Who Are You To Play Small?
When I was 26 years old, I left my job as a Secondary school English teacher, a career I was really passionate about, without a job to go to. I gave my all to my job and compromised my wellbeing in the process, working extremely long hours and taking on a lot of emotional stress. Looking back, I probably took it all a bit too seriously, and I felt like I had no-one to talk to about how I was feeling, but I also knew that something had to change.
First of all I moved schools to see if it was the specific environment I was working in that was making me so unhappy, but after a year in a new school, I realised it was actually the job itself. I’d gone from school, to university back to teaching in a school and hadn’t really experienced other work places, (apart from shop and bar work when I was a student), so I decided that I would explore other careers and then probably come back to teaching at a later stage. Spoiler alert – I never did!
I toyed with doing a law or psychology conversion degree with the aim of becoming a lawyer or an Educational Psychologist, but I felt like I needed to be financially independent, so I discounted both of those career options as they would mean years more study and training before I would start earning good money. So I spent the summer looking for roles where I could use my educational expertise in a business. I saw an advert for an Education Consultant for the UK distributor of SMARTBoards, just before the government funded Interactive Whiteboards in schools in the UK and the rest as they say is history!
7 years later, with experience of working in a small company, a very large company and a mid-sized company under my belt, a MBA to my name and management and leadership experience, although I was making good money, I was lacking purpose and that familiar feeling of dissatisfaction at work was gnawing at me again.
So at 33, I l decided to leave my corporate job and join a start-up! This time I left with a job to go to and this time I invested in coaching. Coaching helped me to explore my values and what was really important to me. It helped me to set goals and gave me accountability around them. It gave me the confidence to try something new and do something where I was having a real impact. At 33, I found myself taking a bit of a risk, halving my salary, but skipping into the office every day, because I was aligned with my values and learning so much. Around the same time, I sold my flat, bought a house and embarked on a 9 month long renovation project. I remember the house sale was a sealed bid and I said that I wanted to buy the house to eventually set up a family home in it, which is exactly what happened.
What do you visualise for your future?
Are you yearning for more meaning in your work or life, where you can really show up as yourself? Are you feeling like you have more to offer than the role that you’re boxed into in your corporate job? Do you have an idea brewing that you’d love to have the courage to start? Are you craving more flexibility?
Trust me when I say, I’ve been there and I can honestly say I never look back and I wish I stayed in teaching or that I stayed in my corporate job.
But I also understand that change is hard and that sometimes you need some help from someone who’s been there before (in my case multiple times).
In my coaching sessions, we’ll explore where you are now and where you’d like to be. We’ll go on a journey of exploring what’s possible for you and a what a life lived on your terms might look like. We’ll explore values, needs, strengths, boundaries and we’ll set meaningful goals.
As Marianne Williamson says so much better than me:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…..Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.”
Are you ready to stop playing small? Are you itching to take that next step? Could you benefit from some support?
Get in touch for a friendly chat to see if I can help.