Love is the Way
Jings, what a week. I'm trying to turn it around and focus not on what I didn't do, but on what I did. Let's see if I can unpack that here.
If you saw my video on YouTube last week, you'll know that I've adopted the message from Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge as my overarching guiding principle:
In fact I wrote about it in my newsletter recently too.
As I ponder that, I find myself wondering how to take care of the alignment part, you know, like how do I make my affiliate marketing videos lead ultimately towards love? And if I can't, should I just drop them?
Okay, let's take a look at that.
Where is the Love?
Since I sold the post office in 2019 and started coming back to life, I've been earning nothing more than bits and pieces here and there. My wife is working really hard to keep us afloat, and by really hard I mean quite often through the night. Eighteen-hour days aren't uncommon. The last month has been brutal actually. That's one of the biggest motivating factors for me to grow my income streams so that she can start to pull back and live a less stressful life.
Then there's self-love. My general MO is to sabotage anything that's working for me as soon as it starts to show even just a little bit of potential. How do I stop doing that?
Good question. I'm glad you asked.
This is where my Notion Life Design system comes into play. In fact, it's that very system that has prompted me to do the thing today in writing this newsletter.
There's the support of my wife, who loves me and believes in me so much that she's able to keep going with her brain-breaking workload without ever mentioning the idea that I go out and get a job. If she can believe in me that much, surely I owe it to her to believe in myself and keep going?
I know it's not quite as easy as that, but just writing that down has helped me a lot.
And then there are my friends and colleagues, who are some of the best people on the planet. I get to hang with them on Zoom sometimes all weekend long while we work. Some of the chit-chat during breaks has been about the most inspirational thing I could have asked for. Frankly, that's a much bigger factor than the Notion Life Design system, that feeling that I'm not alone and seeing actual proof that it works.
Queen P, I'm looking at you! 👀
So among my wife, my NLD system and my friends, I have three things in place to keep me from doubting and sabotaging myself. That's a lot of love right there: my wife, my group of friends, myself.
I get to stay on track by finding love for myself through my wife's love, through my friends' support, and with the help of a system that shows me where I need to retrace my steps when they're not aligned towards love.
And through all that, I make steps towards being able to spend time with my wife watching Ted Lasso (we're three behind right now!) or walking on the beach or going on trips or whatever.
The Things I Didn't Do
I'm going to give myself a pass for last week's failure to publish a single affiliate marketing video. The anniversary of my mum's death was in August, her birthday was at the end of August and my dad's 90th would have been on 3 September. Taking time to reflect, which I did, is an act of self-love that I should be grateful for having the opportunity to do.
Okay, I'm good. That worked. Time to go do the thing!