Category Archives: work

Life

Written in July 2025: I have a rare month with nothing to worry about. I did well in my first semester, and I won’t know what I’m studying next semester until it begins. I’ve had a lot of time to think. All this time off means for the first time since my child was born,Continue reading “Life”

Ménière’s??

This is a follow-up to Ménière’s? VertigoIt’s been a rough week. I had two major vertigo incidents. One ruined our Sunday plans with friends and family. The other happened quite publicly at work. Now more people know. With hospital visits and sickness, I’m having to take a lot of time off work, but health takesContinue reading “Ménière’s??”

Mental bandwidth

Years of depression, anxiety, struggle, busyness and ongoing addiction have had a significant impact on my ability to think clearly. It was only when I committed to abstinence, occasional meditation and running that my mental clarity grew significantly. (I still slip up sometimes.) I was amazed by the mental bandwidth awarded to me for theseContinue reading “Mental bandwidth”

Don’t react, respond

Wanting to help is not the same as being helpful. I keep having to remind myself to respond instead of reacting. Stop, step back, assess, respond. When I fail to do that I’m like someone running into a burning building with no knowledge or plan. I want to help, but end up making things worse.Continue reading “Don’t react, respond”

Practice

If you look at the greats, they don’t just well perform on the day. They perform well on the day because they’ve practiced different eventualities, every move thousands of times before the day, making it look simple. Deliberate practice. They sweat the details. We don’t see the minute details of their practice and tweaking andContinue reading “Practice”

Deadlines

Deadlines ensure work is done in a reasonable time or faster than it would have otherwise been done. They’re powerful, create extra pressure and get stuff done, but they can be hard to stay on top of when you have multiple deadlines running simultaneously. This is more a lesson for myself: In the last fewContinue reading “Deadlines”

Age

Health and time – takeaways at the end. When you’re young, there’s a tendency to believe you’ll live forever. I believed my health and time would continue endlessly no matter what I did, so I treated my body and time accordingly. I don’t consider myself old but I’m beginning to notice some changes and asContinue reading “Age”

Opportunity

It’s taken most of my life to realise the power of opportunity and the present moment. Having missed many potentially life-changing opportunities, I learned the value and necessity of taking opportunities immediately and ultimately realised that it’s possible to create them. It’s easy to think that you’ll do something when the time’s ‘right’ but you’llContinue reading “Opportunity”

Incremental Progress

TLDR: Get plenty of rest and sleep, reduce distractions, prioritise, focus on what you can prevent, do your best, focus on what you can control, take opportunities immediately, respond don’t react. I made a commitment to myself to become a writer. This means writing every day. I write a lot that I never post andContinue reading “Incremental Progress”

Study

Study has the power to change your life. The keys are to pursue what interests you, read or listen a little every day, narrow down your filter over time and apply what you learn immediately. How you study is also important. It’s really important that you pursue what interests you, especially in the beginning. IfContinue reading “Study”

1f. Fundamentals (Foundations 1/3) – Mental Health: Triggers & Tools

For the purposes of this section, I’ll assume you’re already seeking professional help. If you aren’t already, please do that first. Introduction So far, we’ve discussed various aspects of mental health including suicide, depression, anxiety and self-harm. Within that context, let’s look at how to recognise what triggers negative thinking and behaviour and why, andContinue reading “1f. Fundamentals (Foundations 1/3) – Mental Health: Triggers & Tools”

Goals

– You can have everything you want(just not all at once) (Series hiatus) TLDR Re-define realistic. Goals don’t need to be huge in the beginning. Be careful what you tell children about their dreams. Don’t delay gratification until you achieve your goals – enjoy the process, learn to not be attached to the result. AvoidContinue reading “Goals”

Burnout

(Unplanned post Part 2 – tools at the end) So now I’d like to talk about burnout. I’ll talk about how it developed, what it looks like, how it makes me feel and how I’m fighting it. How it developed It seems quite obvious, probably to you too if you read Part 1, but IContinue reading “Burnout”

Life Decision

(Unplanned post Part 1) It’s time for another unplanned spontaneous post. I don’t know exactly where this is going but it will be clear by the end. So recently I’ve been struggling with low energy and burnout. I’ve been in a job for 9 months while holding onto a part-time job. The main job isContinue reading “Life Decision”

COVID-19

We left the country for 3 weeks and my wife got Covid! Although initially it was stressful and looked like an awful situation, there have been many benefits. Although I’ve tested negative every day so far, at the end, I’ll detail my daily symptoms.

Recalibration

You may have noticed I went dark for a while. I am currently in a transition period, the process of recalibration, learning how to go from teacher to manager. This has challenged the systems I had in place to protect my mental health. More on that later – a bit of background first and someContinue reading “Recalibration”

Recalibration (bionic reading)

You may have noticed I went dark for a while. I am currently in a transition period, the process of recalibration, learning how to go from teacher to  manager. This has challenged the systems I had in place to protect my mental health. More on that later – a bit of background first and some lessons I have learned at the end. Background – From Teacher to Manager (Imposter Syndrome)Until just before my post on R&R, I had a highly productive schedule, using the early hours of the morning from 4 or 5 am to around 10 am to read, study or write. After that, I would have breakfast with my family and then cycle to work. This was working really well. I was tired but productive, achieving, increasing my self-esteem and staving off depression. Since then, I have transitioned from being a teacher to a regional manager. This means a big schedule change. My previous teaching hours were between 1 pm-9 pm. I now essentially have a 9-5 office job. My day off was Tuesday. Now it is Saturday & Sunday, but my part-time job was on those days until the academic year ended last week, so I worked three weeks with no day off. I also have to drive to work, which means less exercise and more stress (peak hour traffic, abrupt lane changes and stopping = a mini-heart attack every day!). The naive part of me thought the transition would be business as usual, just with some schedule adjustments. To stay productive, I thought it would just be a case of getting up earlier but I had not taken into account the stress of the new responsibilities and the lack of days off as I changed jobs.My first few weeks have been quite intense as I learn about my new role. AnxietyI have had very little time to feel depressed. What I have struggled with is anxiety.Here is what anxiety looks like for me: racing thoughts, increased heart rate, headaches from stress, impaired concentration and forgetfulness, incredibly focused concentration, and a general feeling of impending doom. In my main job, I have gone from being responsible for teaching around 8 classes to representing the whole company and being responsible (and first point of contact) for around 18 schools. This, and my lack of experience leaves me constantly questioning the decisions I make on a daily basis. I have the title, but I sometimes have the feeling of ‘Imposter Syndrome’.Continue reading “Recalibration (bionic reading)”

Bionic Reading

This is an experiment for my readers. Be sure to open this page for full effect. I recently became aware of a concept called Bionic Reading. The idea is that by focusing on the bold parts of each word, your brain will finish the word.  The aim is to “encourage a more in-depth reading and understanding of written content.” I will be trying it out on future posts too and would love your feedback. Should I keep doing it? Why/why not? Comment below if you find this helpful or not! Post emboldened with the help of: https://api.bionic-reading.com/convert/ For further information, see: https://bionic-reading.com/ (I am not affiliated with nor sponsored by them).

Muddled (unplanned)

I am just going to write and see where this goes. Writing is my way of unscrambling my thoughts and reprioritising what is important. TLDR: You cannot do everything you want at the same time, listen to your body, rest. For regular readers It has been an intense couple of weeks. I have been pushingContinue reading “Muddled (unplanned)“

Stress and Anxiety

Fragments The importance of rest and purpose Summary/TLDR at the end. Let me pre-empt this by pointing out that, as the subtitle suggests, I have not been getting enough rest. It follows that I am not writing at my best, but I hope this will serve as a reminder to you to get enough rest!Continue reading “Stress and Anxiety“

Passion Part 2

Where to start? Excuses If anyone wondered what happened to me, I have been on somewhat of a journey over the last few months. I disappeared for a while, my excuse to myself was an inability to produce anything of quality due to a lack of available time and energy but I now see thatContinue reading “Passion Part 2”

Overwork

It turns out there is such a thing as working too much. I think I have finally found my limit. I am at a crossroads. If I continue down this path I fear it will break me. Mentally or physically. I can already see the cracks forming. When you are inundated with stress and/or lackContinue reading “Overwork”