Do you have a stressful day job? If you feel like you lose yourself when things get busy, read on!
Reconnecting with your path and purpose is one of the best ways to prepare for an upcoming busy season. So before things get hectic, pause.
Take a breath.
Check-in with yourself.
Feel out where you’re at and where you’re going. Journal it, visualize it, or create a roadmap for it.
What are you working toward? What’s the deeper “why” beneath all the deadlines?
Why Do You Do What You Do?
Most of us hold down our day job to finance the rest of our lives. Look beyond this for a moment. Is there a deeper reason that you do what you do? How does the day job fit into the grand scheme of your life?
Deep questions, I know!
Some folks are really ambitious at work. Their path is aligned with absolutely crushing through their busiest seasons to excel in their career. Maybe they love the job, or they highly value their role as a provider, a leader, or a team player. This is awesome! Staying connected with their path and purpose will help maintain that energy.
Others may see their job as just one facet of their bigger picture. Maybe they are really devoted to their family, community, or creative practice. Perhaps they put a high value on peace and calm. This is also awesome! Staying connected with their path and purpose will support them in upholding their boundaries on the job, and contextualizing the chaos.
If you’re here because you’re a creative soul navigating the corporate role, I would guess that you identify with the latter.
Know that you can care deeply about your day job, and still have a bigger “why” outside of it!
How Does Your Day Job Support Your Life?
Many months ago I wrote about the reciprocal relationship between creativity and career. There are many reasons one who is passionate about their creativity would want to stay engaged in a stressful day job:
- To fund your lifestyle and your creative endeavours
- The freedom in not making your creativity financially responsible for your living
- Fodder and new experiences to feed into your creative projects
- Maintaining a degree of social connection
- Enjoying a separate identity to keep your creative one lighthearted
You could go deeper still. Do you have a big picture purpose to everything you do? Do you have a creative message? Your “why” could be anything from “saving humanity“ to “because I really love to basket weave”. As long as it resonates deeply with you.
What is your path? You don’t need to have an end-goal, but if you do, explore how your day job (and the busy season to come) helps you along that path. Is it an anchor? A teacher? Is it meant to finance your dreams? Are you biding your time?
If you can connect strongly with your path and purpose, then you will be able to contextualize your efforts. You’ll become more aware of the temporary nature of the season, and you’ll have more clarity of mind when you need to take on more (or less).
Why We Do This Work Before A Busy Season
When things get busy, soul searching tends to be pretty far down on the priority list! As we become more stretched, we also tend to become more reactive and externally focused. It’s really hard to be introspective and to feel like ourselves.
So it’s best to get comfortable with your path and purpose while you have a calm moment to do it in.
Once it’s well-established, the idea is that it will stick with you and support you (and your decision making) throughout your busiest seasons because it’s become either habitual or ingrained into your mental framework.
(That’s my theory, anyways!)
Don’t let busy season burnout cause you to feel disconnected from your “why” and knock you off of your path altogether! If you have a busy season coming up, check out The Busy Season Survival Guide and stay resilient and creative, even in your busiest seasons!
