Seasons of Life
Embracing change within ourselves
Five hundred, twenty five thousand, six hundred miiinuuutes. How do you measure, measure a year? (that is me singing Seasons of Love from Rent for any non-musician readers out there).
The end of a year is a natural time to reflect, set new goals, have an existential crisis, etc.
I am not typically one to set a New Year’s resolution because I mostly feel that new habits, routines, and goals can and should be implemented at any time of year as the discipline or inspiration strikes, circumstances change, and life evolves.
However, whether by coincidence or not, I have felt a strong pull to set goals and intentions for myself going into 2025. It started with a couple of fitness goals and gradually morphed into a long–ish list of various aspirations ranging from “run a marathon” to “show my dog more love” (I am nice to Pudge, but my son Leo has certainly stolen the spotlight in our household).
As this list grew, I started to feel a shift in myself (something has chaaanged within me – the musical theater reference are flowing this morning). This wasn’t just a few exciting goals to strive for, something bigger was happening.
I started Happy, Not Satisfied to share ideas and talk about finding joy in growth, but mostly to talk about my struggles and how I try to work through them (I’ll be happy once I…, achievements are byproducts of the process, your stress isn’t keeping the plane in the air).
Those who know me well know that I have a bit of an extreme personality. My mom often tells the story that she was worried about me as a toddler because I wouldn’t attempt to color. Then one day I started coloring but only once I could keep it inside the lines. It was an on-or-off with that one for me.
A little over five years ago, I had a monumental life shift event. After a long day of general overindulging, I woke up and decided to change everything. I improved my diet, started exercising, began to meditate, started waking up earlier (shout out to the #4amclub), and drank less alcohol and more water. Essentially, I flipped a switch.
I found a new discipline within myself I did not realize existed. I am a completely different person because of this shift, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I often refer to the version of myself before this “reckoning” as “Old Dan” and to myself now as “New Dan”. After more than five years, however, New Dan isn’t so new anymore.
New Dan also let the best of an extreme personality get the best of him at times. My consistent habits turned into personal mandates that caused me stress if I was in situations where I didn’t have control. Wellness, at times, went to an extreme that wasn’t necessarily productive.
In order to shift to healthy and productive habits, I needed David Goggins yelling in my ear telling me to cut the excuses and do the work. I needed to be shocked out of lethargy. But now the productive habits are just a way of life (which DOES happen – if you are at the beginning of a wellness journey, trust that overcoming the inertia gets easier and before you know it, you won’t remember what it felt like NOT to eat well, exercise, etc.).
As I was adding to my 2025 Goals list, I realized it might be time for Dan 3.0. Dan 1.0 was the before times. The eat junk, sleep late, don’t exercise guy who needed a wake up call.
Dan 2.0 is who I am now and have been for five years. Disciplined, consistent, intense about wellness and routines.
Dan 3.0 is who I want to become. I will keep the healthy habits and discipline, but I will also show myself more grace, let go of extreme adherence to all routines and protocols, and let life come to me a little bit more.
I am going to spend more time coloring outside the lines.
I love the Steve Jobs quote, “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.”
Dan 3.0 can’t exist without the foundation of Dan 2.0. That was an un-skippable step.
We are all at different points on our journeys. You might be in a place where you need some Dan 2.0 discipline. I needed it for five years. I owe everything I have in my life to committing to that version of myself.
You might be at a similar crossroads to me where you’ve instilled the habits, have the discipline, and now need to soften the edges a bit to enjoy all life has to offer.
Or maybe you are fully enlightened and on a much more evolved version of yourself that I hope to one day reach.
My goal in writing this is to encourage you to embrace the idea that there are seasons to life, and to have a rich, robust, and meaningful existence, we must embrace our personal evolutions because ultimately, there is no end.
Happy New Year!
Learn more at www.happynotsatisfied.com