Connections, Expectations and Surprises: Lab-Rat Wrap Up Part 2
By Alex Fayle

Back in August, when I launched the new version of Someday Syndrome, I put out a call for people interested in getting mentored around their somedays. Expecting one person to step forward, I ended up with four, all at different points in their lives deals with different somedays.

Throughout the next three months, I gave the four weekly exercises which I then dicussed on the blog here.

During the process I learned a lot about these four brave souls and a lot about myself. I learned that we are all different and have distinct challenges, but at the same time some pretty basic things motivate us: fear, desire, happiness and comfort.

Thanks to the inaugral Lab-Rats, my own ideas around Someday Syndrome have undergone a transformation. I now see how even the same motivation (e.g., fear) can manifest itself in many different ways requiring different responses.

So thank you Urbane LIon, Sal,Brett & Crista. You’ve helped me grow and I’m pretty certain I’ve done the same for you.

And now I’ll leave you with a few words from Crista and from Brett.

Crista

When I signed up to do the Lab Rat Experiment, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I thought it sounded like a great idea to achieve a few of my long-buried somedays, but I hadn’t anticipated the need to dig as deep as I did to arrive at my answers.

Each week, Alex’s questions provoked a reaction. The first week, I thought about giving him a “surface’ answer that probably would have sufficed, but I decided that if I am going to do this, I’m going to jump in. I think that’s the thing with personal change. No one really knows how much you put into it - except for you.

When this process started, I definitely felt unsettled. Aside from me being away from my family for several weeks, I had to take a look in the mirror and ask, “What do I really want?”. I had to confront the fact that I was using my family as an excuse for not pursuing and achieving my someday dreams.

Sadly, I was placing most of the blame on my husband.

Through this experience, we confronted some of those issues and we’re now in a better place. We’re sharing our someday dreams as a couple, while making sure we are fulfilling what we need individually.

Someone contacted me this week after reading one of my posts on the blog because she thought she could really use “something like that”.Her life was at a place where she was feeling frustrated, impatient, and unfocused.

Quite simply, she didn’t feel like she was achieving the things she was meant to in her life and she felt stuck.

I realized that this was how I felt when I started the Someday Syndrome journey and I’m past that now. This is definitely not what I was expected when I signed up. Thank you Alex.

Brett

I can sum it up as “time well spent”.

I have learned a lot about myself, and I have learned a lot from the experiences shared by Alex, and by my fellow Lab-Rats.

Perhaps, more importantly, I feel friendship and connection with everyone who went through this, and that is a good thing.  It is nice to know that I am not alone in my quest - while the end goal may be different, we all push towards that special goal.

We will get there, because we know it is right for us.

I highly recommend that anyone who wants to turn “someday” into “today” should contact Alex for help.  It will be time well spent.

P.S. My post from last Tuesday Dedicate Yourself to Life, Not Work was included in the second round of the Personal Development, Personal Finance and Personal Health blog carnival, developed by Jeremy Day of Insight Writer and hosted this week by Momentor.

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