I was on holiday recently in the south of France. My 1st abroad holiday since Covid and also since leaping out of my corporate career and starting my own business. One of my favourite pastimes is wandering around local, hill top towns, exploring and taking in the pretty surroundings, stopping for an impromptu beverage and a spot of people watching! .
It’s fair to say I hadn’t done my favorite pastime for a while so as soon as I could I was out, getting those steps in. As I wandered around the pretty streets of Marseillan, I started to feel some different feels. Emerging was a strong sense of progress alongside feelings of relief and joy. Hmm, this was a little unusual, right?
What was going on?
Upon stopping at a local cafe I pondered this very question over my cafe crème. I soon realized that the last time I had indulged in my favourite holiday past time was back in 2018 in Italy. At that time I had been feeling very different about my work situation and it had consumed me. I remember carrying around some big feelings of discontent, like big weights on my shoulders. Knowing that I didn't love my job anymore but not knowing why or what to do about it.
Reflecting back now, in pounding those streets so frequently I was looking for escapism from my work reality. With the hope that those feelings of discontent would melt away alongside my gelato. The truth was I didn’t know how to get myself out of that situation, I had bills to pay and a new baby. The fear of the unknown paralysed me from taking action.
But I did, eventually.
How?
Well, those feelings eventually became too strong that it was time to take action. I needed the fog to lift and to be happy. So I got myself a coach. They helped me make sense of my work situation and to get clear. I discovered I had evolved as a person and that my job situation hadn’t. It was no one’s fault, just evolution. My job no longer gave me joy, the things I valued such as collaboration, authenticity were no longer present and that misalignment was making me miserable. It really was a light bulb moment for me. So, I made a plan and bit by bit I ticked it off, making progress until I felt confident enough that the time was right to make that leap into the unknown.
So although I was sat in France not Italy, I felt I had come full circle, I had done what I dreamt of doing on many of those hilltop town wanders. That’s why I do what I do now and why I am passionate about helping people to enjoy their working lives. Because when we have those precious few weeks of holiday a year in that far flung, foreign destination, I also want you to be pounding those streets with a smile on your face, feeling proud that you have gone full circle!
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