What question made me realise my next steps in life.

Hey all my name is Arthana Nava I’m a life coach and a mental health professional. I have been in the field for 6 years and it is such a rewarding and intriguing line of work. I have always been interested in human behaviour and human thought and I’m going to use this platform to talk about things that pop into my mind, any curious thoughts I may have and any revelations I may have. Feel free to follow my Instagram @arthana.nava and check out my website which is arthananava.com.

Right all that out of the way I’m going to talk to you about a recent revelation I have had, I have been slacking hard, this life coaching gig is fairly new to me and I’m good at what I do, but what I am not good at is being on social media and marketing which seems to be a big thing now to get noticed when you are self-employed which probably also played a part in my slack.

Anyways I’m starting a new job tomorrow, pats self on the back, it a mental health outreach worker where I go to patients homes and do therapeutic work with them and I can not bloody wait because I’ve done similar work in the past and it was my absolute fave.

Anyways I’ve had a nice three week gap since I left my last role and my new start date. Prior to my time off, I was hitting the gym consistently at 6:30am for about 3 weeks and I saws the changes, felt the changes and it was great, if you know me you know this is a big deal, last time I went to the gym was 10 years ago. So I was well proud. Then my time off started I went for like 2 days then stopped, the desire to sleep in and the desire to stay up late and indulge in the time off creeped in. I mean I used to get mad at myself and beat myself up when I wasn’t being ‘productive’ productive in the sense of going gym and learning or reading a book and self-study, then I realised having a break and resting is equally important and I did, but me, I indulge hard, so this lasted the whole 3 weeks and I also went on a spontaneous trip to Spain, which was amazing and very blissful and new job starting tomorrow I actually do feel great, rested and ready. However my routine is out the bloody window.

So today I decided I’ll watch some videos of life coaching talk about their thing and there was a questions asked, usually I watch the videos and when the thoughts spark in me I ponder on it for a while and carry on watching the video as it runs, today I thought let me actively participate because I have been watching videos for a while and if you asked me what most of them were about I wouldn’t have a clue. So the question was ‘What do you want your life to be? to look like?’ Boy did this spark something I me and the motivation for me to get started on clubhouse today as well.

So I got my notebook and pen and started writing,

The first line was ‘I want my life to be easy’ that was my first thought, then I acknowledged that I know that life is not easy, it is not possible to have an easy life, life is hard in one way or form for anyone and this is a fact. Then I pondered that the things I find difficult now in this moment will one day be easy for me, but they will only be easy in my future if I work hard now.

After this realisation (as simple as it may be, I hadn’t really internalised that until now) I continued, at this moment in life what do I want? I want a routine, the routine I wish to have is this — wake up 6am and head to the gym, come back meditate and journal then start my 9–5 with my full attention and no focus on what I have to do after work. Then I want to go on a walk then work on my life coaching business. That is what I want right now. I realised this is very realistic, very possible and actually pretty easy… I could literally do this tomorrow easily. Yet my first sentence in this writing was ‘I want my life to be easy’.

That made me think for a while, why am I not even doing what is easy and something I am very much capable of doing? I paused and suddenly became aware of my hand gravitating towards my phone and pulled it back, this is me avoiding, let me focus and dig into this deeper.

Lack of motivation? Avoidance I guess? (as I was doing that in the moment) fear of failure?

Everyone has fear of failure I thought, this is a common feeling. I kept thinking what is stopping me? Having no routine comes up, which I touched upon earlier, but I had a little routine but it wasn’t the ideal routine, that may be it, maybe I hadn’t had that routine going on for long enough for it to be habit?

I then thought about what ive been doing with no routine, sleeping in, eating junk food, sleeping late and watching lots of movies non-stop. I thought to myself ‘I’m being a bloody child’ Then I thought about my childhood, my parents were strict and heavily influenced by the study hard go to uni find a good job with lots of money ideal. They ‘forced’, as it definitely was not encouraged, to study after school on weekends, no time off. I had no childhood, my childhood was test papers and tuition. I had no childhood. This behaviour reminded me of university, I did the same, sleeping in, junk food and movie after movie, the only thing that made mem change my routine was friends and deadlines. Now I have no deadlines (externally), I should have my own deadlines I thought.

I have freedom now, I am not forced to study or do anything ( my brother and I rebelled so hard and our parents are much more modern and understanding now, as are we of them). So why am I still doing this? Is it ego? I don’t know but at this moment all I know is that if this continues I will be overweight and unhappy. This does not sound appealing.

I went onto reddit today as well and there was a post that said ‘say what you miss feeling’ and the fist thing that came to me was ‘I miss feeling accomplished’. I miss ticking things off on my to-do list, I miss meeting deadlines and getting the rewards from this and I miss meeting my goals.

What is my goal? I just have one big goal, which is to be a successful life coach and have a great impact on the lives of many, similar to many others who serve.

This is the issue I thought, having just one big goal, it is overwhelming and I have tried many times to write to-do lists and break things down but they haven’t come to fruition I just have them there with me not taking any action, I think this is because I have all these little to-do’s linked to this one massive goal and there’s a part of me that’s just like ‘ah I have so much to do, doing this one thing is going to do what’ — that is me being overwhelmed and then making excuses which lead me to procrastinate.

I need to have smaller goals, atomic habits and all that jazz. Small steps to the top of the mountain, I can’t just jump there.

It’s funny because I know all this stuff, I say these things to other ‘ small and steady does it, the hare and the tortoise story’ and like many others I can spew out so much advice and can’t take it myself. However this was different, I wasn’t just saying these words to myself, I thought of a situation I was curious with it explored it and realised I am not doing what I want to be doing because I am overwhelmed by this one big goal and need to have smaller goals to make it seem easier and more doable for myself.

I know myself as you know yourself, I aim too big and too high and I don’t do what I want how I want to. It’s okay to have smaller goals, it’s better than being stuck and doing nothing, so yes that one little things on my to-do list is actually monumental for the journey.

And that’s what it is, it’s about the journey no the destination, I’m going to throw aside my big goal and just focus on the small goals. This way I am productive and less anxious.

I encourage you to also ask yourself what you want your life to be and look like? Write it down and keep writing, ask yourself what is stopping you and give yourself time to dig deep and be curious, you’ll never know what pre-existing gold you had down there covered in dust.