
This year has started with me going back into employment.
This was not in The Plan, and the month or so I had between accepting the job offer and starting the job was a tough one. I confess to having cried a fair bit, and done a lot of raging against the world for its unfairness and at myself for my “failure”.
The Plan
You see, what was supposed to happen was that I earned a living as a coach, spending my days doing something purposeful, meaningful and deeply rewarding, and getting to manage my time and work in ways that suited me.
The Reality
But after 4 years, I had to face the reality that the first part of that simply wasn’t happening. I loved the coaching I was doing and got great feedback, but I wasn’t attracting enough clients to make it financially viable.
And, frankly, I was all out of ideas as to how to make my business properly profitable without throwing yet more dosh at it. So I bit the bullet, had a quick google for part-time jobs, found one that seemed suitable and applied, then promptly reburied my head in the sand (don’t know about you, but I find reality more palatable in bite-size chunks, even though, as a wise friend of mine, Kathryn Ball, points out, burying your head in the sand only gets you an earful of sand).
When I got a message saying that the job had been changed to a full-time role, I didn’t withdraw my application, partly because to do so would have meant that I was no longer doing anything about the situation, and partly because I didn’t expect my first and (so far) only application to result in anything.
Best Practice For Dealing With Complementary Equines
So, of course, I got called for interview and was offered the job…and never look a gift horse in the mouth, right? (Well, unless you’re a Trojan and the gift horse is literal rather than metaphorical, obviously, in which case looking it in the mouth and generally checking it out exceedingly thoroughly for a large number of hidden Greeks is to be highly recommended…but I digress…(usually quite a lot)).
The job offer perfectly solved the financial issue, which is what I’d been asking the universe to do for quite some time. But it meant that I could no longer work in the way that I’d been enjoying so much. It meant a radical reduction in the time and energy I could put into my business. It meant that I’d failed to make a success of my business. And that hurt.
(If you’ve been aware of the universe sulking and muttering darkly about ingratitude and people needing to be a LOT more specific in their requests, I can only apologise.)
Self-awareness
I spent that month between accepting and starting the job grieving the end of a rather lovely phase of my life in a decidedly maudlin and self-pitying way.
And yet, even as that was going on, there was a self-aware part of me that spoke quietly through the storm…
A part of me that calmly accepted the need to allow those difficult thoughts and feelings to flow through…and out.
A part of me that celebrated myself for being open minded, flexible and resilient enough to take uncomfortable action and make difficult choices in order to solve a problem.
A part of me that knew that things do not have to be entirely good or entirely bad, that you can be sad AND happy about the same thing for different reasons.
A part of me that simply allowed everything to be as it was in the moment, without reproach, or resentment, or trying to make it mean anything about the past or the future.
A part of me that trusted herself not just to survive, but – in time – to thrive.
I’m not going to pretend that I dropped effortlessly into that level of awareness and stayed there – if only! But conscious awareness feeds itself, and so I found (still find) it increasingly easy to connect to it. It doesn’t change the difficult feelings or circumstances, but it does change my relationship to them.
Shit shovelling
As a coach working to promote what I do, I talk a lot about how mindset matters, and how we have the power to determine how we show up in and experience our lives: right now, I’m walking my talk big time…and it feels bloody good.
Again and again, things turn out differently to how we want them to, and it can seem that there’s always another curveball, always something waiting to dump on us from a great height. So how we deal with all life’s shit is pretty massive, right?
From some angles, going back into employment looks like failure.
From others it looks like a solution to a problem.
From others it looks like a new way forward, bringing different opportunities and learnings.
One thing it no longer looks like is a dead end.
I am profoundly grateful for the work I’ve done and will always continue to do on myself. If I can help you do the same, give me a shout...I'm still in business as a coach!

This is such a brave and insightful post; all too often, we dream that the path to what we want is linear, and, in fact, we frequently went either don't get it (and that is TOTALLY the right path on reflection) or that we do, and it comes with a side order of 'well, not like THAT!'
I hope the new role goes well and that your new diversion brings you unseen opportunity x