Lesson one: doing what you love comes with the unexpected side-effects

 Lessons from teaching fitness

An unexpected discovery: moving away from my full-time office job gave me the mental capacity to explore who I am outside of the parameters of my professional identity.

My day job was only a 40-hour work week but coming home mentally exhausted and sometimes physically wiped (after event or photoshoot days) left me no motivation for self-exploration. And I don't even have kids or a second shift to clock in for.

Between my current part-time office job (21 hours a week) and teaching (12-14 classes a week, plus the prep and time before and after class at studios) and I don’t really have more time in my day for activities. And yet somehow, this year I’ve been able to pick up new hobbies and return to old ones.

Before I was a fitness instructor, I didn’t think it was possible to consistently feel energized by your work.

Space for play outside of your job

I liked my old communications officer job – it challenged me and taught me so much about myself, others, and the world. I adored my team at the University of Waterloo. But the work didn’t deliver the reliable dopamine hit and sense of connection I get from teaching.

And after a week in the office, I just wanted to veg my evenings away and survive until the weekend. After my career change, that changed.

I didn’t notice at first.

A chance conversation with a student got me to pick up my guitar again for the first time since a very messy breakup (the guitar was part of the custody battle :P) eight years ago. I played almost every day until my dad died.

A random mid-day Tuesday house clean caused me to rediscover some art and craft supplies, and I was making bracelets and using my Chinese paint brushes again. Getting my flute repaired and organizing old sheet music.

A joking conversation with a friend and fellow teacher had me suddenly signing up to run a five km race. Me, the former slowest kid in gym class, becoming a runner? I started trying to beat my old pandemic Pelaton streak and encountered the joy of running in a city still asleep, watching the sun come up in quiet.

The year continued to surprise me. I took online teacher trainings, bought a membership for the local climbing gym, got back into daily Duolingo play. I was able to go home and see my dad almost every week for months on end.

Objectively, from the career change I’d only unlocked a few extra hours of ‘free’ time a week. But the mental capacity I gained from not turning into a zombie from a day of juggling journalists and press releases, social media content calendars, and website architecture overhauls was apparently all I needed to rediscover a sense of joy in learning new things or returning to old hobbies.

Hobbies are a privilege

Self-actualization is at the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I’m exceptionally privileged – parents who loved me, a partner to help with bills, no mortgage payments, school expenses paid off, no kids, cheap rent. Not everyone has the luxury of free time and energy to explore the way I have this year.

But society also constrains us from this kind of self-study. Svadhyaya – introspective assessment – and tapas – discipline, commitment, the fire of practice – are two yogic niyamas that my career change has given me license to explore. I have the time and the energy to look inward or to rearrange my outward environment to set up the habits for daily practice.

When under pressure from the demands of the western workday, it can be harder to develop committed practice, or to find time to sit in stillness to look inward and discover what you really want to be doing right now.

Work hours that creep into your ‘free’ time. The need to ‘break into the housing market,’ to send your kid to school for not one but two degrees because ‘the Masters is the new Bachelors.’ The relocation of the employer into the physical space of the home when the pandemic blurred the boundaries between venues of work.

The unspoken expectation to keep up, to be seen as successful, to have all the things and go all the places.  Everyone, from corporations, to the media, to the coworkers around the lunch table talking about their latest Europe trip or home reno project, adds to these subtle pressures.

But taking a step back, saying no to some of that – because I’m privileged enough to do so, and have done enough svadhyaya to know that I wanted to – has changed my life in the most incredible ways. I’m excited for whatever lessons come next.