Don’t worry about PRs and whatnot.

Just ENJOY pushing yourself and being around such great people.

As for what that is… I’ve been in a similar spot for a long time. My interests are many, and they all come at the costs of the others it seems. I love what I get out of crossfitting 5 days a week, I *need* to work a job and earn my stay here, I’d love to spend another 40 hours a week to devote myself to getting smarter in other areas, all this while attempting to maintain relationships with people around me, and all of these things require sufficient rest to truly appreciate. Lately, that’s not stressful like it used to be though – I’ve found some way to manage it all.

It doesn’t seem to me like you need a life coach though – it looks an awful lot like you wrote out all the answers to your problems. Maybe it’s just a matter of taking everything you said to heart. Like “having a social life that’s too hectic for its own good” – maybe it’s time to only allow a social life that’s manageable and that you truly enjoy. When you said “I need to create something sustainable”, that should apply everywhere, including choosing what your social life is like. Or maybe the secret is in looking at that sentence a different way. I’m not sure life is just to be “sustained” – I’d recommend you try to enjoy it! So maybe what you need to create is a life you enjoy. Things are a lot easier to do if you just do exactly what it is you *want* to do, and fully accept that while you’re doing it. Don’t go to work because you have to, or because you’re scared of running out of money. Go to work because you realize that’s how the world works. Go to work because in order for people to live on the earth, they have to provide themselves the means to do so. Go to work because you have to provide some equivalent value to earn all the food and entertainment you get, for the work others did to make the life you want possible. Don’t go to the gym because you’re scared of atrophy. Go to the gym because it feels good to push yourself, abuse your weaknesses, feel strong, be capable, compete.

If you stop doing things you should do or have to do, and start doing only the things you truly want to do, you’ll probably find it all a lot easier to maintain. Just some thoughts that work for me, hope they help. You seem introspective, smart, and motivated enough to figure out what’ll work for you.

Good luck, take time to figure out the right track, don’t jump until you’re good and ready.

@Ryon, you’ve got a way with words dude. That “tounge in cheek” 100 words is actually really well done… you should put that somewhere prominent. Seriously.

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World Class Mental and Spiritual Health in 100 Words:

Read everything you can: Magazines and newspapers, some websites, few blogs and little television. Keep stimulus to levels that will support growth but not overwhelm you. Practice and train mental skills: Reading, writing, speaking, problem solving, and analysis. Similarly, master the basics of spirituality: Meditation, introspection, journaling, reflection, joie de vie, passion and love. Ponder, wonder, imagine, dream, etc, often and joyfully. Mix the elements of your passions and interests to find new passions and interests. Foster your creativity by solving puzzles, playing games, having “deep” conversation. Banality is the enemy. Regularly change your habits. Keep relationships long and meaningful.
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Seriously though, I think that the problem of training the mind and spirit is closely connected to the problem of meaning in life, a serious one for our generation. If you think about it, our generation and our social class is one of the first in a while to have the luxury of pondering these issues. My grandfather was a peanut farmer during the great depression. Every day he would load the donkeys up with peanuts to sell at the market. He did not have the luxury of wondering whether or not what he was doing was fulfilling or fresh.

Luckily, we are in a time and place in the world where we have at least the first few rungs of Maslow’s ladder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs) scaled, and yet it is so easy to look with bewilderment at the levels of love/intimacy, Esteem, and actualization, with no idea of how to get there.

Sometimes we don’t need the strength of will and mind to get through something. The vague malaise we feel, the lack of motivation can be akin to that nagging ache we feel when working out; not a message to man up and work through it, but to stop, at least for a while, and possibly change direction.

The fool, to paraphrase Laozi, mistakes pleasure for happiness. We also live in a world full of distractions, with a signal to noise ratio so low, it is difficult to work through the noise to pick up the signal that our subconscious mind is trying to send us. What our history, parents, society tells us we ‘should’ do is not necessarily what we are meant to do.