You either learn or you lose

Yesterday evening I sat down on a bench and cried.

It was 10.30pm and I was taking my dog out for the final walk of the day. It's a beautiful time to walk around and get your thoughts in order, and that's exactly what I was doing.

I realised that it had been an intense week; 12 hour days between contracts and clients, spending the day at a speaking academy, running around for appointments, meeting people. Embarrassingly I came down with a full migraine on Saturday after my friends had travelled across the country for us all to meet. Not cool.

But as I was walking Jasper and saw this fox go trotting across our path, I thought about all the ways in which I've learned and grown in the last 6 weeks alone.  

It's been a period of so many firsts; first national newspaper coverage for Searching for Serenity, first speaking engagement at a law firm, my first branding photo shoot, working my way through a complete website refresh, relaunching my low cost monthly membership programme, other engagements with law firms that are in the pipeline, new programmes released, new clients working with me.

It's been a time of rapid growth - but that's what happens when you plug away for a long time. You get frustrated, thinking you're not seeing the rewards for your work and then all of a sudden - BAM.

It was so exciting, and overwhelming, and I was so grateful, that I just sat down and had a little cry for a moment - not sad, just a release of emotion and tension.

Because with growth comes stress and tension and yes, even pain. 

In the past month I've been on the receiving end of some pretty nasty behaviour online, seen one of my oldest friendships come to an end, gone through another anniversary of a date when my mum should be here and instead I'm missing her like crazy and wishing I could share all of this with her. And of course I also gave myself a concussion (on her birthday of all days) and two severe burns, which shut my jewellery business down for the month. Calamity Jane came out to play for a little bit...

I never promised change would be easy.

If it was easy that would be boring and it wouldn't be a meaningful change.

I also didn't say it would be immediate. I'm seeing projects come to fruition that have been in the pipeline for weeks and months. There's still so many pieces at play right now and it's snowballing week by week.

But growth is beautiful and necessary. Without it we don't just stay stagnant, we lose. We lose our self-respect, our drive, our ambition, our intellectual edge, what makes us special.

The trick is making it easier on yourself - not easy, but easier.

Finding people who will have your back no matter what.

Getting advice and support from people who have been where you are, so they can help you avoid the bear traps and cliff-edges.

A resilient growth mindset that accepts constructive feedback and shuts down the dual monsters of 'It's scary out there, stay safe in here' and 'you'll never do it, who are you to even try'

The energy and drive to continue, and people who will remind you why you're here when you're throwing your hands up in the air screaming 'why did I even bother??'

Ultimately, you can learn and grow, or you can hide and lose. I know which one I choose, what about you?

PS What if you had one safe, secure, confidential place to go for all your career needs?

What if you could get support for confidence, stress, resilience issues in the same place as you could talk about dealing with appraisals or dealing with difficult clients or how to switch off at the end of the day and how to feel truly happy?

What if you could learn and grow with other people who 'get it' and support you?

What if you could get 1:1 support for less than the cost of a daily cup of coffee?

The Resilience Academy is the centre of everything Searching for Serenity is about.

Weekly live trainings.

Monthly bookclubs

Monthly 1:1s

A vault of nearly 100 hours of past trainings.

No commitment - it’s month by month and you’re in complete control 

Click here to find out more and join bit.ly/TheResilienceAcademy