Why DO I Keep Hitting A Wall?!

Who’s ready to get a little bit better?! If so, say YES!! Okay, I know some of you who have watched me or talked to me are like, “Why is he always SO LOUD?!” But the truth is, I’m actually very consistent. Ask my wife and kids. And it kind of backfires on me sometimes because I’ll correct my kids when they’re being loud at inappropriate times and they’re like, “But dad, you’re always loud!” But they don’t get the differentiation between appropriate times and inappropriate times. (I suppose one could argue that walking into Walmart with your family is an inappropriate time, but in my mind, in order to embarrass teenage children, it is exactly a good time to get loud!) 

My point to all this goes to what we’re going to talk about today: some of you don’t have a lot of energy. In fact, you keep consistently hitting a wall. A wall that stops you in your tracks. A  wall that makes you feel completely depleted. A wall of overwhelm. A wall of “I can’t get it all done.” A wall that says: I want to quit. I’m at the end of myself. I don’t have the energy. I don’t have the desire. I don’t have the motivation. 

And so the question becomes this: why do you keep hitting the wall? What is it about what you’re doing that causes you to keep going through this negative cycle?  You get energy…Whoa, let’s go!! And then that works for a little bit. And then you hit the wall again. And then maybe you crash. Or maybe you back up and take a break.  Maybe you fire all your clients or you quit your job. I don’t know what you do, but somehow you regroup. And then you’re like, yeah, I’m ready to go after life again! I’m ready to go after it! And you go, but then you hit a wall again. 

Some of you right now, while you’re reading this, are recognizing this cycle in your life with a new level of clarity because maybe you’ve never heard anybody explain it quite like this. I’d like to speak to that for a minute. Why do you keep hitting the wall? 

I touched on this topic months and months ago when I did a video, but I want to come back to it because I’ve been talking a lot about this issue with my masterminds lately. Listen, you can find a whole lot of versions of masterminds, but there’s something that happens in these environments when you create them with intention. The masterminds that I have in my community are small groups (5-8 people), deep relationships, high levels of trust, and high levels of accountability. And so in these types of environments you have high level people that are growing, that are going after it. Some people are just starting out in their entrepreneurial journey or they’re doing their side hustle and so you hear all these different perspectives. It’s just a powerful, powerful environment. 

So in the masterminds we’ve been talking about this very question of why do you keep hitting the wall? Here’s the answer. It’s because you don’t have consistent rhythms in your life. You don’t have rhythm. You ain’t got no rhythm! You’re either pedal to the metal going or you’re doing nothing. Maybe you’re an all or nothing kind of person, but you much more often find yourself on the “all” side of it. And so it’s pedal to the metal most of the time. 

And so let’s talk about rhythm. I just want to share a few thoughts with you for your consideration when it comes to rhythm in your life. Some people will say you need balance. I don’t prefer that language because if you’re talking about balance, that means equality. So if I’m going to have balance in my life, that means I need to spend equal amounts of time with my family as I do at work, as I do working on my health, as I do working on my personal development, and on and on. There’s no equality there. If you’re running a business, you’re going to put dozens of hours into that. (Some of you are saying right now, oh no, I have a 4-hour work week! Good for you but for most people, it’s going to take time!) 

And so there’s not equality, but there can be rhythm. There can be an ebb and flow to your life that is sustainable. Here’s what I would say to you when it comes to hitting the wall: you cannot have sustainable energy and vitality in your life without consistent rhythm and rest. Let me say it again. You cannot have sustainable energy and vitality without consistent rhythm and rest. You’ve got to make a conscious decision to bring that rhythm into your life, to create windows of rest. 

Now, I’m not giving you a scapegoat or an easy excuse here to be lazy. No, no, no! If you’re reading this blog, you’re growth minded, you’re going after it. You want to achieve some things. You want to make a difference in the world. But you can’t always be giving! You can’t always be producing. You’ve got to take some time to fill your tank, to rest, to replenish, to refuel. That’s the kind of rhythm and rest that I’m talking about. 

Let me just put a couple of frames around this. If you’re going to think about rhythm, step one is to look at your life and evaluate your rhythms. There’s a simple way to do this. I think I have talked about this before, but it’s worth repeating because repetition is the motor of learning. 

Think about your rhythms in four different categories: 

● What are your rhythms daily? 

● What are your rhythms weekly? 

● What are your rhythms monthly?

● What are your rhythms yearly? 

When you start to look at these four categories, you’re going to start to see areas where you’re doing well. You’re also going to identify the gaps. Some of you might have some great rhythms daily, but you have no rhythm monthly. In fact, when I did this exercise myself a while ago, that’s exactly what I saw. I was doing really well daily. I was doing pretty good weekly, although I saw some ways to improve there. I was even doing pretty well yearly. But I wasn’t doing as much monthly and I realized I could work on that. 

So by evaluating these categories, you’ll start to see the gaps. Don’t just think about it. Write it down, put it in your phone, document it. There’s something that happens when it gets out of your head and onto paper or onto a document. You can see it more clearly. You will see the gaps. 

Now, let’s take it a layer deeper. I  encourage you to also look at these areas of your life:

● What are your rhythms personally? 

● What are your rhythms in your key relationships? (If you’re married and you have kids, these are your key relationships. If you’re not married, key relationships might be friends, team members, other family members.) 

● What are your rhythms in your business/vocation/career?

Look at these three categories. Honestly, I would encourage you to begin by focusing on the first two. What are your rhythms personally and what are your rhythms in your key relationships? Because you and your key relationships are the foundation in your life. If you and your key relationships are not thriving, then who cares about how great your rhythms are in business, right?!

You’re the foundation and those key relationships are what will give you support. Some of you would much prefer to talk about the rhythms in your business. It’s easier to say, “Oh, I need to switch up my meeting schedule. I need to revamp my schedule so I can get some bigger time blocks for some deep work stuff. I need to grow my team. I need to do this for sales…” You’d love to talk about the rhythms of your business but you have been neglecting the personal rhythms and the rhythms in your key relationships! I just want that one to sink in. You have been neglecting the rhythms for you personally and in your key relationships. I want somebody reading this blog to wrestle with the truth that you’ve been avoiding and neglecting those two areas. You have not been taking care of yourself and you haven’t been taking care of your relationships. If you don’t give those areas some attention, you’re going to make a whole bunch of money but lose your life. 

It’s up to you. Will you wrestle with that? Do you have the guts to lean into the uncomfortable conversations and make some changes that you need to make? Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly…look at those categories. And then look in the three areas of personal, key relationships, and your business. 

Let me take this a little further. You cannot make up for crappy, negligent, weak rhythms daily and weekly by having awesome rhythms yearly. Some of you do a great vacation for a week or even two weeks every year. And it’s amazing. You go on spring break and it’s amazing. Good for you. That’s awesome. Keep doing those things. But if your daily rhythms and your weekly rhythms suck, I can guarantee you that you’re living for vacation and spring break. You’re not getting as much out of those experiences as you could. You’re busting your butt to get out the door to go on those trips but you dread coming back because you don’t have any rhythm in your daily and weekly life!

Your daily and weekly rhythms are the foundation for a high quality of life. 

If your daily and weekly rhythms suck, your life’s going to suck. You might say, well, it doesn’t suck, I love my life. But you keep hitting the wall! Do you want to keep hitting the wall? No you don’t. (By the way, I love you! I feel like I’m being a little aggressive with you today, but I care about you! I’ve been having conversations for weeks with my mastermind clients and my one-on-one clients and I hurt for some of you!)

This is not that complicated. It’s actually really quite simple. You just have to get intentional about how you’re going to structure your life and create some rhythm to it. Give yourself permission to rest a little bit so that you can serve the world at a higher level. So you can make more money. I want you to make more money. I want you to enjoy the journey. I want you to enjoy your life. But unless you get that consistent rhythm and rest, you’re not going to have that sustainable energy and vitality or a high quality of life. You can’t make up for weak daily and weekly rhythms by going on an awesome vacation. It just doesn’t work that way. So give attention to those daily and weekly rhythms. This is such a key area. 

I want you to thrive. Do you know why I’m talking about this so aggressively? It is because I lived that way for years! I know the pain. There was a season in my life where my wife could mark it on the calendar that I was going to get sick in January because I would bust my butt for November and December. High season, big projects, lots going on. And then I would  get sick for a week – like knocked on my butt sick – because I was so depleted. This is a repeatable rhythm that you don’t want to duplicate! It was consistent. But that was not a rhythm that I wanted to sustain. And when I was talking about that vacation thing earlier, yeah that was me, too. I’d get on vacation and I’d be so wound up that it took me three days to unwind. Then I’d get to enjoy a day or two but then my stomach would start turning in knots, creating physical symptoms in my body when I started thinking about coming back. I lived there, guys. I know the pain of it. And I’m telling you this, what I’m sharing with you is not complicated and you can create so much freedom in your life by simply getting intentional. 

Write it down, type it up. I don’t care. Just get clear. Identify the gaps and then say, okay, what am I going to do to fill the gaps? What am I going to do?  I realized I was doing well in my personal weekly and daily rhythms. In my daily rhythms, I was locked into my morning routine of journaling, affirmations, and moving my body. I was locked in! I was so grateful for that. It took me a whole lot of years to lock it in, by the way. But I also realized that I needed to be more intentional in my family rhythms. When it came to daily and weekly, I realized I needed to be more intentional for myself and for my family. And so I started looking at some of those things. 

I hope that you’ll also have some of those ahas. Do the work and walk through that exercise, that is the challenge on the table. If you’re committed to doing it, say YES! You’re going to create rhythm in your life and enjoy your life at a higher level. You’re going to make a bigger difference in the world. I think that’s why we’re all here. That’s why I’m here. I hope that this helped you, encouraged you, maybe challenged you a little bit to deal with some stuff you haven’t been dealing with. That is my hope and my prayer. This is where you should get off this blog and go out there and give your greatness to the world, because somebody needs what’s on the inside of you! Go give it away! I love you all! Have a great week!