Last week we introduced the Dude Zone idea, so this week we’ll dive deeper into your list to discuss the important choices and decisions that lie in front of you as you work to discover the core items there that support your Sacred Individuality. Identifying these central components, and then finding ways to stay meaningfully connected to them as your free Time, Money, and Energy (TME) decreases, will become increasingly important as you make your way towards the Dad Zone and the Family Responsibilities that come with it.

First, a quick recap of Dude Zone basics. I use the term “Dude Zone” to frame out all your non-Mama, non-career facets of your identity that exist as part of your overall identity. All the things you put your time, money, and/or energy into fall on this list. Where do you have fun? How do you connect with your friends and family? What are your favorite solo activities? Group activities? How do you recharge alone? As we covered last week, these are your Dude Zone basics and I asked you to sketch out a comprehensive list of all these things as our starting point.

Let’s now dive into that list and start to carve it up a bit.

What are some of the things that have long been a pleasure for you to engage in? Maybe these are activities that you’ve been doing since you were a kid, like mountain biking or golfing or fishing. These things probably have all kinds of deep and meaningful memories attached to them, where each time you do them there is a connection to a thread that runs deeply through your lifetime. Almost like a feeling of “home.” We’ll refer to these as “Core Items.” and they are things you want to make a point to highlight here right away. 

Next up, how do you prefer to socialize with your friends, particularly those guys that you’ve built friendships with over many years? How do you connect with them in ways that aren’t just fun, but are meaningful and nurturing as well? These things are all in the category of “Social Connections.” It’s worth the time to try to get as clear here as possible, especially looking to see which friendships you feel the most deeply invested in vs those that are more secondary.

Finally, what are your favorite alone time activities? Ways you feel more deeply connected to yourself, like reading, sitting in nature, or perhaps even a spiritual practice like yoga or meditation. How do you meaningfully recharge your batteries in ways that feel deeply good? These are the all-important items of “Self Care.” Again, make a note of these things to highlight them on your list.

What’s left on your list? Take a look at it and see if you can identify the things that you are easily able to deprioritize, or even simply do without, when push comes to shove. What hobbies and interests are you still doing largely out of habit? Which friend groups are more circumstantial than fundamental? What can easily be pushed aside if need be? Go ahead and simply strike them out for now. Actually, for this exercise and to keep things simple, go ahead and strike anything that isn’t on one of the above 3 lists.

Ideally, you’ve now got a much shorter list of items, and one that pretty that broadly traces the contours of your core Dude Zone identity underneath your relationship to Mama and your job/career path. These Core Items, Social Connection, and Self Care activities are the main ingredients of your Sacred Identity. We’ll continue next week and describe the recipe for further distilling them down to prepare for the perpetually increasing Dad Zone demands coming from the Family Responsibilities side of the equation.