As I’ve reflected over my life in recent years (in truth, the last two decades), it has been a time when my primary focus has been on my railway consultancy business. Whilst it has been exciting and motivating, it has also been very hard work and if I’m honest, other areas of my life have taken a back seat, including my social life. I simply haven’t had the time to connect with friends, or even my own wife. The countless times she would say – why don’t we just go out for a coffee, or when was the last time we had a proper date? My response – you know how busy work is at the moment and if we want that nice holiday in the summer – I really need to prioritise my business. She wouldn’t complain, she understood, but at the same time I could always see the sadness in her eyes that once again I had put something else above her. Andrea’s love language is ‘quality time’ and when I feed it, she flourishes and soars in life – yet I had been starving her of what she craved. Also, how many times in recent years have I thought – I should get together with my best mate Danny (who was best man at my wedding), but right now I am just too busy. I realised my life had become out of balance and I didn’t have enough time to focus on some of the really important things. I had left him to fend for himself whilst he went through a difficult divorce.
My wake-up call came through someone I have connected with recently - Stuart who is helping me to develop my new online business. He said something that really spoke to me at a deep level, ‘when we get too busy, we forget the things in life that we really want, that are important to us’. It hit me like a bolt of lightning. It’s not that I didn’t want to connect with my friends, or make new ones, or connect at a real heart level with Andrea, I just believed I didn’t have the time to do all that stuff. In truth, these vitally important social connections in my life had faded into the background. But at what cost?
There and then I determined that even in the process of building my online business I would put into place actions to re-vitalise my social life. Already I have put in place a weekly coffee date with Andrea, time to just connect and chat and share heart to heart. Such a small thing, but already I see how thrilled Andrea is to see me prioritise her for the first time in a long while.
Also, I have been chatting with Danny over social media recently and re-connecting and investing back into that friendship. In fact, Danny said to me recently ‘I would love to come and see you both and introduce you to my new wife! We are meeting for dinner next month!
As I continue to develop my online business, I am making sure that all areas of my life are in much better balance than they have been for decades. The time and money freedom that it will generate opens up endless opportunities for a new and rich social life. I am so excited! And yet even on the journey, even before I have fully arrived at that place of time and money freedom, I am living with a new focus on my social connections. My life is so much richer already.
I am smelling the roses on my path to freedom, taking time to cultivate important relationships on the journey, and looking forward to celebrating with all these amazing people who will be there waiting for me on that great day of celebration.
