And I realised how close I came to still being there …
66 Prescot Street, Aldgate East was where I first started working in London, a great many years ago. I was in that area again last week revisiting my old haunts.
Nothing much has changed – I’m completely different.
The pubs are less sticky and the food menu is not what I recall, but it’s all still the same. But I live on the coast now, and at 7.30am – instead of just pulling into Liverpool Street – I’m walking on the seafront with the sun in my eyes.
Looking back at that version of myself then, I wonder why he was there
The simple answer is that I didn’t know there was an alternative.
I’d evolved into that life. I took a London job to step up and lots more money – we needed that with 2 small children and my wife not working. So I commuted every day – 90- minutes each way plus the walk. Promotion, more hours at my desk, more money. More stress, more beers and late night trains home.
That was just how it was. I knew no difference and honestly couldn’t imagine giving up that salary and the impact it would make on my family, just because I hated the miserable, lonely train ride home.
I don’t mean to sound doom and gloom, but being back in Aldgate East last week really shook me. I was forced out of corporate life by a nervous breakdown. But if that hadn’t happened, I suspect I might still be there, because it was all I knew and it sort of worked. I’d be the old timer in the rumpled suit with the big laptop bag and the bigger bags under their eyes. Grey skin, permanently tired.
Hanging on for the pension and trying not to think about what happens if you can’t carry on anymore.
I wish I could help that version of myself back then
How I wish I could reach back in time and help myself back. I’d show him pictures of how I live now – working from home, with people I love to work with, walking on the beach every day. No trains, no delays, no endless clickety-clack for hours every day.
All that wasted time. Great income, which supported my family really well. But the cost to me … it was expensive and it took far too long to get the bill, and when that did land, there was nothing I could do to reduce it.
Many people choose to live and work like that. I respect that. But – if you don’t enjoy it, there are alternatives. The problem is that no one around you can help you find them because they too are stuck in the same rut. I call that rut the default.
If you’d like to know some different ways to live, I can show you. Here’s just a few:
- Stay in the job, but get tough on what’s not your job. Push back so you have time to breathe, think and do excellent work on what you are actually measured against, not every single job that someone else should be doing but they left and haven’t been replaced.
- Get your savings in order and downsize to a different job that pays less, but which allows you a life. And maybe time to see you kids on weekdays too. Tricky, but not impossible, and so much safer to restructure your finances gradually when it suits you, than all in a rush when the next round of downsizings happen.
- Set up a side business – something you love – and build that while you stay in the day job
- Leave. Just go. Make a fresh start.
And there are a huge number of variations on those too. There is a way that will suit you. But it’s almost impossible to think about or imagine while you are stuck so deep in the rut you can’t see over the top.
I couldn’t help myself then, but I can help you now
I can’t turn the clock back for myself. But I can help you go from where you are now to somewhere that feels so much nicer. Maybe you can’t see options. That’s okay. I can. Not only can I share what I did, but I have countless case studies of people I’ve worked with to share. It’s a bit like a menu of possible lives: flick through them and choose something that makes you smile and feel alive.
How do you start?
You have to contact me because I don’t know who you are yet. You must reach out. Uncomfortable. I might try to sell you something. It’ll be expensive. It might not work. What’ll my wife/husband say? No … maybe not.
Did you think something like that? I don’t blame you. But here’s the thing: if you don’t change something, nothing will change. Until someone makes a change for you. Like the next round of redundancies, or your health. Don’t be that person.
The journey towards your better won’t just happen to you. You’ll have to choose it.
I’m here to get you started. All it costs is the courage to book a free call and begin talking about what you’d love. Here’s the link – do it now: https://neillawsoncoaching.as.me/virtual-coffee