Going Cold Turkey from Comfort: The Reality of Making Sustainable Changes in Career and Life

The Mightify social media channels have been quiet recently. Not because we haven't had much to do - the opposite in fact. We've been busier than ever - which should tell you something about the state of play in our police and emergency services. 

The only thing you might have seen is more exercise and health content on the Mightify Instagram. There's a reason for that - which I'll come back to. 

When I started this enterprise in 2015 I knew it would be difficult. It was a fairly cliché example of people telling me there was no market for it. No one will pay you. No one cares. Nice idea, but it won't work. Don't bother.

There have been plenty of times where I've found myself agreeing with that. The doubt has started to win, the mountain to look untameable. It's a lonely place too, being outside the mould and trying to do everything at once. Did I do the right thing? Should I just have stayed and "got on with it"? 

It's tiring to swim against the tide. To be different. To do things differently. Comfort is a drug, and going cold turkey from it is a constant process of growing pains. 

It's tiring to see slow progress in solving glaring problems. It's tiring to hear people in positions of power not understand basic issues - or wilfully not do what is in their grasp. It's tiring to see good people ask for help and be led down the garden path by unethical companies. Tiring to see people undervalued, underfulfilled and trapped. 

It's tiring - but I'm not tired. 

I've had to re-assess what I do - what I can do. Because make no mistake, building the support, advice and structures that our emergency services need and deserve is a Herculean task. Exercise is my outlet. 

To borrow a phrase, so far I've often set myself on fire to keep others warm. I can't do that forever. But, that fire isn't going to be dampened just because it's difficult, uncertain and risky. I'm just learning how to adapt the process, just like anyone else who ever did anything new. 

That's who the World belongs to, after all. The people who are willing to change things. At any level: most of us will never invent the wheel or discover electricity... but we all have the power to look at our own environment and ask if it's really what we're capable of. What will actually make us happy. 

If there's one thing I've learned in the years since I walked out of policing with no plan, it's this: Try it. If it doesn't work out, you can always do something else. That might sound overly simple, trite or obvious - but it isn't. We all spend so much time telling ourselves reasons why we can't do things. Creating and zealously following limiting beliefs, when even 50% of that belief applied to a new challenge could be truly transformative. 

You don't have to jump into the unknown feet first like I did. After all, that was the fundamental reason for starting Mightify - so that others wouldn't have to go it alone. What I did get from that jump though, was an instant fire under my backside that I had no choice to move forward and make it work. Sometimes we have to create that ourselves. Weaning ourselves off the steady hit of comfort in the knowledge (or sometimes the blind faith) that actually better things await. Of course, the ideal way to do that is through planning and preparation, mitigating as much of the risk as possible - but there will never be a perfect time to do it.

There is a long way to go. With police and emergency services wellbeing, resettlement, transition, however you want to describe it - we've given most other industries and groups a 20-year headstart. That doesn't mean we should resign ourselves to the status quo. In fact, like the tortoise and hare, it means we can catch up - learning from elsewhere and bringing in new ideas. This requires some open minds and willingness to act - and there are some promising signs - which I'll be sharing in the next few weeks. It's a state of cynical optimism, if that's possible.

In the meantime, hopefully this is a reminder that things worth having don't come easy - and behind all the apparent success on social media is a lot of late nights, early mornings, self doubt and risk. It's equally a reminder that you can do anything you put your mind to.

So don't just do what everyone else does for the sake of it. Think critically. Ask questions. Challenge. Or, as Public Enemy put it more succinctly than me: "Be a dissident, who ain't kissin' it". 

If you are thinking about a change, ready for one or have been trying to make one and finding it tough - get in touch.

If you are on our wavelength about delivering the levels of care and support the police and emergency services deserve, and you think we could work together - get in touch. There's plenty to do and we've only just started.