She looked me up and down as if I had emerged out of the eighteenth century an orphaned pick-pocket.
“Are you wanting to eat here?” she asked, with a puzzled expression and a hint of condescension in her tone.
After three three hours of hiking around the island, with chunks of clay stuck to my shoes, dried sweat-now-salt layered on my face and an outfit of walking tights and a fleece sweater, I wasn’t exactly dressed for lunch in a hoity-toity restaurant.
“Yes please!” I said, ignoring her subtle condemnatory glare.
I found my table outside in the sun, overlooking the beach.
After I had ordered I contemplated the interaction that had just happened.
Taking a sip of my water I surveyed the restaurant.
‘Weird’, I thought. ‘There’s no one here but retired people and tourists. It was the same yesterday at the other restaurant’.
Thinking nothing of it, I went back to my view and sat there soaking in the sun.
Let’s pause there for a moment.
You’ve more than likely heard of the ‘ideal day‘ exercise.
Well, whenever I’ve tried to imagine and feel what my days would be like once I ran my own 6-figure business it would go something like this – I’d wake early, do yoga, drink green juice, work with my clients, go shopping or meet a friend for lunch, workout in the afternoon, prepare gourmet dinners, drink wine and relax in the evening – and every single time I imagined that it felt overwhelming, it felt crippling, it felt unsuitable.
I found it impossible to imagine the lifestyle I’d be living once I was wealthy because 1) I’d never experienced it before and 2) I believed I would be a completely different person.
‘Wait a minute.’ My mind was back on the restaurant observation.
‘It’s midday on a Tuesday. Everyone is at work right now.’
Then it hit me.
Everyone is literally at work except for the retired and the tourists. Even prissy waitress lady in her tight fitted knit dress and tan leather boots – which actually looks really lovely, BUT THAT’S NOT THE POINT.
No one else is on their time right now, except for the retired, the tourists and me!
*LIGHTBULB*
This is it. This is exactly what I want. This is my ideal day.
Enjoying a Tuesday afternoon on my time. Letting uppity waitresses hover in the corner trying to figure me out. Eating vanilla pancakes with bacon and freshly squeezed orange juice. Working on my 5-figure business from my phone. Wearing sweat infused workout gear and shoes riddled with mud.
This is my ideal day.
And it feels so, me.
When getting into business, most of us believe we’re going to become this amazing 2.0 version of ourselves and do these incredible things that we don’t do right now.
And I really gotta cut the crap and say, you’ll be petrified bone-dust before that happens.
Get real with yourself. Take the exercise a step further, and off the paper. Take the day off work and feel-out what you’d really like to do. Take actual action. Because I guarantee you, the imaginary ideal day you’ve written on paper is not going to match what you really want to do once you have the time!
