Monthly Archives: February 2014

Day One.

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Courage1

Well, it’s five minutes before the end of my first day as an entrepreneur. I’d love to say it’s been full of inspiration and provide you with mental images of me channeling my inner Braveheart with courageous shouts of “FREEDOM”, but that wouldn’t be super accurate.

Truth be told, today was largely full of fear and frustration. Fear about what I don’t know (which seems fairly vast, right about now) and frustration with a project I’m working on and my resoundingly crappy not-good-enough story.

On my last day, yesterday, my team threw me an amazing farewell tea, complete with all manner of sweets and treats as befitting the Health Promotion Girl’s final hurrah. Last night, after leaving the office in tears (I’m sad to leave my teammates and can’t help but feel a little fear of missing out), Adam took me out to dinner to celebrate, which was awesome, because a) I wouldn’t have thought to, b) I’d have stayed in and been a sad sack, and c) we went to Il Terrazzo, which is my favourite Italian place. I am so grateful that I get to share my adventures with him.

This morning, The First Morning, I woke up and was super lazy. Fairly anti-climactic, really. I succeeded in putting on my running gear, wearing it for three hours and then eventually conceded the fact that there was no way I was going to make it for a run between the calls I had scheduled. So I showered and dressed. I will NOT not dress nicely, just because no one’s around to see it. I may need to begin wearing shoes in the house though, lest I go into footwear withdrawal.

Technically, I’m taking two weeks off (apart from my current coaching clients, that is), to relax and enjoy this shift. So far, I notice a lot of judgment about what I’m doing: Either I’m not accomplishing The Stuff I need to do in order to be a success (clearly, I’ve got a lot riding on Getting There [where? I don’t know…] in the first 24 hours) or I’m failing at relaxing (how did you know I’m a perfectionist?).

This week is pretty much chock-full of work, for a week off. Looks like Adam’s right: I need to take another week off on the end, if I’m going to be in integrity with my declaration for a couple weeks’ break. From here on out, I know I’m going to need to be intentional about, well, just about everything. The time I’m working and the time I’m not. I can already tell which one will be trickier…

I wanted to post all day, but didn’t want to sound like a downer. “If I’m not smiling 115 percent of the time, people will think I’m failing.”

inferior

To be honest, I was afraid people would gloat. Which is pretty lame, because who would gloat? And even if they did, why would I care? How would I even know? I was watching The Princess Diaries on the weekend (don’t judge me) and was reminded that no one can make me feel small without my permission. No one includes me, too.

So, since keeping up pretences is exhausting, I decided to just be honest about the day. I know some of you want to know and I really wish I could say it was rainbows and unicorns, but it was a busy and stressful day, following a predictably busy, momentous and sad day.

So that’s it. Day one. I do think it’s kind of cool that my first day was blue sky and sunshine-filled. Tomorrow will be brighter. I have to let go of this one, first, though, so that’s what I’m doing. One day at a time.

letitgo

Quitting and beginning.

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The above is the message that was in my fortune cookie yesterday. I don’t normally ascribe a lot of meaning to the things I find in cookies or horoscopes, but this time, it made me smile. It’s true: Things are a-changing over here in my world.

It’s been a long time, My Blog. A long time, indeed. It’s weird, how if I don’t write anything on here, nothing happens on my blog. I need blog elves. Partly because then my blog would be updated and partly because then I’d have an elf, and that would be be pretty much the coolest frigging thing in the world.

At least this time, I have a good excuse for being incommunicado: Like I said, I’ve been busy making some big changes and some even bigger decisions. You probably know that I write over at www.evergrowthcoaching.com, the blog that Adam and I share for our coaching company. Coaching has been getting cooler and cooler and busier and busier, all of which is really good news. I’m loving the work I’m doing.

I less love working nine zillion hours a day, but I’ve been doing it (okay, more like 10–12 hours) in service of a cunning plan: I wanted to build my coaching practice so that I could go to part time at my job and eventually be self employed. It turns out that “eventually” was a lot sooner than I thought!

Long story made short, I have [at last] resigned my position with the provincial government/public service of British Columbia. This decision was a really big one for me. I’m talking throat-constricting-and-gasping-panic-attacks-while-jogging kind of big decision. Not-sleeping-and-tossing-and-turning-coated-in-cold-sweat kind of decision. Several factors precipitated my choice and I immensely grateful for the whole experience: Without the stuff that went on, I would not have made the choice I’ve been wanting to make since, oh, before I began working with the provincial government.

I’ve always wanted to freelance, but couldn’t figure out how to make it work. I didn’t trust myself and I didn’t trust the universe, either. Without doing the work to become a coach, and utterly transforming who I am being in my life and in this world, I am pretty sure that I wouldn’t have been able to choose to let go of my desperately clasping hands and step outside of my comfort zone. Thank God I let go.

Now, I am not a person who would describe herself as brave. I’ve always been a timid little thing, from the time I was, well, a timid little thing. I know I’ve done a lot of things that were atypical or different, but for the first time ever, I really, really understand that courage isn’t the absence of fear; rather, it is something that is created when you face your fear and move forward anyway.

I am so excited for what’s ahead. I’m exhilarated. Every now and then, I’m afraid, too, just to keep it interesting. What I learned this week, and shared with my team (I’m a mentor coach in Seattle—so much has happened since I last blogged here!) is this:

It turns out that fear doesn’t stop me from doing things: I do. It turns out, I can have fear and move forward anyway. Forward movement doesn’t only happen in the sunshine.

goforit