It’s not ok to be unhappy. Despite what they say. If you haven’t laughed in months, it’s not ok. If most days you wake up and you wish you didn’t, it’s not ok. If to fall asleep, relax or have a good time you need to smoke, drink or eat something sweet, that might also be a sign you are not ok. We often wait until it’s too late to admit we are not ok. We wait until we gain 20kg, have a stroke, have a spouse leave us or loose sleep. This happens because we lose the connection with ourselves. We try and please everyone around – make our boss happy, please our partner, meet the expectations of our parents and friends. And in all this madness of being healthy, fit, well read, good partner, parent, child and reliable friend, we forget about ourselves.
Learn to check in with yourself and audit your needs
If you think you are ok, you might indeed be ok, congratulations, you are awesome. But it might be worthwhile checking in with yourself every now and again in the future to make sure you do not let yourself hit the rock bottom in life. I’ll be boring and will say that meditation helps. It does, sorry, no easy way here. It doesn’t mean you need to lock yourself away in silence for 10 days, like I did. What you need is to develop the awareness of your thoughts, feelings and your body. There are various ways of doing that, yoga is a great example. Once you learn how to stay in touch with yourself, check in regularly if you are ok. When was the last time you laughed? Do you have a sense of purpose? Do you feel loved? If you are in a crisis already, it might feel big and scary. You might not even know where to start. Break it down to the level of basic needs. I love Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a simple framework to aid that. Start from the bottom and work your way up. Where is the biggest gap for you? Do you have a few?
Once you pin down which needs you are failing to fulfil, take some time to admit to yourself what are the implications if you continue the way you do. If what you see is bigger and scarier than the change you need to make to your life, that means it’s time for a new chapter. Designing a new chapter is a whole other story. You can read about it in my post Life as a lean experiment: hypotheses. Realising you need a change might not be the hardest thing in fixing you not being ok. Resisting all others telling you are ok, when you are not, is.
Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.
Tony Robbins
Why do they say you are ok?
They say you are ok because they need you. Your boss and your colleagues might tell you that you need to take a break or manage your boundaries better. They might suggest moving teams, taking up more responsibility, exciting new project or a pay rise. As enticing as it may sound it is a temporary fix that won’t last long. Just like putting a cheap plaster on a deep wound that needs a bondage. Oh, and don’t get too excited. Your boss will try and talk you out whatever you are thinking if pursuing not because you are indispensable. Unless you are Einstein of course. Sorry to break it to you, but no matter how awesome you are, there is someone else who is as awesome or even more awesome. The reason they will try and stop you from quitting your job to pursue what you love is they want to avoid the inconvenience that might cause. The inconvenience of telling the team you are leaving, the inconvenience of finding someone in your place. The inconvenience of getting used to working with the new person.
Your family or your partner likely need you as well. For different reasons. Whatever you have in your mind that you think might make you a happier person means change. Not just for yourself, but for everyone else around you. Your spouse, partner, even friends. Truth is, everyone thinks about themselves first. And if you are planning on changing life, those around you will not be happy with that. Even if they know that change is exactly what you need.
You know you are not ok, now what?
You trust your gut and take a leap of faith. There are no guarantees in life regardless of which path you chose. You might choose the safest path and have a brick fall onto your head to kill you. You might as well take the risk and live the life you want. Bosses, parents, friends, a partner can of course be helpful. But sometimes it’s important to take some time and space away to really reconnect with your voice and cut through all the noise of everyone else’s expectations. You know exactly what’s right for you. It might be buried deep inside, or you might refuse to listen because it might not be the easiest way. But you know. And once you face it, regardless of how hard or scary the step you need to make to move closer to being happy, you need to collect all that energy and courage to trust yourself and leap. It will be ok. Your first step to being happy again.
Life Startup Club 