You can't move if you don't know what's the current status quo. Deconstruct your day from start to finish for a week, and color your calendar by the energy every task represent; givers, takers or neutrals. That helped me massively.

You get an overview of what you are doing, and which parts of your day are creating, draining, or neutral for your energy. Understand how your time is truly distributed, and even more importantly, where energy goes.

You get some data on what is really going on, and many times small tweaks in tasks, people, or strategy can have a huge impact. Understand better what micro adjustments can be made right now, what can be done in the short term and in the long run, to turn your calendar into a net-energy-positive space.

I feel like there is no better way to find out what truly drives you and makes you happy than sidequesting. My latest sidequests have been: learning a new language, learning about quantum physics, and learning to make bread, and the list goes ooon, and keeps expanding.

If you are not yet sidequesting, I dare you to start something today. Not a business necessarily, just something on the side that's yours, and that reminds you what it feels like to be genuinely interested in what you're doing. Sidequesting has also taught me that just starting is the hardest part, and as you get going, missing pieces of the puzzle appear, and things turn out to not be as complicated as you imagined.

We all need money to live, obviously. But I think sometimes our minds keep us more stuck than our finances do, and we tend to give more attention to the latter. When I decided to leave my corporate job, I looked back on what events in my life had really mattered financially, and I think 80% of the results come from around 20% of the effort, and the highest-yielding work was not my 9-5, but investments and freelance consulting efforts.

Also, figure out how much certain luxuries matter to you. Are you willing to spend a whole career in a job you do not like just to go on a vacation/drive a specific car/or another superficial marker? Understand your trade-offs, and choose wisely. Many times our helplessness is fully created by ourselves.

I believe we're all just figuring life and business out as we go, especially as entrepreneurs. Waiting until you feel ready usually means waiting forever, so take pride in not knowing it all and doing it anyway. The quote “money loves motion” exists for a reason, willingness to act before you have every answer is what separates the people who build things from the people who never do.

Carving your own path takes a lot of energy, and energy is contagious. So manage your circle like a portfolio and stay close to people you aspire to be like in some capacity, and cut the losers. Keep adjusting peoples access to you accordingly, and protect your energy.