I am fascinated by those things that give us energy and those things that take it away and what causes this.
Many people assume that exhaustion comes purely from doing too much. Sometimes that’s true. But often, the deepest form of tiredness comes from spending years moving in a direction that doesn’t truly resonate with who we are.
You can sleep eight hours a night, eat well, exercise regularly, and still feel drained. Why? Because energy is not simply physical. It is emotional, mental, creative, and spiritual.
When we spend years doing work that doesn’t inspire us, living a life that doesn’t feel authentic, or ignoring the quiet voice inside that keeps nudging us in a different direction, we slowly lose energy. We lose enthusiasm. We lose vitality.
On the other hand, when we begin moving toward something that feels meaningful, something that genuinely excites us, it often feels as though energy starts flowing back into our lives.
One phrase I have always loved is:
“Pursue the dream that recurs.”
That means both the literal dreams that visit you while you sleep and the dreams you repeatedly fantasize about during the day. The business idea that won’t leave you alone. The creative project you keep imagining. The profession you secretly wish you had chosen. The place you dream of living. The life that keeps calling to you.
Those recurring dreams are often trying to tell you something. And I mean that literally in that your subconscious will be transmitting messages to you during dreams that you might be ignoring during waking life. And your mind can be transmitting the same to you during waking hours in your daydreams. You should pay attention to what recurs.
The problem is that modern life is noisy.
We are encouraged to move faster, consume more information, compare ourselves to others, and follow paths that society considers sensible or safe. Yet purpose is rarely discovered through constant busyness.
To me, life and survival sometimes feels like I am water-skiing while trying to fish for food to stay alive. Somebody else is driving the speedboat deciding my direction and I’m trying to stay afloat, surfing along at light-speed, while simultaneously trying to grab fish from the water for dinner. Basically I am being dragged along in a direction and doing activities that I’m not deciding for myself and which should be the height of fun but feel more like a desperate situation. I could experience the water-skiing-fishing as hilariously funny and love the excitement of it or I can see it as ridiculously hard work and that the stakes, the probability of success and survival is impossibly high. It is entirely a perspective, attitude and mood choice whether or not I enjoy each situation in life.
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is slow down.
Slow down and feel your own way forward.
There will be times in life where you are being pulled along and there will be times when you are in control. Life will ebb and flow between those two states. And that’s ok.
What I encourage you to do is to pay attention to what energises you and what drains you in every situation. Notice which conversations light you up and which leave you exhausted. Notice what you would happily spend hours learning about even if nobody paid you. Be aware of how you feel during each experience. Are you comfortable and energized by being pulled along – are you drained by pushing your own direction forward doing something that you don’t have a passion for – or is it vice-versa.
The answers are often already there within your intuition, your gut feeling, the signs coming your way, the feeling of going with the flow, of ease and lack of resistance or blockages in direction. Things either open up or shut down.
One of the most important things to remember is this:
It is never ever too late to start.
Never too late to build.
Never too late to retrain.
Never too late to re-educate.
Never too late to start over.
Never too late to be brave.
Never too late to follow what makes you nervous.
Many people spend years believing they are trapped by age, qualifications, circumstances, or expectations. Yet history is full of people who changed direction in their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties and beyond.
The dream feels too big to begin. Too much effort. Too little gain at the beginning and for too long. Too many small steps ahead.
Overwhelm stops you before you start. I have been there many times over. I have quit, failed, started over, had success, failed again, built things, built nothing, failed again, daydreamed, procrastinated, been nervous, bailed out, cried, laughed, chickened out, lost opportunities, had anxieties, taken opportunities. I have felt like a charlatan, an imposter, a dilettante, an idiot – in fact I have been all those things. I’ve also felt confident, creative, knowledgable, skillful, inventive and innovative. Nothing in life is certain and none of those things truly matter. What matters is that we use those experiences as lessons and then keep on trucking on.
One thing I have learned for sure is to never stop trying. Never stop searching for what you love to do. Keep digging away to find your purpose. Keep planning. Keep taking action. Keep dreaming. Eventually it pays off.
Dream as big as you like. We have endless creativity and ideas within.
Teach yourself confidence and trust yourself.
Quit the crappy job and start your own business.
Change sector and career.
Try something new.
Meet new people in the field you want to enter.
Find good examples of what you want to do.
Be creative.
Use AI, and of course ChatGPT, to generate new ideas.
Ignore nay-sayers.
Learn from your failures and successes.
Ignore market conditions reported in the media – you know the ones I’m talking about, those that paint a bleak picture. Sod those guys and their negative outlook.
Find a way to make your dream work by being inventive and innovative.
People are constantly doomsaying, being pessimistic and predicting disaster. The economy is about to collapse. Technology is going to ruin everything. AI will take everyone’s jobs. Society is falling apart. The wrong people are in charge. The future is bleak.
And perhaps some of those fears contain elements of truth. Every generation has had its challenges, uncertainties and threats. History is full of periods where people genuinely wondered what would happen next.
But here’s the question:
How much of that is actually stopping you from doing what you want to do today?
What’s preventing you from learning a new skill, starting a project, creating something, helping people, building a business, writing a book, learning an instrument, volunteering in your community, or pursuing a dream you’ve been carrying around for years?
For most of us, the truthful answer is uncomfortable:
Usually, it is ourselves.
Our doubts.
Our fears.
Our procrastination.
Our need for certainty before taking action.
The world will always contain problems. There will always be economic challenges, political disagreements, technological disruption and predictions of doom. There always have been.
Yet somehow, throughout every generation, people still fell in love. They still created art. They still started businesses. They still invented new technologies. They still built communities. They still found meaning. They still pursued their dreams.
The world belongs to people who are willing to imagine possibilities that others cannot yet see. The people who keep that inner light shining despite all the noise around them.
History teaches us that human beings have survived and prospered through extraordinary challenges. New technologies have always brought new threats, but they have also brought new opportunities. Life has always been this way.
One civilisation rises while another falls. The world keeps turning and life goes on regardless.
Above all the headlines, predictions and uncertainty is the human spirit. It is remarkably resilient. It adapts. It learns. It creates. It finds a way forward.
And that includes yours.
When you have that genius lightbulb flash of an idea that sounds crazy but feels right, go with it. Look at the thousands upon thousands of weird and wonderful ideas people have come up with across history that changed the world. People who thought differently. Solving problems and finding solutions. Times can indeed get tough before they get better. Human consciousness is evolving and opening up before our very eyes but that is a very long process across millennia. That’s why we have to make the most of life while we have the chance right here and now.
Remember that you are a long time dead.
Life can feel surprisingly short.
So you might as well pursue and live your dream on your own terms rather than spend your entire life building somebody else’s wealth and dreams. You can build your own satisfying and fulfilling career, business project, movement, artwork, community initiative, or whatever form your dream takes.
And importantly, purpose does not have to be tied to money.
It doesn’t even have to be your money-making survival income business.
It can be your passion for community work.
It can be art.
It can be creativity.
It can be music.
It can be helping people.
It can be helping animals.
It can be helping the environment.
It can be anything that makes your heart sing.
Step by step, find something that you love to do which makes you feel good and content for the majority of your day.
Help people or animals or the environment – anything to help – and see how that transforms your whole life, energy field and consciousness.
The transformation rarely happens overnight.
It takes time and incremental changes to your daily life, habits and routines.
Brick by brick.
Lesson by lesson.
Mistake by mistake.
Success by success.
Failure by failure.
Fail – learn – grow – succeed.
This is how dreams become reality.
Not through giant leaps, but through consistent movement in a meaningful direction.
Part of that process involves learning to follow your nervousness into realms of the unknown.
Avoid too much comfort.
Challenge yourself.
Do things and take actions just for the sake of trying something because if you don’t try it, you won’t eventually get it.
Do what scares you.
Step outside your normal patterns.
Take a chance.
Be creative.
Create your dreams bit by bit.
Get out there and meet new people all the time.
Try new experiences simply because they are unique and unfamiliar.
Whatever makes you nervous to start doing, if you have always held it as a dream, then just start doing it. That nervousness is often pointing directly toward your path, your dharma (homework assignment, read up on dharma.)
As you move forward, learn to trust your intuition.
Use your intuition to go into inspired action.
Choose what resonates with you and what does not resonate.
Notice who feels right to be around.
Notice who helps you move closer to your dreams and who consistently pulls you away from them.
Use those inner feelings to help choose your direction in life.
At the same time, become aware of your ego.
Use your ego to see whether you are making a conscious decision or an emotional and egotistic decision.
The goal is not to destroy the ego or pretend it doesn’t exist.
The goal is to learn from it.
Learn from your likes and dislikes.
Learn from your fears.
Learn from your prejudices.
Learn from your reactions.
And gradually see if you can connect more often with the calm conscious Being behind all of that.
That quieter, wiser part of yourself.
The part that already knows what matters.
The part that knows what feels meaningful.
The part that knows which direction to walk.
When purpose and action begin to align, something remarkable happens.
Life starts generating energy rather than consuming it.
You wake up with enthusiasm.
You become more resilient.
Challenges become meaningful rather than burdensome.
And although the journey is never perfect, you begin to feel that your life belongs to you again.
Perhaps that is what purpose really is.
Not a destination.
Not a job title.
Not an income bracket.
But the ongoing process of becoming more fully yourself, one courageous step at a time.
Your energy is one of the most accurate compasses you possess. Pay attention to where it expands and where it contracts. Pay attention to what leaves you feeling more alive and what leaves you feeling depleted. Life is constantly giving you clues about your direction.
Whatever you do, whatever happens, don’t stop, keep going, keep trying, follow your energy compass – keep being yourself!
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