Sometimes rules work best as reminders, so I thought I would phrase this one in the form of a question. For most of my life, I have identified as a night owl. It’s worked to my benefit and detriment. So, lately I have been checking in with myself more often to make sure I’m up for the right reasons.
There’s nothing wrong with burning the midnight oil for money, but I think it’s really important for me to check in with my self to know my motivations. I am a passionate person, as I have mentioned many times before, so I put a lot of energy into anything I do. This only gets dangerous when it’s not something I truly love. I risk burnout when I push myself too hard for anything. But especially for things that I don’t truly love and care about, I don’t want to risk that.
Right now, I’m up doing a little bit of both. The past 6 months have been a great lesson to me. I’ve set several goals and objectives and I have absolutely seen them through. However, seeing them through has taken a great deal of effort and time. That commitment to accomplishment has taught me more and more that if you want to do things the right way, you have to prioritize and minimize the amount of things you are trying to accomplish.
When you have a more limited amount of things that you are trying to accomplish or pursue, you can still place focus on living a balanced and healthy life. This blog has been one of those things that has taught me that. Without refining the goals, prioritizing my ideas, and narrowing my focus on this daily blog, I would have had to bow out because it would’ve taken up way too much mental space. Fact is though, I do love writing these blogs. For myself and for the people who read them. So, I’m happy to burn the midnight oil working on them.
Two months ago, I was doing a lot of midnight oil burning on work projects night after night, and it started driving me crazy. It made me feel like I couldn’t breathe regularly. So, now I have to make sure IF I am up past midnight, then I am up doing things that I love. That way, in the morning when I’m tired and a little foggy, I’ll still have a big dumb grin on my face because my sleep was sacrificed for passion.