(Always Grinding? Post continued…) I have always talked about the importance of not just working. Even if you really, really enjoy your work, it’s not healthy to hyper-focus on just one aspect of your life. That was another reason that my restaurant career burnt me out. It didn’t allow for the time to keep my life well rounded. I wasn’t able to have the social life I wanted and needed. I didn’t have the intellectual stimulation that I craved. Nor did I have the athletic and competitive outlets that are important to me.

When I left cooking I was able to start playing Ultimate Frisbee again and get back into shape over a course of years. I was able to see my wife more and we often have friends over for dinner as a social outlet. Then my business got busier and child no. 2 came along. And, I fell back into a pattern of always “grinding.” Work, family, sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat. Even my hobbies became burdens. I have a huge garden that just felt like a chore this spring and brought me tons of stress.

I would tell myself that I would work my ass off Monday through Thursday and then do “nothing” on Friday. And, I would either still work all day on Friday or get to Friday and still be so revved up from the week that couldn’t enjoy any down time. At that point I realized that something had to change. But what was that something?

Turns out it was more than one thing. One of my first epiphanies was that I don’t actually like to do “nothing.” I usually require more stimulation than that. So I was setting myself up for failing at relaxing when I was assuming that relaxation meant doing nothing. I also realized that I was putting more on my plate than was necessary. I chose to take on some huge projects in the garden this spring that needed to be completed before I could plant. Big mistake. I’m not going to do that again. I’ve worked this summer to complete any “infrastructure” upgrades to the garden for next year. That’s made the garden much more enjoyable. AND that’s what I’ve been doing during my down time this summer. Instead of feeling like a failure for not doing nothing, I’ve been out in the yard digging, edging, raking, planting and planning.

So, I’ve obviously taken much of the summer off from posting. But, I’m hoping to post on a more regular schedule this fall, perhaps once a week… We’ll see. To get back into the swing of things I’d like to share what I focused on this summer. I really tried to learn how to relax. That probably seems like a strange thing to work on, but it’s what I needed.

I grew up in Newton MA, a nice Boston suburb. Newton has excellent schools and a pretty intense academic environment. I pushed myself to take advanced classes and do well in them. With my level of attentional challenges and the fact that I’m not the fastest reader, this meant working very, very hard. Not that other kids, even the neuro-typical ones, don’t work hard. But what it meant for me was that I felt like I was always “grinding.” I took my sciences during the summer. No camp for me. I spent most of my vacations catching up on writing papers, except for the years that the stress of getting to the break left me super sick for my week “off.”

Also, in typical ADHD fashion, even when I wasn’t working, I was stressed about what I wasn’t doing. I took this mindset into an harsh, demanding, and unforgiving career as a professional chef. If you’re not “grinding” in the kitchen, you’re not going to get anywhere. For much of my restaurant career 14 or even 16 hour days were not unheard of. Not surprisingly, I ended up totally burnt out. So I started my own business. More “grinding.” There is always more to do when you work for yourself, especially when you are building that business.

I don’t say the following to toot my own horn. I build a successful business that started to “pay the bills” in two years and has become self sustaining in less that four years. I guess you can say that “I’ve made it.” So, my question to myself this spring/summer was, “now what?” How do I enjoy the place that am, where I worked so hard to get? I had the realization that I was still “grinding” and in my ways, unnecessarily. But I couldn’t seem to relax. The first important step was realizing that.

I use my own example because I find that many of my clients have similar stories. They’ve worked so damn hard to get where they are, they don’t know how to downshift and enjoy it. Is that you? More in the next post about how I spent my summer trying to teach myself to stop and smell the roses.