Feeling Lost And Unsure What To Do Next?

Now, it's quite common for men in particular, once we kind of get into our 30s, start approaching our 40s, and so on, to get to this point where we kind of feel a bit lost. It's like, I got to this point and I, I feel like I should be further along in life. I feel like I maybe should have achieved more, or I should be more successful, or have more, or, or whatever the particular outcome might be. and as a result, we can kind of feel a bit like, I don't know what to do next. There's lots of things I think I could do, but I'm not sure what action I should actually take. So right now, in reality, I feel a bit lost with where I'm at. Now, I bring this up because earlier today I was actually talking with a client of mine, and what we discovered in the conversation was that currently he's feeling the same. He is feeling pretty lost in his life. Not to the point where everything's so bad, but he just, he's not sure what to do next, how to move forward because he's stuck in this space. He's stuck in what I call the gap. Now, what I mean by this is his dilemma is he wants to drop a day at work. So he works 5 days a week and in his mind it would be ideal for him to be able to drop a day at work. But what currently keeps happening is every time the opportunity presents itself for him to actually have that conversation with his boss, he'll end up avoiding it and kind of ignoring the fact that that's what's on his mind. Oh, how's things going today, mate? Oh yeah, all good, all good, everything's great. And he'll ignore that conversation, he won't bring it up. So one of the things I like to do with my people is spar with them intellectually, and through our coaching process, I'll just question, question, question to try and dig down through the layers and find out what's actually going on. Like, why is this such a big deal to you? So this is what we did. He mentioned how he'd avoided the conversation, literally had the opportunity to have that conversation today and avoided it. So I'm like, okay, well, you had the opportunity. Why didn't you have the conversation? And he's like, well, ultimately it's quite scary. Cool. What's scary about it? What is it that you're fearful of? So he's like, I don't really know. And I say, okay, well, if you don't really know, What about the reason for doing it? It's like, why do you actually even want this extra day? And again, after a few questions, it comes down to he wants to be able to spend more time with his family. He wants to be able to spend more time in particular with his kids, and he feels like he needs to be more present. Cool. I think that's awesome as a father to, to want to do that. So then my next question is, okay, so you want to be more present with your children. What's stopping you from doing that now, regardless of the fact that you're working 5 days a week? And he's like, hmm, good point. So I said, so with me suggesting that and you thinking good point, does that mean that you in your mind now can identify areas where you could already show up more present? And he's like, yeah, actually I could. In particular weekends in the mornings and so on when the kids want to watch TV and so on. And I feel like I'm a bit tired and, you know, I'll use that as an excuse to not spend time with them or to not get involved and be present. But really I could. That would be an opportunity for me to do that. So it turns out in this particular case, he can actually get what he thought he wanted. So he thought he needed to drop a day at work in order to be more present with his kids, but it turns out he could actually continue working as he is and still be more present. So the other option— or sorry, the other issue that we had was I said, okay, so what about financially? If you were to drop the day and now you're down to 4 days, can you financially maintain that level? Will that affect your ability to show up and be present with your kids, or will you now be stressed about the finances and the fact that you're now going to have less money coming in? And he said, I think I could work it. I'm not really sure. I'd have to kind of figure it out. And I'm like, well, what do you mean figure out? Oh, I need to find out exactly how much I would lose. I'd need to find out exactly how much your cost of living is and so on, so that I could make the decision. And I'm like, cool. So the catch is you have this idea that you want to drop a day. You're unsure about whether your boss would even let you or whether you would maybe potentially lose your job as a result, because he might be like, oh, well, if you don't want to do that, well, then I have no work for you. So there's this unknown of if I tell my boss, what if that results in a negative? Plus, I have certain benefits with my job at the moment. That I don't really want to lose. So there's these potential risks that you don't want to face yet. There's also this idea that you need to be more present with your kids, but it turns out you can already do that. But in order for you to actually have the courage to have the conversation, you need to still establish whether you could even afford to survive on 4 days a week. Now, with that, he did say he might have to do some part-time work on the odd day. in order to, to compensate for anything lost. But the real issue here is the fact that you want to have a conversation with your boss, but there are a bunch of unknowns. You also think that you, you want to change certain things in your current life, or you think they will be improved as you, as you drop this day. But again, you're unsure. You think, I drop a day, Then there's the money issue. So it's, oh, I drop a day, now I'm losing money. Can I even afford that? So again, we've got another unknown. So the issue we have is we end up stacking all of these different unknowns on top of each other. And of course, if there are so many unknowns, it's impossible to be clear and therefore it's impossible to be certain or confident in the action we need to take. It's like, oh, if I have the conversation with my boss, what if he sacks me? Oh, what if he doesn't go down well? Or what if he won't let me? Oh, actually, if I do do it, what if I can't afford the lifestyle I currently have? So we end up with too many unknowns that make it impossible to make a decision and move forward. So you end up stuck in this gap between here's what I think I want and here's where I think I am. But the catch is you've not actually gotten clear on where you are. So therefore it's impossible to be clear on where you want to go. So you end up stuck and drifting in this gap in the middle, which makes you feel lost. Now, the lesson here, of course, is if you can't gain clarity on exactly where you are now, it's impossible to gain clarity on where it is you want to go. And therefore, the only real outcome is that sensation or feeling of being lost. You're just in this space of nothingness and you don't really know what to do. It's like, oh, I don't really know what's going on now. I don't know what could be going on in the future. I have some ideas about some things I might want or might want to move towards. But I have no idea what I need to do to get there because I haven't gotten clear on what's really happening now. So we need to be willing, at least to, to a certain degree, to get honest about where we're at. I talk about this with you guys all the time. We have to be ruthlessly honest about the facts of our current situation. Until we've done that, until we base ourselves in that foundation of facts, it is impossible to make a true trajectory or to create a true vision of what we want, because it's only within the foundation of now that we can actually cast a real potential. Otherwise, it's just ideas, it's just potential fantasy. And of course, that might serve as some form of inspiration or motivation, but it can never build any real momentum because every time we try to get started, it's from a foundation of fiction. Because we haven't gotten clear on the facts. So that foundation of fiction then presents us with the opportunity to take actions, but they might not actually be in alignment with what we really want. Now, I'll give you one more example of this. So right at the beginning of the year, I gave you— or I did a video for you guys saying I've never had the body I want. And then I showed you some pictures of my body throughout the years from sort of back in 2009 or whatever. Where I've always been in pretty good shape, but I've always used that as the excuse to kind of stay where I am. Then I kind of laid out what my goals were for the year, and I mentioned how I want to significantly improve my mobility so that I can body weight— oh, sorry, so that I can do an overhead squat with my body weight. Then I had some deadlift goals, and I want to get my body fat percentage back down to 8% or below, and, and all those types of things. But in my mind, when I started this year, my mind was telling me, right, you need to work on your mobility because right now you don't have the mobility to safely do an overhead squat even with just a bar, let alone with your body weight on the bar. So that was where my, my mind was telling me I needed to be focused. You need to be focused on mobility. The catch-22 is whilst to achieve the overhead squat, I do need to focus on mobility. The truth is, the outcome of mobility or increased mobility or even the ability to do that particular squat isn't really that sexy to me, whereas losing the additional body fat that I've gained the past couple of years— not excessive, but it's, it's higher than I want it to be— so losing that is more attractive to me right now. But I tried to begin the year focusing on mobility and improving my overhead squat, but it doesn't really have much pull. So yes, I've trained, and yes, I've, I've done the things I need to do in the gym, but I haven't really gone all in on the mobility work that I told myself I should be doing. Now, the catch with that, of course, is, well, then your mobility isn't going to increase at the rate that you want it to. So what I've actually decided to do now, moving into the second month of the year, is put the mobility back a notch. So yes, it's still one of my goals, but it's not the first thing I need to focus on. It's not the momentum builder for this year. So instead, what I've needed to do was get clear on my own facts. Yes, I do want to increase my mobility, but it's nowhere near important— sorry, it's nowhere near as important to me right now as improving my body fat percentage and getting back down to that 8% body fat or below. So instead I've now had a big shift around in the programming that I'm using, as in the exercise and training that I'm using, and my main focus will now be on burning that body fat again rather than the mobility. Then once I reach my body fat percentage goal and get that body that I'm actually after again, or at least closer to it, then I will start to shift some emphasis onto the mobility work that I need to do to hit this overhead squat. So again, like with, with this client of mine, he needs to get clear on the facts of where he's at. I had to do exactly the same because if not, I'd have kept trying to push for the rest of this quarter to improve my mobility but keep skipping the sessions, avoiding them, because it's not really that exciting to me. It's not really the thing that I want. It's something I need, but it's not what I want right now. Whereas the thing I do want is to drop my body fat percentage and then throughout the rest of the year, once I'm down at that body fat percentage I want, to then gain lean mass for the rest of the year. So sometimes we have to get real clear on what it— where exactly are you, so that you can identify where exactly it is you want to go. Because remember, if we don't, we just stay lost in the gap and we just drift. And that drift can be weeks, it can be months, it could be years, or even, even decades at times, where we just have this sense of, oh, you know, life's not too bad, it's okay, I'm good. And then we just drift on and drift on and drift on, never really experiencing the joy or the happiness of the results that we want, because we're just stuck, stuck in this space of not really doing much, not really achieving what we want. But from the outside looking in, everything looks okay, I should be happy with my life, but ultimately we're not. So that's what I'll leave you guys with today. Remember, we need to establish the facts of where we are so that we can identify the facts of the future we want to build, and therefore that will then create the space that we need to identify the facts of which actions we need to take in the moment that are actually going to serve us in achieving what we want. Thanks for watching, people. As always, if you have any questions, drop them in the comments below, and if not, check us out at strongerthanlife.com, and I look forward to seeing you in my next video. Take it easy, people.