Finding a new gear

Going from 150 to 45 mph is no joke

I hope you’re enjoying this free newsletter! If and when you are able, I would be grateful if you would consider a paid subscription (which will give you access to additional exclusive content) or, if you prefer, a nod of support via Venmo (@DrChristineKoh).

---

Since leaving academia and building my freelance career, I have delighted in developing different creative projects. I am an ideas and intuition person, and I also have been intentional over the past 17 years about building a diverse income breadbasket because I was never sure how long the internet bubble would last.

That said, there was a point a few years ago where I was operating at a gear that was just, well, a lot. In addition to working as a creative director, speaker, and brand ambassador, I hosted and produced two podcasts (Edit Your Life, Hello Relationships), ran my blog (Boston Mamas), launched and created all of the designs for my resistance apparel company (Brave New World Designs), was managing editor for the journal Music Perception (my one tie to academia), and became a freelance writer for The Washington Post, CNN, and Boston Globe Magazine.

And of course, I have a family about whom I care deeply and with whom I enjoy spending time, and from a logistical standpoint co-existing with four other mammals and owning a home also includes another level of organization and management.

On any given day, my to-do list had 60 to 85 action items on it and for the most part, I delighted in slaying it. I thrive on creativity, am great at project planning, and have a freakish ability to focus and project switch.

But over the past two years, life got complicated and emotionally exhausting. I needed to pull back on some things I loved doing (like freelance writing) and shuttered a couple of successful projects and income streams. I posted an announcement that Boston Mamas (est. 2006) would only function as an archive site, and I put Brave New World Designs on hiatus indefinitely. Even so, given that my primary source of stress was still very much present in my life, I felt like I was engaged in an interminable battle with time and fatigue—always feeling like I had to Tetris the things I cared about around obligations, often gritting my teeth to show up as a professional, laying awake spinning with angry and anxious thoughts while I just wanted to be asleep, feeling like my kids’ key memories of me from this phase of life would be: HOT MESS.

On Friday, I shared about a major transition, fueled by a mantra that helped me leap into uncertainty in service of my wellbeing. In the initial days after my leap I felt like a baby deer learning how to walk. I realized that in some ways, running at 150 mph was easier—I could shut out my feelings and just keep moving from one thing to the next, slaying my to-do list like a badass, clenched robot.

And then during my first week downshifting to 45 mph, something unexpected happening. Whether due to system failure amidst toxic release or a drastic change in schedule that left me confused, my ability to adult went out the window. Dishes stacked up in the sink. I ignored laundry. I got to the end of the day unable to remember what I did during the day. I even started whining a little.

For example, when my husband asked if I wanted to call in burritos or pick them up, I rolled my eyes and whined, “Neither. Both jobs sound too hard.”

Yikes.

Though I do think I deserve some short circuiting slack given the stress I had been under, that moment did help me snap out of my funk and reorient to the present. Last week I was able to sink into my first full regular work week in this new 45 mph gear and because I am ever drawn towards data collection, I began to take notes on what is proving to be a beautiful new reality.

Here are my observations so far:

• I am still working on projects but they are projects of my choosing, all rooted in my creative passions and superpowers.

• My daily to-do list is much more reasonable, ranging from 20 to 25 items.

• I no longer rush to my office to start working at 7am.

• My days are no longer bloated with meetings, which were always a pain point for me because being in meetings takes away from time doing the actual work, and also because when I am deep in the work zone, I always worry about losing track of time and being late to meetings.

• I am not orchestrating my minutes from 7am to 5:30/6pm, continually project switching and figuring out how to maximize every minute, for 10.5 to 11 hours straight each weekday.

• I am able to do things with Violet during work hours that are not actually a big deal—like a 45 minute excursion to pop over to a local bookstore and ice cream shop—but felt like a big fucking deal when I was orchestrating my minutes from 7am to 5:30/6pm each weekday.

• I can issue loving invitations to my family, like going for a walk or meeting up for lunch or playing card games or doodling or making clay animals.

• I can now say, “Yes, what’s up?” when someone comes into my office instead of holding any irritation at being interrupted and saying, “Give me a moment so I can finish my thought. I’m in the middle of something.”

• I no longer need to eat lunch at my desk to optimize work time.

• I have the space to opt to meet a friend for an early morning hike on a weekday with our dogs if I want to.

• I delight in catching up with people on Zoom again, now that I don’t have to be on Zoom all day, and am having a fantastic time reconnecting with people.

• I can, at the last minute, offer to do things like make a pretty birthday cake for someone to help them out, and it feels 100% joyful and not at all like another task crowding my to-do list.

• I can enjoy weekend food prep and mealtime preparations and do so at a slower pace, instead of feeling like feeding my family is a matter of life or death. On Sunday, I decided to make pizza and actual use the pizza peel and pizza stone (which totally results in better pizza) that I previously wouldn’t use because it meant taking an extra 5 minutes to go down to retrieve these items from the basement.

• I no longer struggle with end-of-workday transitions, attempting to be a present, pleasant person while trying to unwind my clenched face and slow down my spinning mind.

• I have time to read the newspaper again.

• I have been able to delight in long overdue, small acts of household care like weeding, which I literally have not done for two years and is proving highly satisfying while also helping me fall in love with my tiny backyard again.

• I have actually experienced moments of boredom—a positive, in my opinion—where I finish my day’s to-do list and am like, “OK, what next?”

• On the weekends, I’m not playing catchup on creative work that got squeezed out during unexpected crises during the work week. Instead, I can say with certainty to myself, “Oh, enjoy what you are doing now, you have time to take care of that tomorrow.”

• Because I’m not playing catchup on the weekends, I can be Fun Mom and take my kids for lazy day excursions and actually enjoy it.

• I can be the person to help create degrees of freedom for other people. This week Vi is in camp with a couple of friends and I was able to offer to do drop-offs and pick-ups because it would truly be no big deal for me while allowing two other parents not to rush on the pick up side. It makes me so, so happy to help create space for others since I have been the recipient of more transport favors than I can count.

• I am finally, for the first time since I began working full-time at the age of 21, taking more than 5 days of vacation time in a row. Honestly, what the fuck have I been thinking for the past 28 years?!

• I feel light, happy, and excited about each day ahead.

• I have been more relaxed about, well, pretty much everything. A humorous example: This past weekend we had friends over and wanted to grill and I bought three bottles of BBQ sauce and opened them all. Normally, I would only open condiments in sequence—we’d need to choose and then finish one bottle of sauce before trying the next. But I was like, “These all look great! Let’s do a sampler so we can try them all. We need to live!” My family was shocked.

In a nutshell, I am figuring out how to live like a more balanced human being. At some point, I may need to adjust the gear upwards a bit for financial reasons but a couple of opportunities have come my way that suggest that things might be sustainable where I am at right this second, or not far from it.

And I feel like the universe keeps giving me moments and gifts to remind me, “Yes, you can do hard things, but you don’t need to do it that way anymore.”