Booking a vacation JUST to escape your reality is a temporary solution. It’s like seeing your ‘check engine’ light blinking, but pretending like you don’t notice it.
I used to have a pretty dull reality, although on paper, you’d never think that.
Great job, awesome friendships, lots of time off, generally fulfilled…but something felt missing. I didn’t really feel like I was living. It felt like I was just existing, going through the motions.
When you know something inside doesn’t feel right, the worst thing you can do is ignore the problem, thinking it’ll go away, without taking any action.
Like when you know your car is due for maintenance, and you keep telling yourself “I’ll bring it in next week”. And next week becomes months (or years) later.
And when the mechanic asks “how long has this been a problem”, you give a faulty response, knowing the problem has been around for a lot longer.
In the past, I used to book vacations to escape my reality. Thinking a trip to a sunny destination would ‘fix’ my problems. When the problem didn’t resolve itself, I’d just book another trip.
I always had a countdown looking forward to the next trip. I was living life in a way that always looked forward to an ‘event’ – aka the next trip.
With every trip, I went in with the same intention of discovering myself and trying to understand why I felt something missing inside. But the reality was I was expecting my external environment to change my internal world. That is a recipe for disaster.
Here’s when things changed: when I realized that the transformation I wanted to make was within me, not externally somewhere else in the world.
I began to replicate the same feeling of transformation, whether I was in my condo in Toronto, or on the beach in Mexico. I had to power to change, regardless of my environment.
You might be thinking “well, how do I find myself? How do I discover what’s missing?” … or “I still don’t know what my purpose is or what I want to do with my life…but something feels off”.
The number one tool that helped me discover who I am and get rid of that ‘missing’ feeling was journaling my thoughts on paper every day.
The two consistent things I’d ask myself are “what do I want to experience more of” and “what do I want to experience less of”.
These two questions changed (and continue) to change the trajectory of my life every single day.
It’s difficult if you’re a Type A person who wants to be in control and have a step-by-step plan for life. But some things in life, like discovering yourself, can’t be found in a how-to book.
You need to get out of your head and explore who you are.
My best piece of advice? That voice that is screaming inside you of everyday for change…start trusting it more. Start trusting yourself more. Take the first step, regardless of whether or not you know what step two and three are.
In weeks (or days), you might not be able to recognize yourself.
Helping you get out of your head is one of the core buckets of deep work we get to do at The Expansion Project.
It’s a 2.5 day retreat where the focus is on you, not me. You’ll not only discover why you feel something is missing, but you’ll walk away with a profound shift in what’s possible for you for your life.
If you’d like information about the next immersive experience, click here.
