296 : What has Dropped Off your Calendar?

Everyone knows they should invest more in themselves. Exercise. Learning. Meditation. The creative project that has nothing to do with work and everything to do with who they actually are.Everyone also knows exactly what happened to those things. They slid off the calendar one week at a time, replaced by things that felt more urgent and less personal. Not dramatically. Gradually. Until you struggle to answer the question "what do you do for fun?" The cost is a gradual flattening. A narrowing of who you are into who you are at work. It creates a specific vulnerability that most people don't see until it's too late: when the work stops going well, there's nothing else to stand on.There is something hiding inside the things you do for yourself. They often turn out to be more valuable than anything on your development plan. The connections aren't obvious, but they are real. I've seen them play out in the most successful operators who give themselves permission to spend time on their…