The day you stop racing is the day you win the race
August 8th, 2016, the day I stopped racing, everything changed.
I went from being an overworked and stressed-out rat-racer to a happy, calm and confident person, an outcome I never thought possible back then as I felt completely stuck. I realize now that I followed a path that is available to everyone but invisible to many. It’s a path we cannot see or don’t want to see when we’re fully absorbed by the busyness of everyday life.
An inward journey
August 8th, 2016 was the day I set off on a long inward journey while travelling around the world, from Belgium to Malaysia and Indonesia, to Australia and New Zealand, and Thailand. A journey in which I went from tense, stressed and feeling lost to relaxed, empowered and fully present.
One of the things that became absurdly clear on this journey was the power of less. It’s so simple yet so powerful and transformative, but difficult to apply because of the way we live, going through life like it’s a race.
When you’re always racing, you’re in a tunnel-vision, only seeing what’s right in front of or directly behind you. You lose perspective, you miss the views to your left and right, you get addicted to adrenaline and dopamine, and live in a constant state of tension. In the long run, that might lead to burnout, to less joy in life, and lower performance.
Bob Marley knew it when he said: “The day you stop racing is the day you win the race”.
The power of less
Less gives perspective.
Less gives peace of mind. And when you have peace of mind and perspective, it becomes so much easier to consciously choose those few “races” you want to focus on (i.e. only the ones that truly matter to you). With calmness in your mind and body, it also becomes easy to take breaks to refuel long before you’re running on empty, and to schedule the occasional full maintenance pitstop.
Unfortunately, mindless racing is part of many people’s life as it was in mine, pushing us to exhaustion. And this shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s drilled into us from every angle. We’re taught to work hard at school, then work hard in our jobs. More is oftentimes deemed better and is a guiding principle of our capitalistic society. Achievement and performance define how people see us. Weekends are used to recover from the work week. Vacations are a reward for working hard, and so on... I don’t remember anyone telling me: study with joy, work with pleasure, plan your time off first and build everything else around that.
And so it’s logic that we start to believe the maxim “If I achieve this or that, then I’ll be happy”. Or maybe even worse than believing this, we might not even aware that this is running our lives unconsciously.
Hence we keep on racing.
But we’ve got it wrong.
Flip the script
Luckily, in reality, it’s actually the other way around. Indeed, if I feel good or if I’m happy, I’ll achieve what I want much more easily.
Happiness is a precursor to success, not the other way around. Our body and brain perform so much better when we feel good. We all know this from experience but it’s probably one of those billboards along the highway we keep racing down: we know it’s there but we don’t pay attention to it. Forward is all that matters. So we keep on pushing.
But once you fully understand that happiness is a precursor to success, you can start navigating your life differently.
When you’re fully absorbed by the race of life, you might not think or believe that it can be different, you might feel stuck like I did. And you’ve gotten so used to the stresses, tensions and constant racing that you maybe don’t even question it.
I hope this post can be a reminder for you that it can be different, if you want. And it all starts with less, with eliminating or subtracting instead of adding, allowing you to create space for what truly matters.
When you manage to create this space consciously and intentionally, you’ll almost automatically and spontaneously tune into what truly matters to you and how you could bring more of that into your life. Peace of mind and enough moments of just being instead of always doing bring forward clarity and energy to move into a direction that feels more meaningful to you.
Make a change
Although the path is not complex, it’s not an obvious one. We have to rewire and unlearn how we have been living for many years. Yet the only step you need to think of now, if you want to change something, is just the next step. As Lao Tzu once said:
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”.
If you’d like help with this first step, I’m happy to share that over the last 10 years, through my own process, I’ve created a roadmap that can support you in this process. Also, we’re building a community of brave souls that can hold your hand when needed (ánd that can give you gentle kick up the butt when needed as well) as it’s crucial that you’re surrounded by supportive people on this journey.
So if you’re seeking to make a change and get more meaning and fun out of life, feel free to check it out, all consolidated in The Thrive Academy, a program and community created to provide as many people as possible with the tools, insights ánd support to move from wishes and desires to actual change and transformation.
Our goal here is to help you:
🔥 Achieve more with less
🌿 Tune into what really matters
❤️ Find more fun, lightness and fulfilment in life.
Check out the details here 👇
🚫 A little warning upfront: we don’t offer quick fixes and hacks. Current society and an overload of online programs oftentimes promise shortcuts to whatever it is that we’re seeking, yet reality is usually different. Although the roadmap that we lay out is not complex or difficult, transformation and growth do require effort, vulnerability and courage. My promise to you is that at least you get a proven roadmap and a supportive community to make this process as fun, efficient and effective as possible for you.
📞 If you’d like to get more details or want to get to know me before you jump on board, you can schedule an introduction call as well to make sure there’s a match.
I’m looking forward to walking this path with you to build the life you want and deserve.
Ps, When I talk about success, I’m talking about achieving or experiencing the things that are important to you, which is different for everyone and doesn’t have to be in the realm of achievement and material success. Having more peace of mind for example could be success for you, as it is for me.
With love,
Jan Aquarius - Live. Grow. Matter.
#BeCurious #BeCourageous #BeYourBest
You can Connect with me here:
A little comic representing the start of my journey 10 years ago
