What if your "boring 9-5" is the solution

What if your 9-5 isn’t the thing holding you back?

You’ve heard it before.

9-5’s are for the compliant.

The masses who can’t think for themselves.

It is the one thing holding you back, keeping you locked in a cylce of comfortable misery. The only way to break out is to quit your job and start a business.

It’s the perfect storm: agitate the pain, stir up shame, make you feel like you’re wasting your life, without offering a real path forward.

But going from employee to entrepreneur is not a leap.

It’s a long, messy journey. Mentally. Financially. Spiritually.

And if you try to skip all the steps in between, you’ll burn out.

Everyone thinks their job is the problem.

“If I didn’t have this 9-5, I’d finally have the time and energy to build something real.”

But what if your 9-5 isn’t the thing holding you back?

What if it’s part of the solution?

The Spiritual Power of Constraints

It’s counterintuitive, but true. Whether it’s a monk following a monastic rule, a writer with a strict word count, or a film maker with only one camera lens, the constraint is what focuses the energy.

Without boundaries, the mind spins. It’s the blank canvas that overwhelms the artist.

In spiritual traditions, this is the power of the container. The sacred structure.

The idea that form is not the enemy of freedom. It’s the vessel that holds it.

Your 9-5 can be that container. It’s a rhythm. A recurring beat. And once you learn to dance to it, you can improvise within it.

Whether you hate your job or not is irrelevant. If you want to leave it at some point you need to find a way to integrate it into your greater vision. Not fantasise about handing in your resignation.

Yesterday through a pure act of synchronicity I was suggested a video about a guy who went back to his 9-5 because he was just exhausted from “hustling online.”

This is what happens when you don’t prepare your mind accordingly and fail to embody the new identity that you apparently so desperately desire.

The number one problem facing creators is not time management, hiring or money - it is idea generation. It is about finding the balance between what your audience wants and what you yourself want to create.

The Creative Cycle

Modern productivity culture has a fatal flaw: it treats output as a linear process.

Sit down, grind, ship. Repeat. But creativity doesn’t work that way. Creativity moves in cycles:

In cognitive science, this is often explained as the interplay between focused and diffuse mode thinking.

- Focused mode is deliberate. It’s what you’re using when you’re outlining a script or editing a newsletter.

- Diffuse mode is subconscious. It’s when your mind is wandering: doing dishes, walking the dog, sitting on the train.

And it’s in diffuse mode that breakthroughs happen.

The brain connects dots while you’re not looking. It works in the background while you get on with your day.

My job, ironically, gives me the exact kind of mental space required for this mode to activate.

While I’m replying to emails or talking with clients, my mind is quietly digesting the things I wrote that morning.

Not consciously. Not with pressure. But in the background. And often after a long day at work something just clicks.

That moment of clarity doesn’t come from trying harder. It comes from surrendering to the process and letting your mind breathe.

Most people run from boredom. They think it's a signal to escape.

But boredom is actually a threshold, a doorway into deeper awareness, if you can sit with it.

Carl Jung wrote that “your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

That’s what a boring job can offer you: the space to look inward. Not in a mystical way, but in a real, grounded, observational way.

Every frustrating moment is raw material. Every “boring” day is an invitation to notice what others miss.

My System: Using the Job as a Creative Engine

I run two newsletters and a profitable YouTube channel that brings in 2k/month—alongside my full-time job.

Here’s how the job supports, not competes with, that creative process:

1. Morning Ideation

Before work, I write for one hour. Not to publish, just to generate.

I’m outlining newsletters, brainstorming ideas in Free-flow. There’s no pressure. This is my focused mode.

2. Working Day: Diffuse Mode

While I’m at work, those ideas are quietly marinating.

I take notes as things surface. Often it’s in the middle of doing something mundane that the best lines come through. (Don’t tell my manager but…) I have my notion page open for most of the day so that I can jot notes down in real time.

This is where the subconscious gets to work.

3. Evening Reflection

After work, I review my notes. I edit, refine, discard and add to what I started in the morning.

This is where focus and flow meet.

For this to be truly powerful you need to have a loose vision of what you want. This is why I have 5-10 newsletter or video topics planned out in my mind. This acts as a frame through which I filter information and experiences.

I’m going to talk about this in the next letter but for now it’s important to have ideas planned out. It’s beneficial because it organises your mind and forces you to focus on specific things.

If you haven’t already download my minimalist notion template. This will form the foundations of the new identity you are taking on through your writing.

Integration Over Escape

Your job isn’t the enemy. Your resistance to using it is.

If your only vision is to “get out”, you’ll stay trapped in escapism.

If you can integrate your current reality into your long-term path, you’ll build something that actually lasts.

Don’t quit your job to chase a dream.

Use your job to feed the dream until the dream can carry itself.

This is the path of integration. Of rhythm. Of depth.

And it’s not just more sustainable.

It’s more powerful.

Give yourself 2Hours a day and watch your life transform.

Enjoy the rest of your day

Benjamin