A year on…

Sunday Blog 62 – 20 November 2022

So clearly I haven’t had a professional follow up photo – but here I am, one year on from the 23rd November 2021 discovery within my gold diary’s pages that I’d had ENOUGH. It was time to quit the day job.

I decided as well as quitting the day job I would let my hair go grey, an outer sign of the massive internal transition. I still consider them two very good decisions.

And what has a year taught me? How close am I to knowing what’s next?

Well, I am still a health nerd. I sit on a handful of national and state health-related committees still. I definitely feel people are entitled to my opinion and rarely hesitate to offer it. I’m still tilting at plenty of health windmills.The wonderful thing is, I don’t have to run an organisation as well.

Informed health choices is still a core passion that burns with the heat of a thousand suns. This week alone I was able to help two people navigate our health system.

I am still working on the novella, and I have progressed a lot thanks to the Emerging Writers program.

I am still working out what I need to do to make a living, as it’s not retirement time just yet. I have been amusing myself looking at some of my scribbles from last year as I emoted over many diary pages what to do to earn a crust. Do I want finish the process of becoming a certified coach? Nup, I have finally worked out. But not before signing up to me an International Coach Federation member, re-engaging with my wonderful coach trainer and getting temporarily enthused about doing a Masters. Oh, and deciding against the Singapore Trip to become an Enneagram coach…

Do I want to be a consultant? Well, not if it means perpetrating yet more unread reports on the world. Alas I had already bought a Microsoft computer thinking that I would need that as a big shot consultant. I re-discovered how much I loathe Microsoft and my icloud and One Drive files have turned into a sort of glorious digital Eton Mess. Oh, and I registered for GST – because, thinking big. That has now been cancelled by my long-suffering accountant and I only need to do one more BAS.

I mean, it’s a hell yes to facilitating complex conversations and getting someone else to do the write-up. But not a full-on consultant, with writing pushed to the margins again.

Do I want to stack shelves at Woolies from 6am-10am? Well, after emerging from all that consulting I thought I might. At least that wouldn’t take up all my mental bandwidth like consulting does. I flew through the first few stages of the recruitment process for my local store (to be fair, they were all automated) but at the face to face interview the manager gently probed how someone with my ahem- sedentary work history would go with the hard yakka of stacking shelves. He wisely suggested I sleep on it and I awoke at 3am in a cold sweat. Imagine losing all my gorgeous morning hours I’ve just clawed back.

Do I want to look after my mum? Hell yes.

Do I want to do Airbnb the granny flat to assuage my aching maternal heart now my adult daughter has moved out? Hells yeah.

I was trying to work all of this out in November 2021. When oh when will I learn that it must unfold?

And that if it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no?

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