sacrifices that go into a positive end result.
An actual fact is that in the first 4 months of business I earned $200. $200! Do you know how unsettling the thought of that is after being a high income earner for years? During this time, people would ask things like “how’s business?” “who are you working with?” “What clients have you signed up” and my response was always this long winded positively tainted ‘justification’ that attempted to explain that “no, I am not nuts,” and “this will work” (Gee I bloody hope so).
During this time I have been known to track people down at networking events and insist they let me take them to coffee, find people at airports before they fly out to make sure I still get a meeting with them while we are in the same state, and catch 3 different buses to a client meeting so as to avoid paying for Taxis.
Fast forward 6 months, I have just booked an amazing trip through the USA with some of my best friends, I have a really healthy pipeline of work scattered through the months that still gives me plenty of ‘down time’ and ‘time off’ and finally for the first time, I am now saying no to work, instead of YES to everything.
There is a psychological concept known as ‘Loss Aversion’ – Loss aversion refers to our tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses over acquiring gains. Research has shown that if someone gives you $10 you will experience a small boost in satisfaction, but if you lose $10 you will experience a dramatically higher loss in satisfaction. Yes, the responses are opposite, but they are not equal in magnitude.
As you move into 2017, consider whether loss aversion is holding you back from truly achieving what you want?
I feel thankful every day that I pushed through the uncertainty even though I felt broke and felt like a failure, but backed myself in anyway, despite no external ‘wins’ actually confirming that I should. Life is too short to not be ecstatic. Just jump.
Inspiration for this article came from the fantastic James Clear