Stop Treating Life As A Transitionary Period
MINDSETLIFESTYLEBECOMING A SWE
6/10/20242 min read
The majority of people who read my blog are people who have the goal of career switching or want to pivot into tech. It is highly likely that you are extremely focused on this future goal 🥅. In your mind, life will ‘really’ begin to start when you reach this goal. Your problems will be halved. You can become the ‘real you’. With your focus being on your desired destination, your present moment unfortunately gets neglected, and often branded as something that must be escaped. I want to break something to...your goals are nothing but a mirage 😱. Before you click off, let me explain.
Once you’ve successfully broken into tech or made your career switch, another goalpost 🎯 will pop up. Now it's to improve your coding skills or get promoted. And once those are reached, then it will be to get a higher paying job or one that lets you work from a beach. And this extends beyond career switching. For my non-techie readers, your goal may be to make your first six figures. Once you reach this goal, you scratch your head wondering why you aimed so low initially, and bump the number up to a million. And the thing about numbers is, they never stop. The Bible cleverly puts this as 'chasing the wind'. Ultimately, we need to accept the fact that we will never be satisfied with reaching our goal and will always strive for more. We often treat life as a constant 'transitionary period', convinced that the next stage of life will be when we 'really' start living, but it never is. Now, this can be a good thing because it means we are constantly progressing, refining, improving, and offering more to the world. But on the other hand, the opportunity cost of full focus on future goals means the present gets neglected and devalued when it's the most important thing we have.
So I encourage you to be present and content in the moment. This is how you stop life passing you by whilst you chase your big and beautiful dreams.
Practical ways you can do this is:
Start a gratitude journal: Keep a daily log about things you’ve enjoyed during the day. It can be the smallest things. Your job may be challenging and you may be looking to change, but find at least one thing you enjoy about it.
Keep a prayer journal: Write down things you've prayed about. Read it regularly and you’ll soon realise that you are living in answered prayers.
Reduce your screen time: As much as i’d love you to spend hours of your day reading the ruthfultech blog, I want you to go out and experience real life. You may think using social media is a form of socialising but I would argue that it is one of the least social things you can do.
Be present: Use your 5 senses to ground yourself in the present moment. What do you smell, hear, see etc You can't give these answers based on the future or the past so they are the best way to experience the current moment.
Life starts now, not when your goals have been reached.
Until next time,
Ruth
If you enjoyed this post, check out these ones:
