Enjoying Your Work is Mission-Critical

I got into entrepreneurship because I wanted freedom, fun and excitement. After 20+ years of climbing the corporate ladder, the thought of coffee shoppin’ it up every day, laptop in hand, drinking lattes and being location independent totally floated my boat, so I sat on the idea. I mean, leaving? The insecurity of it all! Not spending an hour each way taking in traffic fumes and stressed-out commuters before I even got to my desk? Or the immense pleasure in grabbing 15 mins of sunshine between spreadsheets because the UK weather caught a break for the first time in forever?

Still, It wasn’t an easy decision. I was dedicated to the company I worked for and the people in it. It was super stable, growing and well-liked in the local community, and at that time, I was the longest-serving team member and company Director.

When my dad passed away suddenly in 2019, I stopped wondering about the traffic and the weather. Instead, I asked myself much bigger questions like ‘if life can be this short, is this where you want to be?’ and the decision stopped being a decision; my freedom, fun and choices became mission-critical. So I handed in my notice and started planning for an uncertain future.

This journey has been all kinds of crazy. For a start, my vision of endless lattes with my MacBook and fancy neon notebooks went straight out of the window when not two weeks after I quit my job, the UK went into full lockdown. Spanners in the works everywhere. The freedom I envisioned was suddenly not so free, but what I quickly learned was that it didn’t matter because the coffee shop lifestyle wasn’t what it was all about. The grind had been costing me so much more than my salary; it was costing me my life.

I would call that a pretty poor trade.

Now I do things because I can, not because I have to. I make decisions for myself, not for the sake of work, and as I write this to you today, I’m overlooking the sea, in my favourite coffee shop… with a latte, and the fact that I can is justification enough.

What will your Mission-Critical be?

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This blog was taken from The Female CEO series. If you want to receive updates. You can subscribe here.