There's a clear, direct correlation between my level of physical activity and my mental health. If I'm not active, I feel lazy, lethargic, and self-loathing. If I am active, I feel confident, energetic, and ambitious. It doesn't take a lot of activity; just 20-30 minutes of heart-pumping exercise a day.

Taking that a step further, the three keys to life balance seem to be, in this order: sleep, exercise, diet. Get enough sleep, get some kind of physical activity every day, and eat as well as you can, and you should feel pretty good, most days.

As far as side projects go, have you stopped to ask yourself _why_ you want to do them? Is it just an interesting diversion, or does it actually carry some kind of deeper meaning for you? It can be hard to be honest with ourselves, but I think if you can question your motivations, you may find that you're distracted by things that seem interesting on their face, but they aren't really connected to who you are or who you want to be.

Another thought, regarding perfectionism -- it seems to be a learned behavior. For me, it's a combination of two things. On the one side is a fragile self-image built up throughout childhood (I'm "smart" for my age) and feeling a deep need to preserve that image at all costs (if I make a mistake or fail, that's evidence that I and every adult who complimented me on the way was wrong). On the other side is the evil of comparison; venturing into an industry inundated with stories of explosive growth driven by infallible geniuses, I _have_ to measure up. If I throw myself at an idea and the idea or the execution fails, that's concrete evidence that I'm not of the same stock as the titans of my industry. Scary.

There are a few things you can do to combat this:

- Don't compare yourself with anyone else. It can't help you. You're only increasing the downside (failure means you're not good enough, while exceeding your idols would leave you feeling more empty than before).

- Realize that failure is like a forest fire – painful and hard to look at, but the best foundation for rich new growth. If you go out of your way to prevent it, you just make the inevitable disaster so much worse. Embrace it.

- Let go of your story about who you are and how your life "should" be. Speaking from personal experience, it's so easy to get attached to how things "should" go, that you lose sight of what's in front of you. If you can open yourself up to being wrong about who you are and what's important to you...well, you may actually find a much more interesting version of yourself along the way.

- Look for your "why." For a big portion of my career, I chased money. I chose projects I thought could make money, and I changed jobs chasing higher and higher compensation. I hustled and grinded, and in the end, I have little to show for it. It took me 10 years to realize that I would hate myself if I spent my whole life working on stuff I didn't really care about, just to make enough money to escape that hamster wheel and move to a better one. Why not just step off? Figure out what you actually care about, find a "why" that you can attach yourself to, and focus on that. Money is orthogonal to happiness. Sure, being broke can make you miserable. But, being rich won't make you happy. Spending your time focused on things that actually matter to you will. Find out what those things are, and cut out as much of the other bullshit you can.

- Cherish the process. Another thing that took me way too long to figure out was that outcomes never made me happy. There is no fulfillment in achieving outcomes; they are all rungs on a ladder. The true joy and fulfillment comes from loving the process. Be present and cherish the moment. Enjoy the work you are doing. Enjoy the recreation. Enjoy the conversations with people you care about. These things are not means to some important end, they are the important thing. And, if you find yourself doing work you can’t connect to, or buying stuff you don’t like, or engaging with people you don’t appreciate, stop. How lucky are we to have an unprecedented level of autonomy and control over our lives? Why should we spend it doing things we can’t enjoy?