📷 by @chester.wade.

WORDS TO REMIND EVERY MO BRO & MO SITA ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF LOOKING AFTER THEIR MENTAL HEALTH.

It’s 7.30pm on a Friday evening. You’re in an Uber home from work after departing the office at 7.05pm. You’ve welcomed your driver with a Finger Lickn’ Good air-freshener aroma known as a KFC Kentucky Burger Meal. Suddenly as you open your Instagram Story to upload an ephemeral memory of your day. Your reflection jolts the original recipe skin from your fingertips, and you find yourself asking. “Is this a portrait of a healthy lifestyle or am I a man on the verge of killing myself to attain professional perfection?”

The above realisation is what empowered me to put my mind before my career. I didn’t feel suicidal, but I had built a wall of my own making that had allowed me to neglect me and strive to deliver for others. This behaviour lead me to an existence where I’d rise at 5am, arrive at the office by 7.22am, depart at 6.55pm and continue working on my bed until 11.45pm.

Outwardly, I felt that I was succeeding, but inwardly my passion was waning, and my emotions were becoming unbalanced. The textures of my wardrobe no longer lifted my spirits. The laughter of friends was muted by the scrolls of my Google Keep to-do list, and the visuals of life that surrounded me on the daily had lost their incandescent glow.

These four men’s health narrative vignettes haven’t been written as testaments to obey. But I do hope that they help you to remember how important your mind is to your own professional and personal success.

EVERY TIME YOU SAY YES TO SOMEONE ELSE, YOU SAY NO TO YOURSELF 🎧

 Tap ⬆️ to listen to The Wire by @DavidDallas while you 📖 🎧.

Putting yourself before the needs of others can be a problematic behavioural change to embrace. We want to be the best version of ourselves and ensure that what we make on the daily impresses others and is a reflection of our competence as a professional. However, the better we get at something. The more people take notice of how we could continue to benefit them.  This hunger for what we can produce fuels an internal adrenalin to deliver for others at any cost and the who we were outside of our work, becomes a phantom pain to our profession.

Despite how hard saying no might be for those of us who strive not just to do, but to innovate in everything that we make. If saying yes to others outweighs making time for our mental wellbeing, the person who suffers from our inability to say no won’t be those that we are saying yes to, it’ll be you and those who love you.

So how do we gain the courage to politely say no I can’t do that now but I can do it in 24 hours in a mobile-first world where everyone expects everything now? Firstly, we must know our schedule and be aware of which deadlines we have already committed to for others. Irrespective of how urgent the messenger makes their task sound, ultimately it has arrived in your inbox due to their inability to organise their own workload, so don’t allow their tactics of persuasion to affect your current deadlines.

But what do we do if the messenger of this urgent deadline has already committed to a project deadline without consulting us? While this task has inadvertently become your responsibility, remind yourself that although sweat may be starting to seep from your forehead. The messenger made this commitment without consulting you first. They set the turnaround date not you, so it is their responsibility to adapt the timeline if the deliverable can’t be delivered to the recipient on time without letting others down. The messenger may react to your no, but if you explain why you can’t meet the deadline and provide them with an approach to resolve the situation, they will understand that it’s not personal, they’ve just agreed to an unrealistic expectation.

Saying no is easier said than done, but those who do get five hours of their day to disconnect from their work devices do so by saying no. So, don’t become a victim of their persuasion to pressure you into working until the witching hour to meet their deadline.

MAKE TIME TO MOVE WITH DISCONNECTED BOUNCE 🎧

Tap ⬆️ to listen to On Top by @FlumeMusic while you 📖 🎧.

If you’ve worked with me on a project or heard me ranting about a new professional passion project, you’ll know that to achieve the best for a client and all collaborators involved in a campaign, I’ll often neglect those who I love to deliver. But is saying no to yourself and choosing not to make time to move and feel reinvigorated beneficial to a passion project? Or was that 60 minutes of endorphin-induced fitness that you decided to remove from your schedule, actually the energy that your mind needed to wrap your deadline by 8pm, instead of shutting down your MacBook at midnight?

While on weekdays I am often guilty of prioritising work over cardio, every Saturday morning I rise at 7am, queue my Fitness No Scenster Spotify playlist and run the Yarra River, Abbotsford Ranges and Hunua Falls when back home in New Zealand.

My weekend 10km runs do have a physical benefit, and they do help me to keep the fast food crimes of my lifestyle from hitting my hips. But the main reason that I charge through the morning sunlight at an average pace of 4:58 minutes per kilometre, is to shed the frustrations of my week from my subconscious.

Running with force as Jay Z, Kanye and David Dallas motivate every stride from my headphones.  It’s as if I’m punching those who caused me anger throughout my week with my bare fists. Then the moment arrives when I reach the climax of my run and look out at the city before me. At that moment, the anger and those worn bags under my eyes that I’ve carried with me to every meeting, disappear from expression. Allowing a smile to consume my headspace, as the realisation of what I’ve accomplished despite adversity within my eighty-hour working week fills me with an endorphin charged euphoria.

Running isn’t for everyone and for many the gym isn’t right either. Personally, I avoid the gym at all costs because I don’t want to be in a confined space where intimidating chest pecs are plentiful, and blinding fitspo selfie flashes are more contagious than gonorrhoea. But when you do find an exercise routine that turns you on, offers you mental clarity and allows you to persevere with resilience. Don’t be a fool like me and neglect the importance of this workout to your wellbeing. Because those who become innovators don’t get there by chance, they arrive at the top by making time to move with disconnected bounce.

DON’T DREAD IT, DO IT 🎧

Tap ⬆️ to listen to Stop Me by @NickMurphy while you 📖 🎧.

The Nike slogan ‘Just Do It’ is an expression that inspires our generation to put 120% into our physical pursuits. However, when impossible tasks start to pile up at our desks, and our email inboxes welcome 50+ new dilemmas that need a resolution on a daily basis. Just doing it can be a problematic philosophy to apply to our work routine.

One phrase that I have coined which allows me to acquire perspective when I feel overwhelmed and gets me in the motion of prioritising my deadlines is “Don’t dread it. Do it.” These five words may seem like a personal trainer’s go-to tagline, but what they offer me is the mindfulness to create a list and then begin ticking off the good, the bad and the ugly from my Google Keep.

If you’re a cynic like me, implementing the ‘Don’t dread it, do it’ mantra into your work schedule may seem easier said than done. But when you arrive at work tomorrow morning, if you begin listing what needs to be done the fulfilment felt from completing each task will allow you to depart the office earlier and provide your colleagues with a more positive workmate. So, before you frown at work tomorrow, try thinking of how it could be achieved before you fear your workload.

HEAL YOUR HEAD WITH THE HEARTBEATS OF THOSE WHO MATTER TO YOU 🎧

Tap ⬆️ to listen to Highs & Lows by @EmeliSande while you 📖🎧.

Maintaining an unhealthy work-life balance can be a difficult strain for us to endure on the daily and we often deflect the stress that we are feeling onto those who we love the most. Our frustration from being unable to spend time with them and live the little things snowballs into hurtful words, and we end up sabotaging our personal relationships.

I still remember the day when I decided to choose life, over my current career.  It was mid-November 2016; a colleague had called me at 9pm after putting her children to bed and requested that I make a few amends to a presentation that we had at 9am the following morning.  It’s not the 1am finish and successful presentation the next day that’s ingrained in my memory though. It’s the minutes that transpired after.

The same colleague who called me the night before and I were driving back to the office and talking about our lives outside of the agency. We were worn, but the summer sun on our skin was restoring a glow in us. She was juggling driving, with a call to a cake store to organise her husband’s birthday cake. I was scrolling through new emails while chatting with her and then suddenly we nearly rear-ended the vehicle in front of us. At that moment I remember asking myself is this living once again?

Instead of taking on-board the lesson of this near collision, I returned to my desk and worked until 7pm. Work-lagged I exited a tram and crossed the road to a Woolworths Micro to grab some ingredients for dinner. Leaving the store while replying to emails and lugging fresh produce across Flinders Street. I was greeted by the loud bells of an oncoming tram that I had almost walked into, and as my Strawberry flavoured Big M flowed across those tram lines. The realisation that I was alone, declining collecting experiences to deliver and not living, overcame me.

At that moment, in the city I loved with all my heart, my beautiful Melbourne… I knew that to grow and find who I once was and who I would become. I had to say goodbye to Melbourne and allow my head to be healed by the heartbeats of those who mattered to me the most, my family.

I think the best affirmation that the monumental decision to put myself and my mental well-being ahead of the needs of others, transpired as I smiled with Rita Ora’s, Your Song on Spotify repeat in New York seven months ago.

Surrounded by colourful strangers at 4am on the Subway from Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, back to the Upper East Side. The memory of holding hands with David, an endearing Spanish composer, as we strolled the streets of Greenpoint during the witching hour. Melted the walls of my ashtray heart, because for the first time in five years I hadn’t just said yes to collecting experiences. I had allowed somebody new and charming to have all of me without the excess baggage of my work inbox.

To help me to stop men dying too young, please donate to my MoSpace this Movember.

Written by Samuel Elliot Snowden.