I didn’t expect this.
For 30 years, my life had structure — goals, promotions, deadlines, problems to solve, and a ladder to climb. Even when it was stressful, it was familiar. I knew who I was in that world. Then I stepped away.
Financially, we’re okay. We’ve been frugal. We’ve diversified. Even with market downturns, I’m not lying awake worried about money. And yet… I’m lying awake. At 5:00 a.m., grinding my teeth for the first time in ten years, my body burning like a furnace (thank you, perimenopause), covers on, covers off, sometimes moving to the leather couch just to cool down.
And the question looping in my mind: What do I want to do with my life?
The Stress No One Talks About
We are told that financial freedom leads to beach walks, relaxation, and well-earned rest. And yes — there is freedom. There is flexibility. There is space. But what no one really prepares you for is this: when you remove external structure, you remove external identity.
For decades, I was:
- The achiever
- The problem solver
- The responsible one
- The productive one
- The “smart” one
Without a calendar packed with obligations and milestones, something unexpected happened. The ground felt like it disappeared.
The Video That Helped Me Breathe
I’ve been listening to short videos from coach Joe Hudson, and one in particular stopped me in my tracks. I’ll embed it below because the second half describes exactly what I’m living through.
His core idea is simple but profound: as we grow, we develop the ability to hold contradictory beliefs at the same time. And when we begin loosening rigid beliefs about ourselves — even positive ones — it can feel like an identity crisis. He says something that struck me deeply: any way you define yourself limits you.
Even “I’m smart.” Even “I’m successful.” Even “I’m valuable because I accomplish things.”
He shares a study where children praised for being “smart” actually tried less on a second difficult test because failure would threaten their identity. Meanwhile, kids praised for effort performed better — their identity wasn’t fragile. That hit me. For decades, I have unconsciously carried identity definitions: productive, capable, always moving forward. Now I’m not climbing anything, and without that structure, my mind scrambles to rebuild a new definition.
The Phase Nobody Warns You About
Joe describes a stage where you look around and realize you can’t fully believe any thought about yourself. And that moment feels destabilizing. Who am I if I’m not achieving? Who am I if I’m not progressing? Who am I if I don’t have a clear next goal?
It can feel meaningless at first, like the ground has fallen away. He calls this phase uncomfortable — sometimes even despondent — but he also says something that gave me relief: it feels like falling until you realize it’s flying.
From Rock to Ocean
For most of my adult life, I’ve been a rock — defined, structured, clear edges, solid. Now I feel more fluid, and fluid feels unsafe. When you are no longer “the successful one” or “the productive one,” you can be anything: smart and dumb, accomplished and experimenting, certain and uncertain. That kind of openness is freedom, but it doesn’t feel like freedom at first. It feels like, what the hell am I doing here?
For decades, my nervous system was calibrated around striving and solving. Achievement regulated my anxiety. External validation provided feedback loops. Now I don’t have daily performance metrics, a room of colleagues mirroring back my value, or quarterly goals. And I realized something important: I don’t yet have a strong internal validation system to replace it. That is the work now.
If You Envy This Stage
If you’re still climbing, still grinding, still trying to reach that point of “someday I’ll be free,” I want to gently tell you that this stage is waiting for you too. And it’s not all beach chairs and margaritas.
There is a deeper layer that comes after achievement — a quieter reckoning, a letting go of rigid beliefs about who you are supposed to be. And that letting go can feel unsettling. But it also holds the key to something much more profound than accomplishment: inner peace that doesn’t depend on performance.
If You’re Here With Me
If you’re waking up at odd hours asking existential questions, feeling slightly unmoored even though life looks objectively good, and resisting the urge to rush into a new goal just to feel solid again, you are not alone. You are not broken. You are not ungrateful.
You may simply be dissolving a rock identity.
Becoming ocean takes time. It means allowing:
- Uncertainty
- Experimentation
- Not knowing
- Rest without justification
- Freedom without immediate direction
It’s uncomfortable because it requires internal grounding instead of external scaffolding. But I’m starting to see that this discomfort is not regression — it’s expansion.
This Year Is Not About Achievement
I declared this year a year of learning and wonder. That sounds lovely, but it turns out to be destabilizing because wonder has no KPI, learning has no title, and exploration has no applause. And yet, I believe this is where deeper contentment lives — not in proving, not in defining, but in experiencing.
If you’re in the structured, striving phase, keep going. If you’re approaching freedom, know there’s another layer beyond the beach. And if you’re in this in-between space with me, feeling like the ground fell out, maybe we’re not falling.
Maybe we’re learning how to fly.
Or better yet… learning how to become the ocean.
Lei