Posted on

Overwhelm

I sometimes feel overwhelmed.

There’s the news and content I want to consume. Then there’s the news and content I don’t want to consume but somehow seem to be consuming.

Podcasts I want to listen to.

Books I want to read.

The things I want to learn.

Too many obligations.

The list of places in the world I want to visit.

The desire to be a good friend. Wanting to be there for friends in need.

Feelings of tiredness.

Feelings of helplessness.

Feelings of loneliness.

Of sadness.

Of gratitude.

A sense of too much to do and not enough time to do it.

Too many choices.

The number of emails coming in on a daily basis.

Feeling as though I need to answer each email immediately in order to be doing a good job and ‘on top of things’.

The amount of time I spend looking at a screen throughout a day.

Hundreds of WhatsApp messages.

The conflict between the need to make social plans but also the desire to have time to do nothing or see how I feel on the day.

Here are some things I do when I start to feel overwhelmed:

I limit the number of times I check my WhatsApp messages (I don’t have the notifications on because it stresses me out). I put my phone in another room or in my bag so that it’s not within reaching distance. When I watch tv or a film at home – I move my phone out of reach. I limited myself to checking once an hour. Or once every half hour. Maybe once I’ve completed an email. When I’ve had breakfast and gone on a walk. Or not at all after 9pm.

I cut down on making  so many plans. I think before arranging things with friends or acquaintances. It’s time to start saying no thanks.

I read more. Get to bed an hour earlier than usual and just read – everything and anything I feel like reading and for as long as I like. Checking the time is not allowed.

I take myself off for walks as much as possible. Long, short, ideally both within a day.

I resist making certain decisions – mainly when I feel a sense of obligation to see someone or reply to a message – giving myself time to process.

I write a sort of journal/diary in the evening before I sleep – everything and anything on my mind. Lists, ideas, plans, goals, feelings, stream of consciousness.

These things help – they give my mind a break. I start to feel less overwhelmed, less stressed, less pulled in various different directions.

***

I wrote this because I like reading things were the person seems to be feeling exactly the way I feel. Or where I recognise the feeling they are describing. It reminds me that we’re all the same, we’re not alone in our thoughts, we all have to find ways to accept or deal with certain feelings.

I hope reading this has helped in some way.

If you’d like to set up a coaching session with me, click here.

Photo by Justin Veenema on Unsplash

Posted on

Start Your Side Gig

I wrote in a previous post about a few ways in which I started to manage my money, save money and make a little extra money in preparation for a career change.

Here I’ll talk more about having a side gig or two – some of the things I did to make some extra money on the side of my full time job.

This is important for two main reasons. One, as I learned from a post on the Life Your Legend blog  Earn an extra 1000 dollars a month, earning money on the side gives you a certain confidence. Knowing that you can earn money outside of your day job through a side gig helps with the fear and uncertainty of what to do next. It’s proof that there are other options out there beyond your current role.

Even if you start small with something on the side, this can be a massive breakthrough when you feel stuck in your job and certain there’s nothing else out there for you, with your skills and experience. It’s the start of something new. And perhaps your side gig will lead to something bigger.

The second reason is that there can be a huge amount of fear around money when it comes to career change. The fear of losing that monthly pay, of everything going wrong, of having to take a pay cut if you want to retrain or study.

Starting to earn money on the side gives you an element of control, you can start a pot of savings. Psychologically having a side gig can be really impactful.

Here’s what I did. A while before I decided to leave my job, I met up with a good friend of mine from uni. She was working for a translating company as a freelance translator, checking final translations from Spanish to English. She could work anytime, anywhere, and was earning enough to survive.

I was so impressed – she had freedom! She told me that with my qualifications (I have a language degree and a 1-year translation course under my belt) and experience (I’ve lived in France and worked for French companies) I’d be able to work for them too.

I applied, did some tests, passed and was taken on. I didn’t get started immediately but it was amazing knowing that I had a back-up plan should I need it. The job requests were coming in. If I worked enough hours, this could be a viable source of income for as long as I needed it.

Even just going through the motions, making the application and passing the tests, gave me a confidence boost.

Another thing I turned to in order to earn money on the side was private tuition. A friend of my Mum’s has her own tutoring company and didn’t have space to teach a child touch-typing. She asked if I wanted to give it a go.

I’d been taught to touch-type as a child, and I’d tutored English as a foreign language whilst living in France and working as a language assistant. I decided to give it a go! And it was so gratifying.

From then I found new clients either by word of mouth, or from a tutoring website, Tutorhunt.com.  I really enjoyed working one to one with students, seeing their confidence grow as they learned and improved. And tutoring can be well paid, from around £20-35 per hour, or more.

I ended up having a 6-month break between jobs where I did all sorts of things (read here) including working, studying and travelling. Having these two side gigs, amongst other temporary jobs, helped me through. It meant that I could keep busy, keep learning and earn some money, whilst exploring options for a new career.

Your turn

I hope this post inspires you to start your first side gig to earn extra income. Whether it’s signing up and creating a profile for a freelancing website, applying for part-time work locally, or offering a paid service to friends and family (dog sitting, helping with taxes, teaching an instrument, whatever). There’s no doubt you will have some expertise that you think everyone else has, but in fact, other people would pay you for.

If you’d like to work with me and receive some coaching in moving forward in changing your life, send me an email at joaopoku@gmail.com.

You can read my interview with Careershifters on financing your career change here: How to finance your career change

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Posted on

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

 

Posted on

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.

Photo by Daniel Páscoa on Unsplash

Posted on

The Day I Decided to Quit my Job

Image of hot air balloons flying over landscape
I quit my job. It all came down to one decision. One decision I’d spent years building up to.

The day I finally decided to quit my job – one decision completely changed the course of my life, as decisions tend to do. But not all decisions are created equal. Some set off a small shift in your day-to-day life, others set off a series of events which are much bigger than you ever expected, hoped or dreamed. (More here).

I’d been considering leaving my job for years. It wasn’t making me happy, it didn’t feel like a right fit after a decade of hard work. The main reason I hadn’t left was that I wasn’t sure what to move on to do.

I started to seriously consider what the reality of quitting my job might mean. With no specific plan for what to do next, could this be an option? Make the break, and work out what to do next with a clearer mind?

I’d need to make money somehow. I had a mortgage and bills to pay.

I started reading blogposts and articles and books about what to do when you’re considering quitting a job. (Like this and this). I realised that setting myself up with some kind of extra income would help with the massive fear of not having a regular salary for a period of time.

The least I could do would be to investigate this – rather than ploughing through unexciting job ads, I could look into how to support myself in other ways. Could I find a way to survive whilst exploring new ideas and options  and working out what to do next?

The most attractive option was something a friend of mine had told me about a while before – she was freelancing for a translation company – quality checking and finalising translations. She could work when she liked, as much as she liked, from home or wherever she happened to be.

She thought I had the qualifications and experience to do the same. So she passed on a contact at the company, I got in touch, filled in some application forms, did a series of tests, passed, and was accepted onto their books.

Whoo! I now had a legitimate way of making money if I left my job! It would be ad  hoc, with no guarantee of work or monthly income, but it was something.

I sensed freedom.

I also knew that I could tutor students in English and touch-typing, something both my parents did in their retirement. Again, I had the qualifications and experience to do this. And I could earn a good rate of pay from it. Again – no guarantees, but money, and more freedom.

As I started to really consider my options, I started to think about my skills in a different way, not only concentrating on what I was doing every day in my current job, but on all the skills I had at my disposal.

What could I possibly do to make money? I wasn’t concentrating on the one next big important role. I wasn’t thinking about my career ladder, the next job title. It was back to basics, what can I do, can I make money from it, could I enjoy spending my time doing it?

I ended up doing various things to keep afloat – read more here.

So that day when I decided to quit my job, it wasn’t on a whim. This wasn’t a total leap into the unknown. It certainly wasn’t a rash, reactive decision.

It felt a bit like it at the time. One day I just had enough, and speaking to my parents, I said, “I think I need to do this”.

But it was actually a decision based on many hours deliberating, dreaming, worrying, analysing, planning. I’d gathered the evidence that it might be a realistic solution for me. I’d gathered enough evidence to give me the confidence to do it.

I can’t recommend quitting your job without having lined up the next one. It is a big risk. For some people this will work out fine, others need more security and certainty.

What I can recommend though, is starting to properly look at different ways of making money through the skills and experience you already have.  Things you probably haven’t yet considered.

Imagine for the next 6 months you won’t be doing your current job.

You need to make money. What can you do? If you had to come up with some ideas, what would you do?

Is there something you’ve always had a bit of an interest in but not really pursued? For me at that time it was the translation work. Is there a way you could try it out on the side? Set up on a freelance website like UpWork and do a couple of hours a week? Start a side project? Writing, consulting, mentoring, volunteering?

Could you make the break slowly, bit by bit, easing yourself into a new industry, a new way of working, a new way of seeing things?

Get in touch with me here if you’d like me to help you with your career transition.

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

Photo by Daniela Cuevas on Unsplash