Five lessons learnt from a year of professional and personal transformation.

At around this exact time last year, I wrote an article summarising how my 2018 had gone. It was titled "My year was a wonderful, awful, horrible, glorious shit show. Was yours?" and as I read it back just now I felt some tears prickle behind my eyes, thinking about what I went through, what came out of it and how surprised and proud and grateful I am that I remain sane and solvent. 2018 was a year of utter turmoil that resulted, ultimately, in both my husband and I getting psychologically ill. Him, he went full Rambo breakdown at a family Sunday dinner in a Stoke-on-Trent Toby Carvery (I mean, fair play). Me, I spent months with my stomach in knots, fighting a neurological tug of war that left me terrified to go to even the simplest of meetings. We both nurse hangovers from this cocktail today, though I am really grateful to say we are both healthy and thriving and feeling better, stronger and clearer than ever.

As a result of this, 2019 was a year of steady, calm, considered transformation. Before I start this article I want to caveat that the word transformation is loaded, it comes with connotations of enlightenment or some finished product. I am, like, none of that. For example I am writing this in a jumper that has pate crusted on it from last night but that's OK because it's Sunday and basically Christmas.

Whilst I'll perhaps never improve my oral motor skills, I have completely changed (in an ongoing work in progress kind of way) my career, my routines and my mindset and over the year I have had questions from and calls with people who are perhaps looking to change careers and wondering how on earth I did it. But first, some professional context. Skip this if you don't care or already know my story and head right over to the lessons section.

Professional Context

I stopped running an agency and I stopped working in SEO, accumulating in perhaps the boldest and bravest decision I have ever made. Manyminds became an established, stable, profitable business that had global, reliable, high paying clients. I am incredibly proud of what I grew, single handedly, at 26, with no capital and no clue. It was an absolutely brilliant business, for somebody else. The freelance model does kind of work, though it also meant that I was so integrated in to the day to day operations, scale, businesses development and delivery that I could never, realistically, take time away from it. I began to feel trapped by it, suffocated by the 40k a month overheads, addicted to the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds of cashflow I was really bad at managing (I wrote about that last year too). I was overwhelmed by the volume of staff I relied upon, unable to take it any further alone. As a result, I began to resent it, I stopped nurturing it. I never sought help, because I knew deep down somewhere murky and hidden, as we so often do in life, that I was running the wrong business, in an industry that I had loved for years and had provided me with so many opportunities, but no longer interested or excited me in the way it once had. For many years I had been trying to get one particular client to invest more with us and had pinned a lot of my 2019 financial goals on this. In May, that potential opportunity arose...with a 3 year contract extension. It was one of life's catalytic moments that enforces a decision. I lead with my gut and turned it down as I financially winced, encouraged other clients to move on and let Manyminds slowly, gracefully, die (I think that's the business term?).

It is now my living CV of what this clueless little girl from the Midlands can achieve and I am so proud of exceeding my own expectations of my ability and creating that wonderful stepping stone for myself.

The decision to let it go, no matter how much money it made me or validation it gave me was also a decision to start respecting myself and at that moment I made a call to put all my chips (which were increasingly limited) in a sure bet, myself.

I had been running confidence workshops and coaching for about 18 months at that point and fuck me do I love that. On my way to workshops, I walk down the street beaming, smiling at strangers and making jovial small talk with baristas (which they probably hate) like some shit movie montage of a guy that got laid that night before. I now have a job where I know, before the day has even started, that I have delivered and that my clients will be delighted with my work. I know that I am doing something that aligns with my instincts, rather than against them and I know I am serving others in a positive and meaningful way. In June (on my birthday because a career I love is like, the best gift, and I am sentimental like that) I officially launched Roar! Training and that has been my sole focus and revenue stream ever since. I have teed up 2020 to be partnering with global brands, launching my second book and a solid stream of retained clients. It is still very early days in terms of business and I am still absolutely shitting it, but all signs point to an incredibly positive next year.

I have done well. I have showed up for myself. I have regained control of my life. Here are some things that helped that:

Lessons

1. Invest in your development

I never used to invest in my own personal development, either with my money, time, energy or effort. There was always something more important that had to be done, a more worthy investment than me. I never had the time, I never had the chance, I never had the opportunity, I never had the money. I did, however, have all of these things, they were just excuses, what I didn't have was the sense that I was worthy of the investment. I would just learn on the job, putting off the things I wanted to learn and skills I wanted to develop to when I was less busy. This was a momentous mistake and if this sounds like you, I would implore you to reconsider. There is that expression "take time for your wellness or you will be forced to take it for your illness". I began seriously investing in myself because of the latter half of that sentence.

Our first responsibility is to ourselves.

We cannot be good partners, good workers or good businesses owners if we are consistently putting ourselves last. We must fill our own cups and then serve others from the overflow. In 2019, investing in my success has been my absolutely priority. In February I took a 16 week brain based coaching course that completely changed my life - I learnt so much that I could incorporate into my training and also into my own life and relationships with others. That set me off on a path of learning that has enriched me in so many ways. I invest in coaches. I invest in courses. I then invest in even more coaching and courses. However, this doesn't have to be an expensive pursuit, equally important to me I have began a committed meditation practice. I have read hundreds of books and I have watched hours of Ted talks. I have found, that invigorating curiosity is a wonderful antidote for anxiety. My ideas are better and more exciting, an insatiable desire to learn, develop and grow takes us out of mundanity and opens new avenues of thought and experience. Make 2020 the year you start to treat yourself as a work in progress, take on new opportunities and learn new skills MAYBE AT ONE OF MY COURSES LOL.

2. Nobody succeeds alone

In this whole reading and learning thing, earlier in the year I read The One Thing. Having spent years taking on too much and spreading myself too thinly, this book had been recommended to me countless times, though it was this sentence "nobody succeeds alone" that really elicited a casual mid morning existential crisis. I had always worked alone. Naturally independent (my mum says I never once slept in their bed as a child, always preferring my own space), I had internalised my strength as needing nobody, being a solo founder, doing things my own way, a strong, independent cliché. Since then I have surrounded myself with people who can teach and support me. I have hired a team and leaned upon others for their expertise, I have asked for help, I have asked for support. I have asked (and even taken!?) advice and I have called in favours. This is a big shift for me, I have always been the giver, the lifter, the provider, the empowererererer. I felt strong and validated in my ability to provide opportunities and growth for others, but it cannot be a one way street, we can't sustain ourselves that way.

My business is currently growing and I need help, if you have any you think you can give, I am here to take it.

3. Pace and patience

One of the best things about being a repeated oversharer on the internet is I have a curated catalogue of my publicly exposed bad decisions. Yay!

In the volatility of 2018, I wrote an article in which I say:

"I had a school teacher when I was about 7 called Miss Kapper who I adored. If I was Mathilda she was my Miss Honey. I used to pride myself on always finishing everything first. I would race up to class and proudly present my work to her before anyone else, believing there to be an inherent value in my ability to squeeze as much from everyday as possible. If I was fast, I could do more. Fast was more and more was better was what I thought. And I still do think that."

NOPE. Kirsty, I love you, but no. I used to pride myself on being quick. I would race through life, my decision making process akin to the shopping process on Supermarket Sweep. In hindset, having spent months taking time to think, breathe and centre myself, this was simply a manifestation of my uncertainty in myself.

If I do all the things I will add value somewhere, surely.

I have learnt this to be a trait that resounds loudly in all of us still a little unsure in our value and am now very attuned to hear it. We cram our presentations with so much material we have to race through them to fit it all in, we open a negotiation and just keep talking. Terrified of silence or stillness, our emails are long and elaborate, our arguments waffling and tangential. We are trained to take validation from our successes, and for me that looked like world travel, speaking at huge events and a rocky road to burnout.

True confidence comes from clarity and simplicity and we cannot get that through being absolutely bloody all over the shop. I am fond of my years of experimenting, of running around the world trying things on and then throwing them on the floor, making a mess around me, like a toddler getting dressed. But this toddler took a nap and she is now ready to play nicely.

Have a defined goal and vision, set your strategies to get there, complete them and then trust the process. Finding patience for me is like catching a snitch, but I am finding it with ever increasing regularity and I do manage to hold onto it, for a little while.

4. Routines

I have always struggled developing a routine, the rigidity of them always felt like I was making a lifelong commitment. I didn't truly believe in my ability to stick to one so never even really bothered, increasing once again the chance of me putting on a tutu and wellies and throwing a batman suit on the floor. Working for yourself or working from home can often make this even harder, without any external system directing you where to be and when. Over the past few months however (with help from coaching from Mark Johnstone) I have now nailed my routine through perceiving it as being entirely flexible. I have things that I want to do because they make me happier. I know that if I exercise for 30 minutes, stretch for 10 minutes and meditate for 20 minutes at varied points throughout the day I feel infinitely more calm and in control. So, I just ensure I do these, at some point, throughout the day, no pressure as to when or in what order, just when it feels right. Some mornings I vault out of bed excited by an idea I want to start on immediately, so I allow that. Other days I feel like a hedgehog grumpily emerging from hibernation, so I allow that too.

For me, routine has simply become about remembering to do the things I like to do each day, whenever I find the right 10 minutes.

I have also structured my productivity and task around my moods, which if you are interested I wrote about here.

5. You decide when you are ready

The biggest learning for me of this year is that I am in the driving seat of my life. I have received so many messages from people who ask me "How did you get in to training?!".

I just did. I decided.

I decided that it was the correct direction for me and that I had enough relevant and valuable experience to allow me to do it with integrity, in a way that was equal to or better than similar offerings. I put in the preparatory grind, I have years of corporate experience I can draw upon and hours of training, reading and practice. I came to my own conclusion that I was ready. Whilst we absolutely have to put the work in to change our careers, we do not need for some external validation to tell us when we can make that leap. Work out what you need to do in order to be able to genuinely do what it is you want, and then just do it.

You, make a decision and then take action. If you would like to get a promotion this year, make a decision to get one and then ask what you need to do to get it and do those things. Don't wait for it to be offered, it's your career, you are in control. Likewise, if you are thinking about starting a business or getting that client or getting that speaking gig, work out what you need to do in order to do that and do it. Message me if you want help with the above, sometimes it can take a bit of external suggestions to define the steps as we are often stuck in the details of our lives to see the bigger opportunities.

For example, I am currently in the process of writing a new book. I am proud of it and think it can be incredibly helpful to a lot of people, which is a new and exciting sensation. I am currently in conversations with a couple of publishers, but I want to really really bloody go for it with this and explore opportunities with agents, who are best placed to get you into the most established publishing houses.

So, yesterday, I emailed Oprah and Brené Browns literary agent, which I am sure you will agree, is fucking absurd.

I was laughing as I was researching out who she is and finding her contact details. I do not for one second expect her to come back to me, but suddenly I have opened those psychological doors for myself, where more realistic (lol) avenues become much more accessible. If you want to do something, do the biggest move you can to make that happen immediately and work backwards from there. Those of you reading who work in SEO, PR and Outreach may resonate with this example, you start with the largest titles and work down from there.

In a nutshell, the biggest lesson for me this year has been about getting clarity on how I want to feel in life and what I need to do in order to sustain that. Our goals are often tangible and financial, though I think it's equally beneficial to set goals around how we want to feel so we can carve a path for ourselves that really makes a difference to our happiness. Once we have that clarity, develop a process and follow it.

This requires trust, this requires patience and this requires connection, friendship and support. Thank you to all the hundreds of people that have given me that in abundance this year. Merry Christmas. x