We all have a ‘dig deep’ button. And they are really handy. Your Dig Deep button means you can get stuff done, you can work late when needed, you can juggle multiple tasks, you can keep pushing through. Most parents wouldn’t survive without being able to dig deep occasionally.
But sometimes you go to press your Dig Deep button, and nothing happens. You know you want to push through; you know what needs to be done, but for some reason you can’t do it. Your get-up-go, got up and left. You are slightly puzzled by your inability to get things done, you are mystified why you are you so tired, so frozen. In your mind you go back to two years ago, or two months ago. “Hang on a minute. I could have pulled an all-nighter and just got this done. What is going on?”
Getting stuff done might be part of your identity. You may know yourself as an early bird: someone who gets a load of washing done, dishwasher emptied, exercise for the day completed, lunches made, dog walked and children at school … all by 8.30am. But suddenly you can’t do it anymore.
Or maybe you are the night owl, effortlessly gliding through mountains of work in the middle of the night, burning the midnight oil, without drama, churning our fabulous work. But now you only want to go to sleep at 9pm. What is going on? Is this middle age? Is this overwhelm? Is it hormonal? You try to persuade yourself that you just need one really good night’s sleep and you’ll get it all done.
But it seems your Dig Deep button has broken. And the question is, do you want to fix it? Is living life this way what you want?
Sometimes you think an easy fix would be a holiday at a five-star resort, some time to yourself and the ‘old you’ will be back. But when the Dig Deep button is broken, this doesn’t work. You come home from your holiday and you still can’t find your ability to push through.
So, the questions to answer are:
- Is my dig-deep button broken?
- Have I been overusing it for the last few years?
- Do I want to fix it? And go back to how things were?
- Or do I want a sea change?
Covid showed a lot of us that we just don’t want to dig that deep anymore. Working from home is much simpler than wasting time commuting. Realisation that your life doesn’t have to be as busy, as cluttered as it was before. That living near the sea lends itself to a fresh start and a calmer pace. That the rat race wasn’t working that well. that we don’t want to go back to the days where you had to dig deep, every single damn day, just to get through.
So, do you need help fixing your Dig Deep button? Or do you want to build a life that doesn’t require so much digging? What does that better life look like for you?
