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The amazing feeling when you’ve made a big scary decision

I’ll never forget the feeling I had when I made the decision to quit my job. It was a feeling of MASSIVE relief and freedom. Like I could breathe deeply again. I remember feeling exhausted. But I had a real sense of – I can do anything.

I’d been at my parents crying my eyes out, talking through my situation and I came to the conclusion that I needed to leave my job.

Related: The Day I Decided To Leave My Job

The next morning, I caught a train back home, and started walking back from the station. I bought myself a packet of salt and vinegar crisps and really savoured them, strolling along in the gentle sun.

And it might not seem a big deal, but that was quite symbolic for me. Buying a packet of crisps at 11 o’clock in the morning and strolling along eating them! I never do that! This is real freedom!!

And I just remember that feeling. I’m free. I’m not trapped in this feeling of frustration and shame and discomfort any more. I’ve made my decision. After years of self-flagellating and dreaming and not moving on – finally, finally, I had made a big decision as a grown-up adult has the right to do, and I knew in my gut it was the right decision.

The right decision?

I tell you this in case you are struggling with a decision. If you are all twisted inside, feeling uncomfortable, sick, nervous. If you are terrified of making a mistake.

Ultimately, you probably know what you really want, you are just scared. Or you are torn between two equally decent sounding options. Or, maybe one is decent and sensible and a little boring, and the other is big and exciting and risky. Whatever.

Related: What happens after you reach ‘Breaking Point’?

The main thing I want you to know is that the absolute worst is the indecision. The wrangling and overthinking and swaying from one side to the other.

And the absolute best, is making that decision. Knowing that you are equipped to deal with whatever the outcome is. Perhaps it won’t work out quite as you hoped or expected. Maybe there are still tough times to come. It could be you’ll have to quickly make another big decision, then another.

Think new thoughts

But the sooner you move on, the sooner you can get stuck into the next phase. And feel that sense of freedom and excitement at having made your decision. You can concentrate on other stuff. Think new thoughts.

Sure there will be other dilemmas and issues and let downs. But you will be safe in the knowledge that you made that big decision! It’s yours. You did it. You had the guts to do it. And you can do it again. It’s given me a certain confidence that I’ll never forget.

From deciding to leave my job, a good year or so later I then made the decision to move to live in Spain. With a new job working remotely and a looming Brexit, this was the time. A little after, I made the decision to set up my coaching practice on the side.

I’m certain my decision to leave my job allowed me to make these other big decisions with a  lot more ease and confidence. (With moving to Spain, I still stressed, and worried, and sometimes wondered what the hell I was doing…but I got on with it. Because deep down I knew exactly what I was doing). I’d stuck my neck out once, I could do it again, take a risk, follow my heart. Survive and deal with the consequences.

What decision are you hesitating on? Do you have your answer deep down? Can you take a step forward?

If you’d like my help through some coaching, get in touch here.

Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

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Read this the next time you’re ready to give up on the idea of finding a job you actually like.

When I first spoke to Sarah, a year ago, she felt stuck, lost, and as though everything in her life was rubbish. She’d left a job in London she didn’t enjoy, visited Australia and decided that it wasn’t the place for her, and was back living with her parents in the North of England.

She didn’t have a job, she had no money, and she wasn’t happy with her home life. It felt as though she’d taken 20 steps back.

She was unhappy with her relationships, and unsure what to do or where to live. Should she return to London? Or move to Paris (her dream)?

She didn’t have any money for the fun things she likes to do, such as travel or visit galleries or the cinema, or do courses.

She was feeling negative and unmotivated.

Here’s what Sarah’s achieved in the past year:

She started working with young people, volunteering for an alternative education provision near her parent’s house.

This was a totally new field of work for her (she’d previously worked in the media industry) and she found that she loved it. She realised she was good at it. It led to paid part-time employment.

Sarah found job satisfaction – something she’d been lacking for a long time. She learned new skills. She felt fulfilled.

Then, a new role came up, working for an NGO with a social mission, engaging children and young people. Sarah moved to London.

And now, she’s started travelling with work. Some days she can work from home, meaning she has more of a work-life balance, something that is really important to her.

Sarah is planning on doing more volunteering/mentoring with disadvantaged young people, and doing a youth work qualification.

And she’s travelling again, and spending time in Paris as often as she can, speaking lots of French. She still has an eye on moving to Paris…

Sarah is turning her life around.

She has shifted from a place of despair to a place of possibility, of opportunity. She is suddenly seeing the things she had wished for coming true.

How did she do this?

By taking baby steps…

She started contacting people, amongst others –

  • an ex-colleague who had started up his own design business
  • an ex-boss who had been kind and might offer advice
  • people working at companies she was interested in, via LinkedIn, to ask for a 10 minute conversation
  • a friend of a friend who was an interior designer (and realised that world probably wasn’t for her)
  • recruitment companies specialising in roles in charities

She wrote out a list of charities and social enterprises that appealed to her and sent in her CV.

Doing a CELTA teaching qualification (teaching English) was an appealing option – she asked people who had done it for advice.

She bought books about mindset and read them voraciously.

There were all sorts of local places where volunteering was an option, working with art, charities or children. Sarah created a list.

An internship at a social enterprise looked interesting – she applied.

A part-time role working for a charity on their marketing team came up, something she considered.

She learned lots about communicating, and about what she wanted and didn’t want.

It was really, really hard. She worked on it every day, making contact, applying for roles.

Sarah spoke to a coach (me!) because she knew that she needed help with focussing and taking action.

Importantly – she got over the idea that her next role would have to be forever, and therefore eased some of the pressure.

She considered ALL options.

She started to feel more positive as she started making progress.

It’s a step-by-step process. One that you can follow. It’s straightforward. Do one thing today to move yourself forward in your mission.

Send a message, an email, start an application.

Start reading a book that seems inspirational.

Talk to someone.

Listen to a podcast.

Write yourself a list.

Set a reminder.

Talk to someone else.

Send another message.

You get the picture.

It’s only when you start taking action that you start getting results. It might take a while, but you’ll be moving in the right direction.

If you’d like to try coaching with me, contact me here.

Photo by Valentina Conde on Unsplash

 

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One thing I’ve learned this year so far (about fear)

Person high up on building, facing fear

Things you thought were really scary aren’t so scary once you’ve done them…

I thought that writing a blog post and putting it out there would be really scary. I thought that tweeting said blogpost would be even scarier.

I’m not a massive social media person.

The only tweets I’d previously sent had been for my work Twitter account, and they were few. But I realised that if I want to reach people, and if I want to help someone by writing something that might resonate with them, I have to get the writing out there into the world. Twitter seemed like a good way of doing that.

Once I’d written my first blogspost – I was pretty proud. I felt as though someone reading it might feel inspired. So that helped, I actually wanted to get it out there.

I spent a while looking at how people I admired structured their tweets when they were publishing blogposts, wrote several draft versions of my own tweet until I was happy, and pressed ‘Tweet’.

That was it. Easy. Done. Out there.

I soon realised that the scariest thing about sending out a tweet, especially one where you want people to click a link and read on, is the possibility that no one will see it, or take any notice. You’ve spent time rewriting and editing, finding a decent image for your post, drafting a tweet which will be captivating…and then you look at the stats and realise the tweet has passed the eyes of very few people. No one has clicked the link.

Oh.

So the fear of tweeting disappears. The fear of putting your work out there disappears. The fear of not being seen appears. Isn’t that interesting? How one big fear can disappear just like that, as soon as you do the scary thing?

And then the next big fear appears?

What’s the big scary thing you’re going to do today? Only to realise it’s not that scary after all?

You can share this post here.

If you’d like to contact me for a coaching session, do so here. I can help if you’re feeling stuck, scared, stressed, and you’re not taking action.

Photo by Yeshi Kangrang on Unsplash

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Silver lining

Golden circles pattern

I’ve realised that every time a relationship has ended, I’ve been able to turn it around into a positive situation and somehow improve my life.

With a break-up, of course I always have moments of wretchedness. Everything is terrible, suddenly it seems to shine a light on everything that’s wrong with my life, my social life, my home, my job, my fitness, my looks, have I travelled enough, am I doing everything I want to do with my life? This always seems to happen. In terms of romantic relationships – is it ever going to happen, why does it always go wrong? These same questions – always.

But, after a while, this is always followed by a feeling of lifting. Suddenly I have a massive desire to do something to improve my life. Almost as an act of rebellion, this has happened, everything feels like crap, but I’m now going to make my life even better.

And this seems to happen consistently. I had an ex who had told me that he’d learned Spanish for free at a local community college. I was jealous. When the relationship ended I thought, “I’m going to learn Spanish, if he can, so can I!” And I did. I did a GCSE in Spanish and now here I am living in Spain speaking Spanish every day. He inspired me.

I’ve taken trips, I’ve moved house, I’ve started courses, all inspired by stopping and re-evaluating where I am in my life.

I reflect on different areas of my life, look at things slightly differently, and consider what I need to work on. And I feel inspired to make some changes.

It’s interesting how the end of a relationship can seem like the worst thing in the world, but actually it can shift you forward in other ways.

It was the same when I had my career ‘breakdown’ moment. It felt like the worst thing in the world – I was really stressed, I didn’t know what to do; but it ended up being the best possible thing for me. Because I got out of a career I wasn’t enjoying and hadn’t been for years, it forced me to really think about what kind of life I wanted, what kind of lifestyle.

Did I want the London lifestyle I had, which I found stressful, and busy, and expensive, or did I want to lead a simpler, more flexible life, doing work I valued more. I realised I wanted to be able to work where I want. I eventually made the decision to live in another country, something I’d held back on for a long time.

So this breakdown gave me a chance to re-evaluate everything. I had the freedom to make some decisions. And once I’d made the decision to quit my job, which felt huge at the time, it made making further brave decisions that much easier to do. I know I can focus on what I want, and do it.

When something bad happens, it’s not always quite so bad. It can be a silver lining, and can set you off on a path which is way better than you’ve even imagined. Something better could be round the corner.

Get in touch with me here if you’re ready to improve your life and you’d like me to help you with getting unstuck, or with a career transition.

Please share this post with someone who you think might enjoy reading it. Here’s the link.

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We all need that extra push

An experience I had this week inspired this post.

A writer and speaker called Matt, who I’ve been following online for quite a while now, asked his newsletter readers to send in questions on what’s currently troubling them, in order to win a book.

I went ahead and responded (I really want to read that book) and was surprised (and excited) to get an actual email response from him a week later.

My message to him had been about struggling to get myself out there in terms of telling people about my coaching – I want to reach people, help people, meet new potential clients, but I’m quite private. I don’t tend to broadcast personal stuff on social media.

In his response to me he made two brilliant suggestions. They were exactly what I needed to hear, he made them sound really easy, and they are totally doable.

And what struck me is… they were things I already knew I needed to do.

The first suggestion is what I always say to clients myself – start small. Don’t go for the big, scary, paralysing step straight off. In my case, this would be doing some big announcement on Facebook (Eurgh. I think I’ve made one Facebook post in my life, trying to flog a Black Keys gig ticket).

Instead, work out smaller, less scary first steps. In my case for example, as per his suggestion, find a likeminded online group, test out sharing and exchanging information with them. Try it out, and build up to the bigger goals (and, my realisation is, be sure your bigger goals actually resonate with you).

The second suggestion was right there on this weeks’ to-do list. Matt suggested that instead of concentrating on what you want to share with the world, work out what you can help people with, what do they want and need to hear about. How can you be of help?

And on my to-do list?

That’s exactly what I’d been planning to do, read over my client coaching notes, see what my clients were most struggling with, write blogposts based on replying to them. What kind of stuff do I say to them one to one? Are common themes coming up? Could many people out there be experiencing the same thing, and need help with it?

You know what to do

What I’m saying with these examples is, most of us know what we need to do. Really. If pushed we can work out exactly what’s troubling us, we can work out possible solutions, we can decide what we want to achieve, we can work out a plan.

But, we’re not pushed. It is really, really hard to push yourself. Add to that the negative chatter we have going on in our heads, pointing out all the reasons why we can’t do this or that, or shouldn’t, catastrophizing and berating ourselves. And so, we don’t make any progress. Instead we overanalyse, procrastinate, stagnate, get frustrated, feel lost.

We all need accountability and that extra push. Someone to say – well what can you do? Great. Do it. I believe that you can do it. Just do it. We’ll speak next week and you can tell me all about it.

Someone who has a vested interest in encouraging you to achieve your goals,  who is 100% behind you, supporting you.

They can perhaps can see things a little more clearly than you can right now, and are not bogged down in your fears, your ego, your what-ifs, your ‘but I’m too busy/stressed/lazy/scared.’

For them it’s clear what you want to do; you have a goal that is doable, achievable, realistic. There is absolutely no reason why you can’t go ahead and do it.

And it helps

Sometimes you need someone to reflect back to you the reality of your situation. To not let you downplay things, to force you to really see the situation; the opportunity you’re ignoring, the experience you already have, the skills you can use.

It’s great talking to friends and family, but it could be they’re as scared as you, or as stuck as you; deep down they don’t actually want things to change, they don’t want you to suffer or struggle or fail, so they agree that ‘yes that’s a bit risky isn’t it’, or suggest you stay in your nice, safe, comfortable well-paying job, because security and comfort is everything, right?

Sometimes you need an outsider to help you fast track your progress. Someone with whom you can start from scratch. They don’t know much about your history, they’re not worried about how changes you make will affect them and your relationship with one another, they don’t have any ulterior motive to keep you where you are.

They want to hear about your current situation, assess your current reality, and look to the future. To support you in moving forwards.

The message from Matt gave me  just the push I needed. His two actionable suggestions gave me energy, inspired me, motivated me. I joined the online group straight away and started interacting. I read through my coaching notes which gave me several new articles ideas. And I felt inspired to write this post.

***

I hope this post inspires you to take some form of action, whether it’s to take that first small step towards a career transition, or to finally do that one thing on your to-do list that you’ve been scared to do. You can do it.

If you feel inspired and would like to try out coaching with me – I can give you that extra push and take away the stress of trying to do it on your own. Contact me for a discovery session here.

Please share this post with someone who you think might enjoy it. Here’s the link.

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash