Prioritising my happiness is one of the biggest levers to improving my work performance.
I appreciate what I have a lot more when it’s harder to access.
When pursuing a goal, try taking one action every day. This makes it easier to commit, be consistent and reduce the fears associated with the action.
Moving somewhere new isn’t as easy as I imagined 😅.

In a somewhat spontaneous decision, I recently moved to an area I had never visited before. I didn’t think too far ahead; I was focused on the excitement of moving outside of my bubble, rather than the challenges of moving somewhere without knowing anyone.

It has been a rollercoaster. I have been forced to rediscover what I enjoy doing outside of work and set firmer boundaries for switching off at the end of the day. Moving far away from friends and family has also made me appreciate seeing them so much more. I think it’s a shame that distance led to this realisation, but I’m glad I am no longer taking this for granted. Strangely, I now see them much more than I used to.

I am now in the process of making new friends in the area, discovering hobbies and pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. A simple trick that has changed my mentality over the past week is to schedule something every day.

This has had multiple benefits. I have found that I am more likely to commit if I plan an activity in advance rather than making a decision after work. If I’m pursuing an activity every day, the default is to do something, so it feels weird if I don’t have something planned. The momentum also makes it easier each time; by the end of the week, I am much less nervous to try something new.

This is all interesting to me because I didn’t see the parallels in other areas of my life until now, especially as someone who so often espouses the value of compounding. When I wanted to improve my writing, I dedicated an hour every morning to write. When I wanted to take my fitness seriously, I went so frequently that it felt uncomfortable to have a day when I wasn’t at the gym.

Time and time again I’ve had to remind myself that work is just one piece of the puzzle. It’s the areas I pursue outside of work that are also needed to make me happy. And my state of mind has a huge influence on my ability to operate a business.

I recently came across this article by Casey Rosengren which captured this perfectly:

When I started my first company, I remember waking up each morning excited by the possibility of what we were creating. However, over time, much of my work came to be driven by avoidance.

This shift happened gradually. What started as a side project became a company with customers and employees—and suddenly fears around failure and letting people down started to play a larger role in how I related to the business. 2-3 years in, I felt trapped; everything I was doing felt like it was about obligation to others and simply trying to keep the business alive.

That macro-level anxiety trickled down into much of my day-to-day work: when I’d look at my to-do list, I’d feel the anxiety around being trapped, and I’d end up procrastinating… until a looming deadline felt larger and more anxiety-inducing than my existential crisis around the business. At this point I’d scramble to get something done.

In retrospect, I was so driven by avoidance during this time that I lost touch with what I wanted to move toward. Loss avoidance had become such a strong motivator that it crowded out my original motivation for starting the business, and I became like a pinball, bouncing back and forth from one source of anxiety to another.

When I am busy outside of work, small issues don’t amplify into big issues. I am better positioned to dream bigger. I am far less driven by ‘loss avoidance’.

This leaves me with my personal takeaways for the week: