The last 6 months have been really hard for me. I’ve had to deal with depression regarding egocentric individuals, an unwell partner, my business going to shit and regular life in general. But its my birthday and Ill cry if I want to. some days I feel like I’m the mole in the wack a mole game!
I have 2 choices. I can lie down and wait to die or pick myself up and have another crack.
Let’s talk first about what has been getting me down. I’ll start with the depression that I have been battling with. I have had to battle anxiety and depression in the past, so this black dog is no stranger. What caused the issues this time was that I could not understand the purpose behind the situation. Ego over ethics. I was shocked at how uncompromising people can be and how the call of power can make people behave. There was a big problem with old men thinking the young ones couldn’t do the job. No trust, no faith, and no respect. I felt that I had let down a fantastic crew of younger people and that is the true cause of the depression. I’m a helper personality type and I couldn’t help. I am grateful looking back on it to have left when I did. I was given no choice, but it was a blessing in disguise.
Because of the volunteer work I had been doing my business had been running down. I lost a major contract that bought my business to its knees. This all happened around the same time. So I decided to “get a real job”. I haven’t applied for a job for years but I have never had a problem getting work in the past. But guess what! After applying for hundreds of jobs, not even an interview!! This made me feel worthless. All my years of experience with so many different skillsets gave me no opportunities for work. This hit me hard as well.
My choice was lay down and die or start over! I needed to some how drag myself out of that hole I was in and have another go, but did I have the energy and the heart to do it. I was so tired and at such a low point. Panic attacks were happening daily and I had my family to look after as well as try to get through this on my own. Dark days indeed.
I was blessed with a gift from an initially anonymous source. A kindness that came out of the blue. It was a book called The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. I found out later that it was from someone that had my back during the volunteer role and this just demonstrated to me that there were still good in people. I’ve always been a positive person but before this I had gotten to the point where I felt there were no good ones left. I didn’t now who to trust or who to turn to. A week after the first book arrived, I received a second called Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman. I downloaded both on Audible and listened to them every moment I was not busy. The one thing made me think about what direction to take. This random act of kindness set me on a new path.
I then randomly downloaded a “recommended for you” audible book, called Crushing it by Gary Vaynerchuk. This book was amazing and became my morning get out of bed coach. I would wake up a bit early and listen to it to get motivated.
I discovered what it was that I wanted to do with my next 50 yrs. I worked out what it was that I talk about all the time and love talking about. I realised it is not going to be easy and I need to work at harder than I have ever worked for anything in my life before.
So I launched my new website on the day of my 50th birthday. In the middle of the corona virus outbreak and lockdowns. While the world was going to hell in a handbag, I took a leap of faith and put myself out there. I have no idea how it is going to turn out but I’m going to do all I can to make this a successful enjoyable rest of my days.
