And I actually felt almost a bit ashamed of it allbecause, youknow, family and friends were worried about me because I was really in a bad place and I kept saying tomyself,like, no one'sdied.
And I waslike,oh, but actually someone maybe diddie, likeme.
Essentially,like, something is dyinghere.
And I don't think we give ourselves thattime, that grace tosay, I'm going into a newchapter.
It made methink, youknow, this is not the only time this is going to happen tome.
I hope it's not asextreme,but, youknow, we're alwayschanging.
This islife. Life is full of these little griefs andlike, when you actually look atthem, youknow, you can get throughthem.
Heythere. So have you ever wondered if we've just gotten success allwronged?
We chased after all the things we're told it's supposed to bemoney,status,accomplishments,fame,stuff, and even if we get all of it or much ofit, we end up giving up so much of our humanity that we find ourselves emptyinside.
We've got the trappings of success yet we end up feelingtrapped.
Well, that was the experience of my guesttoday, Sunday times best selling and award winningauthor, EmmaGanon, who ironically was pushed to a breaking point while writing what would eventually become a best selling book on how we've gotten success allwrong.
In late2022, just after turning in the manuscript for herbook, The SuccessMyth, which redefined societal notions ofachievement, Emma found herself barely able to get out ofbed.
And normally vibrant and social andexcited, she no longer recognized that person staring back at her in themirror.
And she ended up taking the entirety of the next year to reimagine and reclaim not just herwork, but herlife, 12 months that she ended up calling her year ofnothing.
And in today'sconversation, Emma shares a really candid account of her descent into that year profound loss ofself, personal reckoning andreclamation.
How she made the radical choice to step away from almost all obligations for a full year in the name of healing and exploring solitude and simplicity and rediscovering what really matteredmost.
And how that intense experience reshaped her perspective onsuccess, fueled new boundaries and led to hercurrent, smaller but better life aligned with reallyintegrity, ease and creativefulfillment.
Emma is also a journalist and her notes on that year eventually led to abook, a year ofnothing.
But thistime, she published it in a radically different way that truly supported the way that she works and lives now and we dive into that aswell.
We also explore how and why the one professional thing that she kept saying yes to that year was her wildlypopular, sub-stacknewsletter, The Huyfin and how the community there played a really meaningful role in herrecovery.
So excited to share this conversation withyou.
I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good LifeProject.
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If you look back over the last decade or so in your career from the outside looking in at least it's been this wildly successful career you left media you wrote a number of books the books have done really well people have embraced them teaching and person online speaking had this incredibly popularpodcast.
And then we hit 2022 so you come into the end of the year into October and you turn in the manuscript for what would then be your sixth book the book that would eventually become thesuccess.
And the book is about redefining success and really focusing on personal values instead of expectations dealing with burnout is something you address explicitly in there aswell.
You hand in the book and as like a fellow author I know that feeling of handing in a manuscript and knowing that's generally about a year or so before it comes out and a couple of days later it sounds like about a week or so after turning in this manuscript where you're just pouring yourself into what does modern day success really look like you know how do we do the myth busting what's real here everything kind of fallsapart.
So take me there you know it's so funny because today I've put on a nicely bright shirt and I feel back to normal and it's really strange thinking about how much of a shell of myself I was in that month of October 2022 and how depleted I was and how almost like in debt I was with my own energy levels and how much I didn't notice it or catch it and how programmed I was to override myemotions.
It was like I was starved of something and just completely ignoring all the bodily symptoms it was insane and so I had I mean I didn't think I'd write about it I thought my career was over quite frankly because I felt like I'd broken myself I felt like the computer was malfunctioning it was really scary and I don't know if burnout is actually the correct terminology sometimes because I was just trying to get it out of the way Iwas.
I felt like I was just trying to get it out of the way Iwas.
I felt like I was just trying to get it out of the way Iwas.
I felt like I was just trying to get it out of the way Iwas.
I felt like I was just trying to get it out of the way Iwas.
How did this first showup?
I mean I think it was probably building up over time you know obviously we all went through the pandemic which of course has something to do with it we all had our personal relationship to that and how it changed our world but over time I think it was like I was a colored in person and then I was like the tracing paper over time you know things get taken away fromyou.
Burn out is something I'm really passionate about talking about now because it's very different to being exhausted it's very different to being tired it's you losing life force it's you not nourishing or nurturing yourself in that very unique way that we all need to be nurtured and it's like death over time it's it's really quite scary and yeah I now I notice what it is but I take it seriouslynow.
I know you you write my youthful jovial personality was shedding like a snake my vision was cloudy and narrow my voice sounded different I felt like I was shifting up agear.
This feels like very embodied like this isn't just oh my mind is burned out like this is every sellingyou.
Yeah and a very transitional and I'm really really intrigued about the change cycle of a human being because I believe it's similar to being a caterpillar I do believe that we melt down into a group we go into a cocoon we change ourselves we look in the mirror we don't recognize ourselves because we're changing somuch.
And you know we're not the same person over and over again and also you know the scary thing about burn out is when you don't love anything anymore for me it feltlike.
Oh God I don't want to read a book something's bad because I love reading it's like my reason for everything really is to make things and read things so if you ever feel resentful or you feel like you don't want to do the things you love I think you know you might be in a burnoutterritory.
Yeah I mean it's interesting I recently was actually talking to a physician about burnout and how we tend to look at it and you know the world health organization has this very well defined thing with three different criteriaand.
One of them was cynicism you know you default from whatever your state was before kind of looking at everything and just saying well it's not possible it's not skepticism which I think can be healthy in a creative process especially but there's a cynicism about everything and I'm wondering if that's part of what became yourexperience.
Yeah definitely you know I think we're still learning labels and technology around these things but I don't think I was depressed because I think depression from what I've heardis.
An omnis or some of some sort where you don't feel anything so I still felt things I still felt things alot.
So I think I was still connected to my emotions in that way but yes absolute cynicism and absolute sort of what's the point and I think that's a scary place to get to as a creative person because the point is because you love it the point is I get to change someone's day the point is oh my God I can't believe I'malive.
And so that yeah so that's not a great place to be in you're not going to create anything from thatplace.
I don't even want to say optimistic lens but a possibility lens you know I still have a lot of healthy dose of like New York skeptic in me and I always will but I tend to also open my eyes in the morning and look around and say oh there's so much possibility like this is possible this is possible and I know one of the tells for me when I'm really reaching a similar point is often I start to lose that you know I start to see a lot less possibility around me and everything kind of just looks a little bit more like there's nothing really for me to dohere.
And I think you know that that's probably a similar wiring for just a lot of people who would identify as quote creative types it sounds like that was part of your experience aswell.
Yeah for sure for sure and you know and like my true nature I believe is that I am an optimistic person believes in possibility you know I was just thinking today about how I'm in New York for a few weeks and I've got lots of friends here that are sort of internet friends I've never met them in person I'm going to meet them for the first time and I thought well surely my world is a world of possibility because I have friends all over the world and my world feels very big and expansive so yeah I think that's my default nature and I think if you're being taken away from your nature that's when you get into sort of a corporate capitalist exhaustive way of the world where it's trying to squeeze you so you need to keep that nature human nature alive Ithink.
Yeah I'm curious also because you know this came literally on the on the back end of you turning in a manuscript for a book and when you're working on a project like that generally you're really dedicated you're pouring yourself into it as you're heading up for the like the deadline it's also often I don't know if this is your process but often like I'm kind of behind so I find myself working just insane hours to hit the deadlines I don't want to let people down on the otherside.
But then there's like what I've noticed is there tends to be this window afterwards of an almost like malaise type of feeling like I woke up and had this intense purpose for like a solid chunk of time and now there's still other stuff but like that's liftedand.
I wonder if you felt that and if you wondered well like is this just my normal sort of like after the big push type of feeling or like is this really somethingdifferent.
Well part of the reason I wrote the success myth is because I wanted to normalise that sort of arrival fallacy it's called where you think that once you complete a project your life will be sorted you'll be happy you'll feel fulfilled forever you've released the album you've written the book you've done the thing look at me and I'm foreverfine.
And actually psychologists do say that we of course we have a slump because it's the same as when you're a kid doing an exam it's like you you know you use it's adrenaline you do it and then afterwards you you do crash and burn a little bit so I kind of expect that to happen after a book and have done enough now to realise that happens but this felt different this felt like you didn't have the sort of petrol in the car for you to even do this book in the first place like you didn't take a break when we warned you to take abreak.
Like I had whispers of careful you can you know you're going to burn out and I ignored all of those whispers and so when it came to handing in this book it was like oh you're going to go downnow.
Like you really ignore whispers weren't enoughright.
Yeah. How did some of those whispers show up at do recall at some of them were well you know I'm not a mental health expert so I find it we're talking about it we're describing it sometimes I feel like it's calleddisassociation.
From what I've like heard or unspoken to people about but essentially I would be doing something and it's almost like my vision would change and I would feel very out of body or I would feel very disconnected from theworld.
I would feel like I'm in a sort of 2D universe like it was really mental for me like literally mental in terms of how my tiredness and exhaustion was very out of body and and now I see that as my brain literally saying you're so capacity that it's starting to shift and now I take that so seriously and I know the flip side of burnout is having an even better life because I'm not going to go backthere.
No that makes a lot of sense you know when you're when you're in that space though I often feel like we just ignore the signs you know because we're it's like it's really push push push but it's also like it's not lost on me I'm sure it wasn't lost on you in themoment.
That sort of like the thing that preceded this for you was you researching and writing a book about redefiningsuccess.
Was that weird foryou? A little bit and actually I've been talking about this at some events about the book that I actually don't remember writing the book like that's how sort of what in such a strange place I was so so you know I'm beginning to probably get a bit more spiritual as I get older but I'm in tree I'm intrigued about that because that book was clearly written from like some sort of subconscious place that came out of me while I wasn't sort of logically there so I feel like the book was a bit of a message I think that's what books are I think when we write in our journals you know we I can predict the future like I get back on my journals from three years ago and I'm like oh something something somewhere knew what was going on inside of me so I think I wrote the book from a very desperate place and actually since that books come out you know I've totally changed my career and my goals are totally different I'm not chasing the carrot on the stick as much that's what I think books are I think they're a gift to others and I think that even though I'm not in that place anymore that book will reach someone when they're at the place I was at so it's sort of passing it back to someone else being like here you go like this help me and by the way I know that I'm probably not meant to turn the tables on you just yet but I did read that you also had a bit of a strange reckoning in October 2022 so maybe there's something in the air yeah I've had a number of those reckoning so over the years so I think it just tends to happen you know the question is always like what do you do with them when they happen so for you I mean the what did you do was you made a really what from the outside looking in I would imagine be sort of a radical choice and you know it effectively took a year the better part of a year to just hit pause on so many parts of your life to two I think so many people are starting to like they want to just like live faster and bigger and expand and this was a year that for you was almost like the exact opposite it was a year of stillness and contraction to a certain extent yeah it was and I really didn't think it would be a year I had friends that had gone through quite similar things or at least it manifested differently but it was definitely burnt out and they said it took a year for me by the way and I and I thought that's ridiculous like I can't take a year to do nothing I mean thankfully I had savings I also had myself stack which was you know additional income from people that support my work which is an amazing new thing for creatives because you know it's it's some sort of foundation I think in which to feel supported but yeah it's been along it took a long time and time shifted I think when you're going through something like grief or you know you're going underground time bends like it was a very odd time for me it felt so much like grief and I actually felt almost a bit ashamed of of of it all because you know family and friends were worried about me because I was really in a bad place and I kept saying to myself like no one's died and I was like oh but actually someone maybe did die like me essentially like something is dying here and I don't think we give ourselves that time that grace to say I'm going into a new chapter and you know my dad at the time he was just retiring or at least he'd sort of been retired for for a year or so and he was adjusting and I kind of felt really connected to him because he was going through this new change and I it made me think you know this is not the only time this is going to happen to me I hope it's not as extreme but you know we're always changing and like if you know I don't have children but my friends are always changing and I think that's the only time I think I'm going through this new chapter and I think I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new chapter and I'm going through this new my wife and us by surprise not that she's a great kid and doing this awesome thing but just the fact that oh wait a minute like there was a moment where we both looked at each other and we're like oh she's probably not coming home again right you know maybe the visit here and there but not every holiday and not every summer and not all these different things and it it was there was a process of real grief that I think we're still navigating you know as much as we're celebrating we're grieving something that we love that was a way of being that's just changing and it will change into something that's beautiful and different but still but the thing that you shared about you know like us not giving enough value well this isn't the type of thing that should cause grief in me like you know there's that grief is for like these much bigger losses and I feel like we you we don't allow ourselves to actually honor the fact that no actually this is real and they need to I need to move through it and acknowledge it you know but probably also I need to move through it and acknowledge it you know but probably also I need to move through it and acknowledge it you know but probably also I need to move through it and acknowledge it you know but probably also I need to move through it and acknowledge it you know but probably also I need to move through it and acknowledge it you know but probably also I need to move through it and acknowledge it you know but probably also I need to move through it and acknowledge it you know but probably also I need to move through it and acknowledge it you know but probably also I need to move through it and acknowledge it and acknowledge it you know but probably also that same sense of sort of like internal shame makes us not want to share that with other peopletoo.
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and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and I and and I and I and I and I and I and and they even tightened my glasses to make sure they didn't fall off myhead.
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So part of the process foryou, especially early on was a shrinking of obligationsexperiences, evenpeople.
And part of that was alsowork, youknow, and I'm guessing a lot of it was also because functionally it just couldn'thappen.
But, youknow, as a writer who sort of lives and breathes often based on what is the last thing that we put into theworld, I know there's this very common fear that says if I am not constantly forwardfacing, if I am not constantly putting out new work and interacting with people that if I vanishlargely, I may never be able to comeback.
I'm wondering if that thought touchdown it off foryou.
Yeah, it definitelydid.
And I think one of the reasons I'm really grateful that I went through what I went through is I have experienced a loss of identity and knowing what that feels like because I floated around thatyear.
Honestly, like if you would have seen me in my localpark, you would have beenlike, ohGod, is that womanalright?
Youknow, I just wasn'tme.
Like I was just in this coat with my wellies on really just quite identity lists in some ways because I wasn'tworking.
I wasn't really contacting many acquaintances like I'd lost my networkreally.
I was just sort of with my friends and family and I wasn't putting out any new work and I thought my career might be over because I thought I'd brokenmyself.
And I think the amazing thing about going through that is I know that the worst thing happened and I'm stillokay.
And it was and it's so it's like if that happensagain, I know that it's not the truth that things areover.
I just you could take five years out and I believe that you can always comeback.
I really truly believe thatnow.
And also it was really important forme, Ifeel, to know who I am behindthis, behindthis, right to me because it's a massive part of me I lovewriting.
I love being sort of out there in theworld, but I now know who I am withoutit.
And I think that's a lesson that some of us have tolearn.
Yeah, and I think oftentimes we don't learn it until we're brought to our knees in some way as much as I'd rather have anotherprocess.
The,the, the prime way oflearning.
So you stopwriting, but actually you don't entirely because so you like you back away frombooks.
I know you're on deadline for the next novel where you basically said that can't happen rightnow.
You had a podcast you were producing for six years that you wound down and really pulled back from public life in a lot ofways.
But there was one thing that you didn't pull back from and it was what you mentionedearlier, which is this newslight of thehyphen.
Youknow, you took a short break in November of thatyear.
You took a thing about three weeksoff.
But then you were back and that was surprising tome.
Talk me through early the process of using this is the one thing that I'm going to keep saying yesto.
Youknow, it's so funny that becauseyeah,I, I see it as like this nothing year because I didn't send an email really during thatyear.
Like I didn't say yes to anything workwise.
I guess I didn't have a plan or like a career move goingon.
It was like I really have opted out like I watched a lot ofTV.
I borrowed a dog like I only really saw my friends close friends and family like it felt veryprivate.
But then the one thing I was doing was I dipped my toe into the sub stackworld, which felt very safe because I had apaywall.
So I had maybe a couple hundred readers at thatpoint, like behind thepaywall.
And I felt like I was talking to this really close knit group ofpeople.
It was like blogging because I think if you're awriter, writing ishealing.
I didn't want to be out there really like big shiny look at me in my writing and mybooks, but like I wrote for this very small group ofpeople.
And they really helped me through burnout and it made me think that readers and people who follow our workonline.
It's a two wayrelationship.
Yeah, completelyagree, which canwork, youknow, both ways also because on the onehand, it's nice to realize you havecommunity.
And the back and forth that oftenhappens, especially the way you were doing it in this fairlysmall, well defined and protected space andcontainer.
At the sametime, youknow, that sort of like back andforth, it can createexpectation.
And when you're in a place of burnout and I think I really just need to be here forme.
I need to take care ofme.
We can hit that line where all of a sudden there's expectation from a whole bunch of other people and then we start tosay,well, now I'm actually a heavy responsibility tothem, which can be fine when you're wellresource, but when you'renot, it can bebrutal.
Totally, but I think the learning as well from that time was I can't be indebted toanyone.
I refuse to be indebted to anyone because my health is still on the line a littlebit.
And so actually the thing about that platform and I'm not being like paid to promote some stack as thisutopia, even though I am having a great time on it is if you would look at my backend.
I took so manybreaks, there's a pause button on some stuff so you can pauseeverything.
You can belike, I'm not takingpayments.
I'm not doinganything.
Everything ispaused. And my chart is likeup,down,up,down,frayges, upagain, down again for a longtime.
It's literally so squiggly and I shared it the other day because I wanted people to know that you can take breaks that you reallycan.
People will wait for you and that's the power of community is people also want to know thetruth.
They want to belike,oh, Emma'sstruggling.
I'll see you when you're back kind ofthing.
I wonder if seeing that from this small group ofpeople, probably most ofwhom, if notall, you've never met before and dispersed around the world saying like we care aboutyou, we want to knowit, like you can share the real stuff and if you need to takebreaks, that'sOK.
Did that help you rewire the way that you thought about sharing what was going on with the people who are actually legitimately closer to you in yourlife?
It's sofunny. I think maybe this is a side effect of being awriter, but I'm more comfortable sharing things with strangers than I am with my own closest peoplesometimes.
I think that's not unusual for writing likethat.
Yeah,exactly. I wrote a novel called Oliver about being child free and it was like everyone wasjoking.
Emma has to go write a novel to tell her friends and family what she's goingthrough.
So,yeah, I felt safer with those people and they're based all over the world and are like minded and that's amazing thing about the internet is like we attract people with I think a similar energyfield.
There's something about it where I'mlike, these people have come into my life and I'm sograteful.
So,yeah, I felt really safe withthem,definitely.
Yeah, and it's funny as you're describing that Emily McDowell's an old friend of mine also who also happens to be on youknow, have a newsletter on Substack and she we just caught up with her a couple of weeks ago and she was telling me about how she launched this newsletter and then she went through a real a realstruggle, a real like season of just personalreckoning.
And at some point she wentaround, she turned to this community and shesaid,hey, youknow, that thing that you have beensaying,yes, I'm happy I'mhere.
I'm going to supportyou.
I'm going to actually pay everymonth.
And I make you know all those promises I made about what I would deliver an exchange for that can't do itanymore.
I'll show up when Ican, but I've got to take care of myself and I'll share when I can and what Ican.
Youknow, there's basically no promises anymore and if you want your money back and if you want to bail that's completelyfine.
I honor that and she shared almost nobodydid.
Youknow, people were actuallylike,no,no,no, like take care ofyourself.
I'm here foryou.However, you can showup.
Youknow, I'm not just here for whatever was on the bullet list of deliverables for this thing like I'm on the journey withyou, which surprisedher.
And I think that you know what you're sayingreally, so really backs up that sameexperience.
I loveEmily. I think she talks about very similar things around the creative grief and transitions and I think I think we're entering a newera.
I hope we are where artists for so long have beensqueezed.
They have beenstarved.
They have you know of creativity in in these like corporate machines that just want to like take you take your talent and just like give youcrumbs.
And I think what we're seeing now is peoplegoing, ohno, I want to keep the lightson.
I want you to makethings.
I'm going to pay you to and supportyou.
And it's not a contenttransaction.
It's it's like a community transaction and I actually know someone on substack.
She's been on there for years and her community have just paid for her maternity leaveessentially.
She left the she left the payments on for threemonths.
And I thought that that'sit.
That's that's pretty feminist stuff goingon.
Yeah, Imean, it's sort of like the extension of a memory yearsago, Amanda Palmer released an album on Patreon when she sort of got ariff,right?
Youknow, with herlaybong, she'slike,no, I want to do what I want todo.
And she was like a million dollars onPatreon.
And now she has this ongoingthing, which really supports her and has supported for years to just do the work she wants todo.
And it's nice to see that they're now different platforms in different ways and for people who proceed themselves as different types of artists or creators in different ways have ways to doit.
It is to really interesting and fertilemoment, I think forthat, youknow, I think the opportunities of possibilities are are prettyincredible.
It'sinteresting. Iactually, like I'm very new to self-stacked myself to like I've written newsletters on offeryears, but I was curious about the platform about why people would go from being a quote free reader to going a quote paidreader.
So, and I couldn't get thatinformation, so I did a quick poll and I was really surprised to see the data was that50% of the people who responded to it said that they were they did it just to support theperson, thecreator, theartist, thewriter.
That was hands down the single biggest motivator for people doingit, which is really interesting because it's like a full circle moment back to the patronagemodel.
And you would you wonder if people would be actually that kind and apparently theyare.
Yeah, Imean, isn't it crazy that we find that surprising that people want to be kind because I believe human beings are kinddeep, deepdown.
I believe that's our truenature, but we've been in such a hostile environment with Twitter and the news and like trolls and horrible comment sections for so long that we forget that sort of human quality of just like wanting to show love tosomeone.
And youknow, I get messages because on substack people can leave you a message if they become a paid subscriber and sometimes I get messages from people all over the world just being like keep doing what you're doing here's his you know $10 orwhatever.
And it's likeokay, like this lovely person just come out of the blue and how amazing isthat?
Yeah, it can be sopowerful.
As you're in thiswindow, kind of bringing it back to that year 20222023.
And you're starting to emerge like sounds like the early part was I need to shrink myworld.
I need to be really still I need to go inside I need to not be sointeractive.
You create this one pocket of safe protected community that that feels nourishing to you and that you cansustain.
And you make a decision as you described it like if I need to turn it off I turn it off and if I need to turn iton.
You can still honoring that thing inyou.
And then as you start to move through themonths, it sounds like part of your process was also like okay so like I've been strict bearhere.
I'm still trying to figure out who I am and what life looks like after this what work looks like afterthis.
What is some of the things that might make me feel better help me move through this and it sounds like you slowly start to run theseexperiments.
And this is part of what you write about inhere, nothing and one of them was actually picking yourself up and saying I need to go somewhere else and just drop into Portugal in this instance for a short bit oftime.
What was the impulse to say like I feel like changing locations will somehow be nourishing tome.
Well, it was about changinglocations, but it was actually aboutsolitude.
It was about a deep solitude and I think sometimes not always going somewhere else on your own means you're getting more of that solitude because you're leaving your domesticsphere.
And I think leaving that domestic world of admin and family or whatever feels like a realluxury, but I feel like more of us if we can should try and do it because there's something about that solitude in a different country or in a differentlocation, whatever it might be where you can't escapeyourself.
You just can't outrun your problems when you'realone.
I know a lot of people are scared to bealone.
So forme, my year of nothing beganwith,okay, you need togo, you really need to go and feel some feelings and you need to go and do that byyourself.
Even though you really instinctively just want to be like I wanted to be with my husband and I actually wanted to lean more into being like very co-dependent during thattime, but it was likeno,go, go byyourself.
There's so many different phases of this of this strangetransition, but I think that was the start of looking at like my issues in theeye, Isuppose, which was trying to escape thingsconstantly.
Like I write in the book about my relationship with alcohol and how that wasn't helpingme.
I think about there were friends who I knew I needed to letgo, but I was too scared to doit.
There was career decisions that I was scared todo, but I knew I needed to doit.
So I think what happens before you go and change your life is you need to go and getstrong.
And that means getting right with yourself and being on good terms withyourself, looking in the mirror and beinglike, comeon, we can dothis.
So a lot of my year of nothing actually was about buildingresilience.
Ithink, youknow, in mygeneration, the millennials we've been told that we're snowflakes and we can't handleanything.
And I'm a very sensitiveperson.
So I think it wasabout,yeah, just like putting down all the things you think are going to help and just like stripthere.
Everything like back to what we were saying about how things are really hard before they'reeasy.
It's like you're going through aportal.
I felt I felt like it was a portal because an a therapist friend of mine says it's like a portal because you're on your hands andknees.
Going through this hardthing.
And when you come out the otherside, you arechanged.
And what I've noticed about myself now is I can siton, youknow, thetube.
Everyone's on their phones and I can just sitthere.
I can really just sitthere.
And, youknow, I've just been going for a walk today and I just sat there on the bench and looked out at the view and it's really nice because now that's my default is just I sit and I can look atthings.
And I'mlike,oh, I better check my phone rather than being completely plugged intoit.
So it's a totally different brainmode, Isuppose.
Yeah, I love the wordportal.
I know I think it was one of the last guests on your podcast on a line cast or you had aconversation.
You saidthat.Yes.Yeah.
Yeah.Yeah.Yeah. And it was really about this notion of portals that we passed through where you know like things are different on the otherside.
But it's interesting because youknow, like when for you to retrain your attention and the way that you'vedone, you have to be also living in the world where you're constantly resisting the pattern that everyone else hassaid.
Yes, and that you have said yes tobefore.
They're not goingaway.
You're not going to like take yourself out of theworld.
Do you find yourself sort of like being pulled back in differentways?
I findyes, Ido, but I can catch itnow.
I can kind of be so aware that I'm being pulled back and I'mlike,oh, let's just put a pause onthat.
Ithink, youknow, the reason I wrote the successmyth, I think is because I know now that that doesn't goanywhere.
I've been on thattrain.
I've been on thattrain.
Like I've gone further enough down that path that I'mlike,oh, there's nothing at theend.
Youknow, the luxuriousnessof,of, I don'tknow, opportunity in certain worlds ormoney, like a sort of windfall ofmoney.
Like I've been in those situations where I'mlike, this formula should mean I'm the happiest person in the world because I have all the things that society is telling me Iwant.
And so now the cost is toogreat.
It'slike, youknow,okay, the thing that's beingpulled, I'm being pulledtowards.
Is that as important as me catching up with my mum on thephone?
Is that as important as me staying true tomyself?
Is it as important as reading in the garden for half anhour?
Because those are the things Ivalue.
So it would take a lot for anything to override that if that makessense.
Obviously I have to pay my bills and do mywork.
But I know now what enough lookslike.
Like I reallydo, whichis, I feel like a real privilege aswell.
Yeah. I think it's an importantpoint, sort of like that at theend, the notionof, because I think a lot of people will look at sort of like experiences that you had or conversations likethat.
So even the entire category of personalgrowth, humanpotential, things like this andsay,well, all these ideas that you're talkingabout.
Well, that's lovely that we're talking aboutthem, but they're quote not available tome.
And I think there isa, there is a often a knee jerk reaction in this world tosay,no,no,no, it's available toeveryone.
Like this is all about we all have equal access and we all have we're starting in the same startingline.
And it's about yourmindset.
Like it's100% aboutthat, but I also think it's important to acknowledge we're not all starting at the same startingline.
Like we don't live the samelives.
We don't have the same resources and support orhistory.
And I think often that's never part of theconversation, but I think it's important that we start to make it a part of theconversation.
I totallyagree. And I know right about privilege in the successmyth, like I really layout, youknow, this myth of like meritocracy and how we can all besuccessful.
We can all doX,Y, and Z and it'slike,well, a lot of people who say they're self made are in fact not selfmade.
They've come from a complete starting point of privilege andaccess.
And so I'm really aware of that with thisconversation.
And I actually had those actually a piece in the Guardian that did a big piece about my book recently a year ofnothing.
And actually what the woman was saying is what she took away from the book is that she now knows how to do a weekend of nothing or an hour of nothing or 10 minutes of nothing and how this really canapply.
Like you don't have to go through chronic burnout tolearn.
I hope the message of thisbook, which is giving yourself the gift of nothing and also not beingashamed.
So you know when peoplesay, what are you up to thisweekend?
And you feel like I can't saynothing, whereas now I'm proud to saynothing.
Soyeah, and you know what it reminds me a little bit of the conversation around eat prey love back in the day with Elizabeth Gilbert because you know I love Elizabeth and and how you know people wouldsay,well, I'd have to quit my job and sell my house to dothat.
And it'slike,well, shedid.
Shedid. But also was was in a privileged positiontoo.
So I think we can be inspired by something and know that we're living a different path of that makessense.
Yeah,no, that doesn't make sense tome.
I often think that youknow, like I'll ask the question in my mind if I see something goingon.
I'mlike, I'm not really in a position to be able to dothat.
But I'll ask myself as a followup.
Well, what's my version ofthat?
Youknow, what is available tome?
And like yousaid, maybe it's not a year and probably for most people it'snot.
Maybe it's anhour. Maybe it's fiveminutes, youknow, like with coffee and nothing else happening in the morning before you start yourday.
Maybe it's aweekend. But asking youknow, like if this matters tome, like is there a version that is accessible tome?
I think it can be just a helpfulquestion.
Exactly. But actually on a widerlevel, especially in sort ofcities, I am noticing it as atrend.
People who are selling their belongings onapps, youknow, like secondhandwebsites.
And really like getting rid of like the designerbag, forexample, Imean, obviously that's you've got to be in a privileged position to even havethat.
But this this sort of lifestylechoice.
So people arelike, I don't even want all this stuff in myhouse.
Like I want to get rid of it and buy myself a month ofnothing.
It's kind of kind ofexciting.
Yeah, I do wonder if the pendulum is swinging back like we've had such an intense season of I think consumption and hybrid connection that I do feel like there's pushback and say like I want to be able to just have more stillness and maybe less less stuff because to me stuff also meanscomplexity.
Maybe that's just my ownassociation.
Oh, god totally like the outgoing is a sort of classic like middle of the road life now of kind of having to keep every all the platesspinning.
Feels like a bit of atrap.
It'slike, do I really need to add on another thing that I need to pay a monthly installmentfor?
Like I just want to strip it back abit.
Yeah, and it makes you really think like what does matter tome?
This is a big like in my mind was sort of like the heartbeat of the success myth like that that book was really redefining success not as meeting socialexpectations.
Butlike, who am I like what do I really value and let me use that as you know a compass to really make the decisions and I feel like a lot of people are actually looking back at their like all the quote trappings of the current life andsaying.
Maybe not somuch. Exactly and you know it's so personal isn'tit?
We're all so different as the beauty of the success ideais.
Why do we think it's one thing one mold one life one pair of shoes it's like it's sucha.
Yeah it's such a personal journey and and with and you know now when I see people be like my parents don't understand this choice I've made but I'm the happiest I've ever been you know I love those sorts ofstories.
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So as you emerge from this year of nothing as you're heading through 2023 the actual the book the success success myth comes at my recollections in the fall 2023 sometimeright.
So you're literally coming out of your season of transformation as this book is hitting the world was in any way weird for you took because then like when the book comesout.
As anauthor. The expectation is okay it's time to be on again it's time to be public again it's time to go out there and support this work in a very forward facing an interactive way was there an expectation that you would then flip that switch again and if so how did that feel for you after having just navigated this year of saying pretty much no at all ofthat.
It was a really strange process because I got the proof in the mail which is like you know the early copy and I saw it and I had a panic attack so it was like my body was like oh god which is not a nice moment because it's meant to be a happy moment it's meant to be like my book this amazing thing that that's meant to be the thing that you film and like I'm going to go on Instagram and be like my book and I can look at it and I really didn't want anything to do with it and that was a weird thing because I love the book I actually really am very proud of it and I think it'smeaningful.
I tried to not do the audio book like I told my team at the publishers I can't do it I actually ended up doing it but it took a long time I did it in very very small chunks and I'm someone that has like did a podcast for six years and is like totally good behind amic.
I didn't do that very well well and it wasn't easy for me and so that whole situation yeah wasn't wasn't how it was meant to go I don't know if that book really got the push it sort of deserved in a way because I wasn't being I couldn't do jazz hands and I think that's another sort of conversation around how authors you know a lot a lot of it is on the author's shoulder shoulders without the author you know the book how does the book get out there so yeah it wasn't the best time to have a bookout.
Yeah I'm very I mean it's interesting because you use the phrase like the push that it deserved as if this inanimate object like was deserving of something that was required from yourlife.
That would make you very uncomfortable at that moment in time and take you out of like a new version of you that you just worked so hard to stepinto.
So it's an interesting tension but at the same time it sounds like you also made a decision like not you know what I get that this is the expectation I get that there are people who have expectations for me at this moment intime.
I'll rise to them to the extent that I can but given what I've just been through like that last part needs to be a really sacredqualifier.
Yeah and it was quite an incredible experience because I would say I would class myself as a people pleaser that was me before burnout is I'll do anything for anyone else I'll do anything to please a company or an external person or you know I was someone that would answer like any any email that someone wrote to me I felt grateful I felt indebted which is an interesting choice of word and then when you get that ill I think you realize that nothing is worth going back there so you have a boundary like I haveboundary.
Now which is a new thing and an incredible thing and actually maybe part of aging like I'm excited about my older self because if I'm learning what boundaries are you know that older me is going to have even betterboundaries.
Yeah I it's funny I'm have a lot of friends who are sort of like their their motto is yes to everything the classic year of yes and my default is these days it's a noteeverything.
Yeah you know because every yes has an opportunity cost and and when the opportunity costs is your mental health or your physical health or both and oftentimes it is but we don't realize it like for me there there has to be really compelling reason for something to become a yes given sort of the quote stack of things that I'm already doing and relationships that have already said yes to so as we sit here and have this conversation now you know in 2024 how areyou.
I'm really really good yeah I'm feeling very creatively fulfilled you know this this year of nothing book is independentlypublished.
I've had full creative control I have taken lots of breaks I really that after myself I go to the gym now I don't drink anymore I know who my friends are I mean I could go on with the like life lessons that the burnout has taughtme.
And I really really value life and I feel really grateful to have got through a hard thing andso.
Yeah I mean I'm surprising myself by saying this because it's you know in the last maybe few months I've really turned a corner so it's been slow but I'm you know the butterfly wings are back on Ithink.
Yeah and it's interesting also you as you described that this new book here of nothing actually two books is really you publish in a very different way where you could havecontrol.
Over the process and doing away that felt nourishing to you so the only obligation here really is to you and the people who are you know like who are showing up to support it what's itlike.
Going through what you've gone through and then turning around because my senses you never intended to write about this originally now that you have and now that it's moving out into the world how isthat.
You know it's it's good because Ifeel.
Ifeel. Boundary so I feel safe I know where my limits are I know how to put my phone on airplane mode for five hours and going to do something else like I've learnt these tools now it's also a memoir and it's been crafted in a way where I'm sharing the bits I want to share like it's not a diary there's another version somewhere that I'm not going to share with anyone so that's all in mycontrol.
And honesty it's kind of proven to myself that whether I like it or not I'm a creative writer because I thought my year of nothing was like devoid of creativity and that I'll never write again and my career is over but what I've shown myself without realizing is you can write about anything like I went into this void of emptiness and I still wrote a book and I'm not saying that it's all to do with productivity I would my life would still be good of a hand written this bookbut.
What an amazing thing that like we can write about anything we can write about you know going outside and looking at a blade of grass like that sort of what writing is and it's made me think you don't have to have this big exciting dramatic life to be a writer and that's a nice thing to learn Ithink.
Do you feel like in a weird way your life now is smaller butbetter.
Yeah yeah definitely definitely and also I'm not performing like I'm being me I think I was tap dancing around beforeand.
I think that can burn you out because you're using up so much more energy it's it's all still trying to be liked all the time and it's nice just to shut kind of show up as you I thinkyeah.
So as you sort of like step back into the world and being more public on your terms thinking about okay what do I want my career my work and my life to be like what's important toyou.
I think it's important for me to like myself so that means being in integrity like having my integrity feels very important I'd rather have less people view my work or earn less money like and be me ratherthan.
Be a version I don't like and be popular I think this sort of that the balance that we're all meant to have you know feels kind of difficult and tricky but an element of balance feels really important now I do believe we have different parts to ourselves and I think every part needs to be understood and like my child like part is is one and more air time I'm noticing like I want to draw I want toswim.
I want to like those things my 20 something self wasn't interested in and I'm more interested in that now likeplaying.
The internal family systems coming into the equation exactly Richard sports all over that so yeah because the the scary career part of me had taken over way toomuch.
That's amazing feels a good place for us to come full circle as well like my final question you may actually just answer your own way but I'll still ask it in this container of good lifeproject.
If I offer the phrase to live a good life what comesup.
To live a good life just give the world your love eventually I think that's I think that's all we can do is you know justgive.
From a place of like that sort of abundance of life I think I'm you know that sort of you can't run out of that stuff I'mrealizing.
Hmm thank you thankyou.
Hey before you leave if you love this episode safe but you'll also love the conversation we had with Cleo Wade on words for tender times you'll find a link to Cleo's episode in the shownotes.
This episode of good life project was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and me Jonathan Fields Christ of Recorder crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelley Dell for her research on thisepisode.
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