I’ve gone from smoking four times a year, averaging two grams of tobacco a week, to 30g a week, smoking every day, several times a day.
Sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it?
But let’s reframe it and put it in context.
The context is I’m using smoking as a way of stopping drinking at home on my own.
I got broken.
I was drinking on average five bottles of red wine each week, including weeknights, which was impacting my creativity, my productivity, my focus, and my life.
I now only watch half an hour of TV a day, rather than three or four hours, or more each day.
I’m back present in the now, with clarity & intent and focusing on my business.
Why?
Well, I fell asleep.
I fell asleep in my business. I fell asleep in my life.
I had a client who turned out to be a bad client. I’d never experienced it before, so I didn’t realise what was happening and they cost me a lot of money, as well as six months of productivity. I should have been launching my own products and getting on with my own stuff, but I ended up just waiting for them to be ready.
I’m not blaming the problems this caused on that client, they had no doubt their own stuff going on (I don’t believe they were doing it deliberately), but I’ve realised that I didn’t deal with it when I should have. It’s not a situation I’ve had in my business before, so I didn’t realise the havoc it was causing.
To be fair there were other factors going on in my business at the time that also contributed.
Essentially I got complacent and coasted.
I fell asleep and I went into what seemed like the good part of my life, but I wasn’t paying attention, because I was asleep, and in doing so I have lost that fantastic, amazing, incredible, wonderful part of my life.
I’m now single, after 6+ years in what I thought would be my ‘forever’ relationship.
That has slipped away.
So to move forward I am back focusing with intent and clarity on my business.
I have taken the time to look back and work out where I went wrong, to make sure I learn those painful and important lessons.
Back to the smoking – I’ve smoked for a large part of my life, but gave up for a couple of years back in 2017, then let it partly back into my life on strict terms, only 4 times a year for one weekend when I’m socializing with some other friends who smoke.
Now that rule is out of the window.
Smoking more is something that I will deal with when I’m ready, because I’ve done that before, I know I can beat that demon.
The demon of drink and the demon of laziness/not being focused are two things that have been with me all my life. Red wine and Warcraft is how I last dealt with going through my significant breakup, and it cost me years of my life, as well as who knows how much income from not being focused on my business for all those years…
This time I’m not letting that happen.
So, yes, I’m smoking more, but I’m not drinking at home, I am not wasting my productivity or my focus. I am back concentrating on myself, and being the best I can for my clients, my partners, and my customers. I am focusing on the now, to be everything I can be, to put out the right energy into the world and regain what I lost.
It’s hard. It is one day at a time.
But I will get there because I have a goal. In fact, for the first time ever, I have a series of goals. I have a six month goal, a 1 year goal, a two-year goal, a four-year goal and a five-year goal. And yes, I’ve written them down and I’m reminding myself of them every day.
I will meet those goals because I’m back in the now, awake in my own life, moving forward each day, concentrating on what’s important and getting shit done.
There’s had to be some serious introspection and looking back at the mistakes I made, to own those mistakes. It takes two people to make something work. Just as it takes two people to allow it to fail. There is shared blame as there always is in these scenarios.
For me, the important thing is to understand where I went wrong, what caused it and address those parts of my life. To get my life back on track.
I’m in the process of doing so, and this is my accountability post. To make it public. And own it.
I made mistakes. I know what they are. I won’t make the same mistakes again.
Sure, I’ll go on and make other mistakes, I’m a human being and that’s how life works. But I will not make the same mistakes again.
It’s amazing. Once you do become focused, present in your own life and open yourself up to the opportunities that are around you and start looking around they start popping up left, right and Centre.
I’m now busier than I’ve been in years, working with some fantastic partners on some amazing projects that are going to add more positive energy and abundance to my life over the next six months than I’ve had in a very long time .
Most importantly I have to say a massive thank you to every one of you who has been there as a friend (& family) for me to lean on, thank you to every one of you that is a partner working with me, for understanding and forgiving me my lapse of concentration and focus, and giving me the chance to regain myself and apply myself to our friendships, to our partnerships and be everything that I can be, and deliver real value to you.
Thank you.
That’s a seriously heartfelt thank you. Every one of you has helped me to work through this.
I’m not through it yet, but I feel like I’m making some bloody progress at last, and it’s thanks to having such an amazing circle of family, friends and partners, who have listened, and put up with me sharing my pain.
Note: I’ve not covered things from her side/perspective, this post is not about what happened or why, but what I can say is she has been honest and treated me with respect. I still value her friendship and am hopeful that we will come out the other side of this as friends.
Moving Forward –
As part of this getting back to being myself process I am also taking on some new challenges, new directions in my business, new projects that I believe will be healthy and bring me new energy, and more new opportunities to my life.
I’m also back to reading every day, I’ve just finished “the trick to money is having some”, as well as Rob Cornish’s Passive Income, and Steven Bartlett’s Sexy millionaire, all of which have had really, really good, timely, useful bits to me and my mindset to reframe things and get myself back to where I need to be, get my business back to where I want it to be.
Note: Check my review of Rob’s book here – https://mattgarrett.com/evergreen-passive-income-with-affiliate-marketing-by-rob-cornish/
New directions, New Opportunities, and smoking too much for a little while.
A Fresh Start, Leaving some of the old bits behind, the bits that weren’t working for me.
I know the journey is going to continue to be bumpy, and painful, but I know I will come out the other side and be the real me again. One day at a time.
And yes, it’s a bit of a mix of images for this post, I really didn’t know what to go with, so I picked a few that kinda reflect different aspects of the situation.
