2-3-4 Friday 

‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’

1 thought

5 weeks ago, I moved to Kyoto to find a different pace of life.

I had been living in Singapore for the past 5 years. Since moving back to Singapore in September 2019, I had been pushing hard. I was clearly out of my comfort zone. Going from a full-time job to freelancing, and then from freelancing to a full-time business, were not easy tasks.

But I had come to a point where I was repeating the same grind. Wake, write, and then have sales conversations in the afternoon, and then return home to sleep.

Rinse and repeat.

And that might be you today.

You might have been working hard. Damn hard.

But somehow or rather, you just don’t find yourself breaking free and going to the next level of your growth as an adult.

Why?

Because even when you’re suffering, and not living an optimal life, you learn to adapt to that. That becomes your default.

Your discomfort zone becomes comforting. 

Secondly, because being on home ground leaves you comfortable.

Back in Singapore, it had gotten strangely easy. I was not making a lot of money, but I had found ways to survive. I could live with my parents. When I was hungry, I joined tons of events to get the free buffet meals.

When I couldn’t earn enough money, I learnt to eat at my parent’s home. 

When I was lonely, I kept going back to the same communities, even though they were getting trite and boring.

When you travel abroad to stay, you can’t do that.

And you might give a dozen reasons why you can’t do this.

1. You have a full-time job.
2. You have kids
3. You have a wife

My encouragement is that rather than taking a 7 day holiday the next time, go for depth, rather than breadth.

Live in a place for 3 weeks. You might then begin to see the beauty of having to rebuild an entire community and life in a new place.

Here in Kyoto, one of the hardest things has been trying to build a new community of friends. The loneliness of being without anyone you know, has been startling.

But it’s also taught me to stop staying in my room, and to actually be out there. If you don’t push yourself to a new place, little will push you where you’re used to.

1 talk

Sometimes grinding can be your next comfort zone.

Suffering can be a default.

You learn to stop pushing for something better.

1 tip

Are you in a time in your life where you feel stuck?

No matter what you do, how hard you work, nothing seems to change?

Take time out to go to a new place.

You don't have to do anything drastic. Just take a long period of paid leave and go to a new place.

Look at the world in a different country. The beauty of doing this is that everything that you use to take for granted, you now see differently. For example, some interesting things for me were:

1. Realising how the Japanese always greet you when you come into their shop, whether or not you’re going to buy something
2. Seeing how the bus driver announces every stop through his microphone or how the bus captain lifts his cap and bows to the other passengers when there’s a change in the shifts
3. Seeing how there’s a big culture around 24 hour convenience stores at every street corner, and how this suggests their round the clock work culture

You might find a different lens and this might prompt you to look anew at how you’re doing your own life.

Move somewhere new. You might just find something new.

John

Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love

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