Your emotional balance sheet

A case for an emotional resource cost assessment.

(Photo: in Florida on vacay in the middle of a dating app detox)

“You can’t continue like this,” she said.

I was barely listening, busy mentally cycling through my giant to-do list of tour posters that needed to be emailed, ticket sales to check, and social media posts to make.

We were in the middle of a New Zealand tour that was actually going pretty well, not that you’d be able to tell from my tightly wound, overly controlling, and highly anxious demeanor.

“You’re obviously feeling really stressed out running this tour and it can’t be much fun for you. You’ll have to find another way or I can’t see how you can keep it up.” I finally heard her, understanding the subtext, “or that much fun for those of us around you”.

Time, energy, and money are limited resources, so what you choose to spend them on always means sacrificing something else.

I had been spending all of mine on trying to drive an independent band to success, organizing recording projects, planning tours, pouring all my money and energy into the pursuit of the band’s goals, and not saving any of my precious limited resources on staying healthy and happy.

I thought the people around me were oblivious to it, but apparently, the jig was up and I would need to finally confront that the way I’d been living wasn’t sustainable (or very nice to be around).

Humans are very good at focusing on what’s right in front of us, and not that good at future-pacing the consequences of our immediate actions.

In the past I would push through the daily stress, not thinking about the cumulative effects of long-term burnout on my mind and body. I would have that 3rd (or 4th or 5th) drink, focused on short-term fun and not considering what a waste the next day would be or how bad I’d feel about it.

My skin was bad because I chose alcohol and hanging out over sleeping and exercising. I was suffering from immense financial anxiety because I was pursuing creative fulfillment over making money at all times. I was addicted to checking my phone because I kept dating emotionally avoidant men instead of stopping long enough to notice that it was actually making me miserable and I’d be better off learning to be genuinely happy alone.

In the photo above I was on vacation with some girlfriends in Florida and was taking a break from dating and social media apps. I remember checking my LinkedIn (the one app that had been forgotten and not deleted) because I was so desperate for that dopamine hit of social interaction - spoiler: LinkedIn did not provide said hit.

Overall, I was stumbling somewhat blindly through life, focused only on my goals and not really thinking about the emotional or financial costs of the choices I made. Letting life happen to me, instead of carving out the experiences I actually wanted in my life meant I was stressed and generally unhappy.

This much-needed reset at the beach with some wonderful friends was somewhat of a turning point for me in the way I approached my life.

The fact is, whatever choice you make - there’s always a cost.

When you choose late nights you usually lose early mornings.

When you choose creative pursuits you usually sacrifice money, and when you choose money you often sacrifice creative fulfillment.

When you spend money on eating out a lot you lose the chance to save for big-ticket items like cars and house deposits.

When you save for a house you miss out on splurging on clothes and trips.

Going out to socialize often means depleting your energy.

Staying home alone means waning friendships.

Relentlessly hustling in pursuit of career success usually means degradation of your mental wellbeing.

Defending your mental health boundaries can mean slower career growth.

There’s no perfect formula for how much of your time, energy, and emotional and physical resources you should spend and on what, there’s really just what makes you happy and sustains the life you want. But figuring that out requires some deep digging that a lot of us never do.

I’ve mostly discovered what does make me happy but doing it the other, worse way… for a long time.

Figuring out what makes you happy is definitely just part of growing older, but there’s also a way to spark these realizations by doing some guided introspection.

When I started an IRA a few years back my financial advisor asked me how risk-averse I was and I laughed in surprise and said I had honestly never thought about it before.

She asked me to do a questionnaire to determine how much risk I was willing to take in my investments and it included questions like, how strongly do you agree with the statement, “protecting my portfolio is more important to me than high returns” and “I am willing to bear the consequences of a loss to maximize my returns,” or “To completely avoid losses is something I am more interested in”.

I think it would be immensely helpful if we all did emotional resource cost assessments in our lives.

Something like, on a scale of 1-5 how strongly do you agree with these statements:

“I’m willing to sacrifice my energy levels so I can be regularly social”

“Being fit and healthy is more important to me than drinking”

“I’m willing to sacrifice creative pursuits for financial stability”

“I would rather be alone than date someone who is bad for me”

Emotional budgeting means prioritizing what is most important to you, and also fully understanding and accepting why you are missing out on other things as a result.

If you’re missing out on parties because you’re focusing on family time with your spouse or kids, in those moments when you’re suffering FOMO it might help to remember and appreciate the reason you chose to miss out.

If you can’t go on vacay because you’re choosing creativity pursuits over prioritizing income, when you get jealous of other people’s Instagram holiday diaries it might help when you remember that - even though you’re not in Hawaii - you now have a new body of work you’re really proud of.

Creating an emotional balance sheet and identifying the costs you’re incurring with the choices you make might be a great start to proactively choosing the life you really want.