Screw Freak Out. As Dan Sullivan says, ‘All progress starts by telling the truth', so here's the truth about Freak Out. It's a shitty place to be. But, really, not that much conversation takes place about it, does it? People in the wellbeing industry, the area I have worked in, tend to spend most of their time extolling the less-than-great virtues of Check Out and (their poster child) Burn Out — and, really, for good reason. Life living in those states is not fun, and the evidence overwhelmingly shows that your health suffers markedly when you spend lengthy time in them.

But Freak Out is the silent one, like a sneaky fart after beans for brekky. You mightn't hear much about it, but it sure does have some impact. The physical effects of our ol' friend Burn Out (covered in chapter 6) are plain to see: the constantly furrowed brow, the bags under the eyes — heck even the stains on the underarm of your shirts from good old-fashioned sweat. Eeww. It's there for all and sundry to see. And Check Out? Also pretty easy to see; in most cases you're simply not there. Sometimes, you're physically not there — you're sitting on the couch or in bed instead —but in other circumstances your physical form is there, but mentally you've left the building.

But then there's Freak Out, which, quite literally, can feel like it's driving you crazy. I'm using that term not in any clinical sense, but more to capture how you can feel lost and uncertain about what to do next because nothing is happening the way you had hoped it would. We've all been in the midst of Freak Out from time to time, where we're seeing a vision of how things could be different but the abyss between here and there seems impassable.

Across the next three chapters we're going to tackle this silent state to combat its cost to our sanity, and find ways to invest in processes that will drive progress. Specifically, we're going to set out the map you need to head in the right direction, we're going to chunk your goal down so you can get into action, and we're going to make sure we see the progress that we're making.