Work life chaos…
Unlike most bloggers and entrepreneurs who seem to have cracked the perfect formula for the work-life balance, I’m going to be the one who will share my work life chaos story and what I am trying to do to turn it upside down. It’s a big project and I think I’m only about 15% ish.. where I want to be so keep reading to find out more on what led me to pack all my belongings, move my office, flat, give my dog up for temporary adoption to one of my dearest friends, leave the country and sign up for the Tiger Muay Thai Bootcamp in Phuket…
Do you know that feeling when you go to bed tired, wake up even more exhausted, work 12+ hour days, eat crap because you don’t make time to cook something healthy, eat sweets to get some sort of feeling of reward, have drinks to prove yourself that you have a social life and buy stuff you don’t need just because you are working so hard and want to convince yourself you can afford it?
Well, I’ve done that for wayyy too long and something had to change – DRASTICALLY (I believe turning 30 has also mildly influenced that…). I just couldn’t look at myself in the mirror anymore and see the person that I know I’m not – overweight, overworked, dull and with no clear goals or ambitions, just floating around. Both my husband and I are workaholics. We’ve tried many times to get out of this vicious circle and went straight back into it. Like any addiction, it’s very hard to beat and you end up feeling indifferent to everything around you because you are simply too tired to care.
We wanted our lives back more than anything else and being impulsive as we are, we ended up buying tickets to Thailand and convinced our best friend Gin to join us. We had one week to move our team to a brand new office at AltSpace Vilnius (thanks for looking after our team guys!!!), pack away and store all of our furniture and belongings that wouldn’t fit in a backpack, travel to Belfast on a business trip for a couple of days and complete some huge projects for our clients, train up a new member of staff and finish off a ton of other shitty little jobs – all in one week.
Packing our life away…
We officially quit sleeping and packed our bags 5 mins before going to the airport which made me panic like hell and forget so many essential things for this trip but I guess you can always buy everything you need, right?
Anyways…our flight was long but went quite fast: Vilnius – Ukraine – Bangkok – Phuket and this is the part where I should start telling you about how amazing Thailand is how balanced my life has become the minute I landed here… Yeah… not so fast…
Noodles, Chang and Monsoon…
I don’t know how but I completely forgot that Thailand was going to be in the Monsoon season when we arrived – epic fail No1…So the second we stepped out of the airplane, we were literary soaked even before we reached the terminal (meanwhile in Vilnius, 25 degrees, sunshine, amazing buzz in the city…).
I also forgot how much I hate taxi drivers as they are always trying to rip you off and that you need to turn your negotiation skills on the second you reach Thailand. Being exhausted from the flight, wet from the rain and mega hungry did really affect my manners and patience quite a lot so I had to tell some of the drivers where to go…Fortunately, we found a decent guy who agreed to take us to our hotel for a normal price ( ขอบคุณครับ [khob khun krab] Mr. Bud, you saved our day).
We’ve reached our hotel (Little Hill Resort) and soon enough experienced epic fail No2…It looked completely different compared to the last time we’ve seen it. They also had their own fitness bootcamp and most of the people who were staying there were training at that camp… It felt like being back at school where one part of the class doesn’t like the other but we were too tired to care and jumped straight into the pool!
I really wanted to cry from tiredness, the condition of our hotel rooms and towels (brown, damp and smell like a wet dog), hunger and lack of sleep but there’s nothing that Thai noodles and bottle of Chang couldn’t fix! We found the closet local bar that looked like somebody’s kitchen and had our first Thai feast using the oldest excuse in the world – Diet and training starts from Monday!
The day when you need to face yourself in the mirror…
Most people who are really determined to lose weight or get into a better shape tend to weigh themselves or take measurements so they can track the progress and see if it’s working. No idea why, but we all forgot about it (epic fail No3…). Instead, we just decided to face our biggest fear (admitting that we’re fat) and take some pictures that would be the starting point of the transformation but more about it in my next post – Fat, Pale and Eager!
