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I’ve come to realise that while I need routine, I also like change in that routine too.

Contradictory, I know, but like all of the important things in my life they always end up conflicting.

This time however, it just works. For instance, I like to have a set time that I go to bed and wake up, usually have the same thing for breakfast every day, and so on. So my day to day routine is ideally as similar as possible to how it’s been for a long time.

With that said though, I just can’t understand how some people manage to do the same thing forever. Working for the government it’s no surprise that there are some “stagnant” people around the place. While I can see the temptation to stay in your comfort zone forever – with no room for failure, I just can’t understand how you can actually do it in practice.

I’m a pretty lazy person, but I just need the challenge. I need the change to mix it all up and force myself to try new things.

While certain situations can be a challenge at the time, most people will find that after making it through that challenge, they are so much more confident and happy, because of what they have achieved. Change is the ideal way to kick start your life again.

Throughout my career I have had a new job about once every year and a half to two years. Up until my current job I have had no scope to “move up the ladder” in those workplaces, so I had the option of sitting stagnant in the same job for quite some time, or moving on.

In each situation, I have chosen to move on once I feel that I have mastered the job, and that I have contributed to my team and employer.

Each move challenges me, and forces me to learn new skills and information – something that I would not have learned in my previous employment.

This is why I believe that change is good.

It might be change of job, or something major like moving interstate or overseas, or even just picking up a new hobby. Regardless of what the actual change is, it provides the opportunity to continue to grow as a person, and stay fresh.

I posted an entry called “Is this living?” not so long ago. In the entry I mentioned a motocross rider that was more afraid of working a boring 9-5 job than dying doing something that really made him feel alive.

On the weekend I had to go to work as my team was moving some servers. It was a full weekend’s work and on the whole I thoroughly enjoyed it – I enjoy the physical work for a change. Unfortunately though, one of the team members invited to “help” was just an absolute waste of space. All he did was get in the way and essentially cable things incorrectly, which I would then have to come back and do properly later anyway. Long story short he cost us time and money by being there and we would have been ten times better off if he just stayed at home.

This is a man that only wears clothes in shades of brown or grey, smells like a stale closet, and by the sounds of it the most exciting thing he has ever done was catch the bus to work when his car had broken down.

The whole weekend he’d try and strike up a conversation with anyone, but it was just never about anything important. It was always about his cats, or how he liked earl grey tea or something. About two hours into the second day of working with him I realised that he is a man with pretty much nothing else in his life than dinner and TV at home, driving to and from work, and working itself. What a sad life!

While I don’t want to come across as arrogant, I suppose it gives me a bit of a boost – my life is just so much more exciting.

It’s just further confirmed my plans for life. I just can’t do the “same old same old” that a lot of people tend to sink into. It seems to be a typical theme for Gen Y’s to need to live their life with plenty of change to the Baby Boomers in this respect, and maybe it is just our impatient nature, but to be honest I don’t really care. Life’s too short to just do the same thing over and over and over. I need to mix it up a LOT!

For the past few days I have been interstate for work. I don’t mind travelling for work – it’s something that I’m prepared to do while I am young, but something that I know I’m not interested in doing once we have kids.

It’s easy to see how people can enjoy travelling for work. Let me set the scene…

Sunday afternoon my chauffeured car arrived to drive me to the airport. At the airport I meet my workmates, we check in, and then head to the Virgin Lounge for some pre-flight drinks and something to eat, all complimentary of course. Just before the flight boards, we drop through Travelex to withdraw our meal allowance in cash, then board our flight. It’s only a short flight – around an hour, and after we arrive we continue to drink at the casino, grab some dinner, then head to another pub to finish off the drinking.

Monday morning rolls around, and we all meet for breakfast at the cafe across the road. Normally the three of us avoid buying food for breakfast or lunch, but when you have a large allowance for food, it’s a lot easier to justify spending the money. The day is a fun day of catch-ups with team members from interstate, a few activities, and before we know it we are eating an expensive meal at a Greek restaurant – drinks included, and we don’t have to pay a cent for it. While half of the team go home, the other half hang around and go somewhere else to drink. Before we know it, it’s bed time at 2am and we’ve all clearly had enough for one night.

Tuesday is a very slow day, half of us are hungover, and it’s all a bit of a joke. The boss doesn’t mind – after all, most workplaces are a bit of a boys club, and realistically, alcohol does make you some friends in the workplace. When the day is over, we jump in a car and head back to the airport, hang around in the lounge for a few hours, and then fly home.

All in all it’s been three days of fun, free everything, and you can’t complain. Or can you?

While I’m mindful of only looking on the negative side of the trip (I’m not – I did enjoy the trip), I wasn’t at home to support my fiancee while she could have done with the support (her work is very busy at the moment). In addition to this, my diet suffered big time during the trip, as well as my exercise and my sleeping pattern.

I suppose I am always conscious of falling into the trap that so many others fall into – thinking that their life is great, just because of the luxuries that they have. Climbing the corporate ladder, going to free dinners and travelling around the world has some obvious attractions, but I believe it’s important for people to think about what they might be sacrificing by living that life. If they can truly justify it, great, but if they can’t maybe they need to consider their options a bit more before making the decision to climb the corporate ladder, rather than enjoy other aspects of their life.

If you can’t tell by now, I love the word sustainable. It can be used in so many contexts. Today, I’m ranting on how sustainable your actual day to day life is.

My fiancee is a primary school teacher. While she does like the work, the workload is just ridiculous. When people complain about the amount of holidays that teachers receive, I get quite frustrated, as the majority of holidays that she takes are spent marking, or planning for the next term. It’s a 8am till 10pm job most days for good teachers. Full on!

Take last night for example. It’s a pretty standard night – we both get home at around 5pm, prepare dinner, eat, then clean up. By 6:30pm she is off in the study marking and planning until 10:30pm, then we go to bed. This isn’t out of the norm at all – it’s just day to day life. She has said herself, “I just can’t do this forever”. While I have spoken to her a lot about it and have encouraged her to entertain the idea of changing jobs, it’s nice to hear her actually saying, rather than me.

While she could technically teach forever, she would never have any hobbies, our lives will continue to be very separate, and in my opinion she would live a life of working and working only. No time for kids either!

The hobbies point has always struck me as interesting. I ride my bikes, I work on them, I dig trails, I work on computers at home, and so on. I’m always up to something, it’s what keeps me sane! Turn that around, and my fiancee has none of this. Obviously I don’t expect her to have the same hobbies that I have, but surely you need some sort of outlet for enjoyment and stress relief?

Next year is going to be a year of exploring. We are exploring the world, exploring our career options, and essentially exploring our lifestyle choices. With any luck we will end up in Whistler, Canada, working in jobs that are completely different to our current jobs. While they might not be our dream jobs, they will be different, and allow us to compare them with what we are doing now, and explore the options that we have for our lifestyles.

So have a think about it when you get some free time, can you keep up your current lifestyle forever? Are you giving much thought to where you want to go?

I’ve mentioned my life coach a fair few times lately, and since posting last I have had two separate things prompt me to write something on what to plan for.

My friend emailed me the other day saying how it’s interesting that people always write business and career plans but never life plans, and how it fits in well with my beliefs. I couldn’t agree with him more to be honest. Everyone bases so much on their career, assuming that a happy life will naturally compliment their successful career. While for some people this may be the case, often for a lot of people the rest of their life is neglected and in the long term things don’t go as well as they thought they would.

The second “prompt” was while watching a show on TV called Insight. It was about people reinventing themselves, and evolved largely around their careers. Many of the people on the show had been laid-off because of the global financial crisis, and have been forced to find work in other industries, while others had changed careers to give them more time with their family, or for similar reasons. The rest were people that wanted to reinvent themselves, but had no idea how.

What struck me during Insight was the very clear split between the people attending the show. Some were so content with changing direction and not concerned at the least, while others were terrified by the thought. Some were able to adapt without much thought at all, and the others thought they were able to adapt but in reality never left their comfort zone at all.

It made me realise how much emphasis people place on their career. How many times do you hear your friends say that they are unable to do the things that they really want to do because of their job?

“I had to work back late, so I didn’t get to see the kids before bed time.”

“By the time I get home from work it’s dark, so it’s hard to stay fit.”

“I try to eat well, but I just don’t have time in the morning to have a good breakfast and make a healthy lunch.”

There’s plenty of examples, but the underlying cause is that we place such a great emphasis on our career. It’s interesting though, as the only reason that we work is so we can live our lives outside of work. Ask anyone – unless you have the best job in the world (professional downhill mountain biker), there are things that you’d rather be doing than working. I’m not suggesting that the answer is not to work at all, but work should just be a component of our life plan.

Life plan? Yep. Imagine if you wrote a plan for our life. Where do you want to be in 2 years? 5 years? 10 years? What are you going to do to get there? What wouldn’t you sacrifice to get it?

Rather than just aspiring to be rich or have a great job, actually define what you want from life. Do you want to be a really great father one day? Your career might have to take a bit of a hit so you get to spend the maxium amount of time with your kids. Do you want to live a healthy life? You might need to spend less time at work so you can exercise and have more time to eat well.

Now right now it sounds as though I’m going on my usual “money isn’t everything” rant. Life planning still works for when you want to be rich. If you want a mansion and a nice car and so on, you should still plan for it. While you’re career might be going perfectly, and money is rolling into your bank account, with some simple planning you might be able to get the mansion faster, or pay it off outright within a few years. On Insight there was a man that was earning over $200,000 a year and was worried about his home loan after he had been laid off! Surely some forward planning could have avoided this problem, but he failed to plan for the future.

I’ll write more on this, but when you get some free time actually have a think about what you really want, and how your job can help you with this, rather than just what your job can yet you.