Over time most of us create and follow predictable routines in both our personal and professional lives. We develop ‘our’ rhythm and it defines our days. We become comfortable with it, it fits for us, and it serves us well.
Until it doesn’t.
Our Rhythm Evolves, And It’s Always There…
In the early days of my career the rhythm of my life was dictated by the academic calendar of whatever institution I was attending or serving at the time. In others words, I never really had to think about it, it just existed within the confines of the published schedule for the year.
Having been conditioned to follow such a schedule since the day I started elementary school made it comfortable. It included freedom of choice between semesters, periods of intense engagement with clear end points within each semester, and freedom to choose in the white space that wasn’t scheduled.
After leaving the world of academia and going out on my own as a speaker, coach, and consultant, I searched for a new rhythm. This time it was different. It was my choice, and my main consideration was finding a way to replicate a semester-like rhythm in my business.
It took a handful of years to pin it down, but I quickly recognized some familiar patterns that enabled me to achieve my objective:
Conferences and conventions tended to be scheduled either in the spring or fall
Clients generally preferred to do strategic planning in the last quarter of the year
Leadership development tended to be in the winter or early spring.
Of course, those are not etched in stone or necessarily followed by all businesses or organizations. But the pattern was regular enough that it made it possible for me to continue relying upon a rhythm I was used to living.
Sometimes Freedom to Choose Isn’t Possible…
As we all know, sometimes life has it’s own plans for us and we aren’t consulted…
A mental or physical health issue pops up and requires us to make a change in the way we are managing our lives.
A recession or pandemic hits and the reality of working when and where you can find opportunities becomes mandatory.
A change in leadership at a client company brings a project to a premature end.
The list could continue, but the point has been made…what works most of the time may not work all of the time and we need to adapt.
In my case, my freedom to choose disappeared when I stopped finding my work fulfilling. It started to feel too routine and redundant, my excitement and enthusiasm disappeared, and my regular trips to/from the airport and in/out of various towns to facilitate 2-4 day programs became exhausting.
Said more bluntly—
Burnout hit and I knew immediately continuing to do what I was doing would only make it worse (for me and anyone around me including the clients I was serving).
So I decided to sell the business and refocus my work on something that mattered to me.
Creating a New Rhythm…
At the root of my burnout was a deeply personal (and previously private) reality—the childhood trauma I experienced had never been admitted, addressed, or resolved, and it was time to face it.
As I wound down the small handful of remaining client commitments I chose to acknowledge how my life had been impacted by what I had experienced.
[Note…I’ve written openly about this topic in several earlier posts, so we won’t revisit it now…AND I invite you to check out the archives if you’d like to know more about that journey.]
My guiding belief was that I might be able to help others by sharing my story.
But first I needed to sort it out and figure out what it meant.
So with an open calendar I chose to invest in learning how to tell my story effectively. I started openly talking about it to gain insight into how it landed with others, and I began working with a therapist to sort things out.
Not surprisingly, that led me to create a new rhythm—one that no longer mirrored my comfortable ‘scheduling life around semesters’ approach.
Specifically, it became more of a monthly path of connecting with like-minded people who shared the mission of wanting to make peace with their past and leverage the lessons they earned (thus the title of this publication) to help others.
From September 2017 through the middle of July 2024, that was my sole focus. Engaging with speakers, coaches, and consultants who had messages that mattered to them. Messages they wanted to share with others to help them avoid the things they experienced (or at least make sense of them).
The New Rhythm Served Me Well…
Being a teacher at heart, I found my new rhythm comfortable, and enjoyed the constancy of it versus the more segmented semester-like model I had long followed, including:
The regular engagement with people who wanted to master and share the message that mattered most to them fed my soul.
The opportunities to hear their stories and share my own helped all of us hone our messages and sort out the path to creating impact for our audiences.
The chance to play with and test new approaches in one-on-one and small group interactions, as well as from the stage, delivered the peace of mind I had long been chasing.
Then one day I realized something I had been dreading—
the feeling that my quest was complete.
I was at peace with the journey I had traveled and it was time to step aside and stop chasing the next thing.
To be clear, I wasn’t tired of the work, nor was I consciously thinking about it being ‘time to retire.’
I was at peace…the demons had been silenced.
I captured the thing I had long chased…peace with my past and comfort in the present.
I had been gifted with the opportunity to share the lessons I had earned in my life’s most difficult moments in a way that served and supported others in their journeys to do the same.
Best of all, unlike my previous ‘accomplishments’, I had seen the impacts on a very real and personal level. That filled my soul and resolved any and all doubt about whether my life and work had mattered.
I felt whole, blessed, and ready to consider…
What’s Next?
That’s when I met “The Empty Calendar”.
The days, weeks, and months all looked the same:
Limited commitments other than various birthday, holiday, and family celebrations.
A small handful of periodic one-on-one coaching calls.
Two or three scheduled 2-hour pickleball sessions each week.
Every day essentially looking the same with no real need to check the calendar in the morning to see what lay ahead:
If it is Tuesday or Friday I’m playing pickleball the same time I did on those days last week,
If it’s Wednesday I’m having a coaching call with one of my clients,
If it’s any other day, who knows…probably just hanging around and looking for something to engage in,
That was my reality of The Empty Calendar.
After almost two years of experiencing it, I’m still a bit uncertain about how I want to evolve it…
and actively searching for the answer.
TODAY’S EARNED LESSONS…
The Earned Lesson for me as I approach the third year of this ‘retirement phase’ of life is that an empty calendar is a bit illogical (and it is a choice).
One of the reasons I long detested the word retirement was because I couldn’t imagine giving up the work I loved.
Yet I did just that with no plan and no vision of what it would look like.
And I learned it feels empty, I feel lost, and I need to do something about it because the toll it takes to feel that way all the time is too high.
No, I don’t want to go back to any of the rhythms outlined above. And, I do want to create a new rhythm that feeds my soul and energizes me, and that impacts others in a positive way.
That is my next mission (and I am intent on fulfilling it sooner rather than later).
It’s Your Turn…
I’m curious, have you experienced any of this? How did/do you manage it? What lessons have you earned from your journey so far?
I’d love to hear from you in the comments (or via direct message if you’d prefer).
MH
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