Okay honest question for the group. How many of you have a list of things you want to pursue that's... longer than is probably sensible? 😅
I sat down this week to work on my Ikigai and realised I have:
- A career I'm building skills in
- A consulting direction I want to move toward
- A creative art practice I lose time in
- A community project I've just started planning
- A charity initiative I want to expand
- A facilitation aspiration that makes my gut light up
- A whole location-independent lifestyle I'm designing
- Oh and about four properties, a renovation, learning Spanish, and a saxophone I've owned for 30 years that I still can't play
And I sat there going... am I a visionary, or am I just a magpie collecting shiny things? 🐦⬛✨
Because here's my tension. My brain genuinely lights up for ALL of these. They're not random. They actually connect and feed each other. But I also know that if I try to chase all of them at once, I'll end up with seventeen half-finished things and a wine at 4pm wondering why nothing moved.
Sound familiar to anyone? Just me? 😬
Something that's helping me (and I'm saying "helping," not "solved," because let's be real, it's a work in progress):
Sage asked me a question that stopped me in my tracks. She asked me to look at each pursuit and figure out: is this a Chapter 1 thing (right now, ages 60-65), or is it a Chapter 2 or 3 thing that my dopamine-hungry brain is pulling forward because it's more exciting than the boring foundation work?
Ouch. But fair. 😂
Turns out some of my shiniest ideas are genuinely Chapter 2 or 3 material. They're not wrong. They're just not NOW. And giving them a home on a "someday" list (Jim talked about this in the Week 5 call) means they're not lost. They're parked. Out of my head. Safe. But not competing for the same energy as the two or three things that actually need me THIS quarter.
Still working on it. Still catch myself wanting to plan the saxophone comeback tour when I haven't done my council paperwork. But at least now I can see the pattern and go: "Hello, magpie brain. That's shiny. Is it Chapter 1?"
Anyone else juggling this? Would love to know I'm not the only one with a someday list longer than my grocery list. 🦓💛