My working hours are not standard.
I work late a lot in the evenings. I respond to coaching clients at literally any time of the day, even when I’m with my children or on the sofa with my husband. And I don’t have many weeks off.
Plus, I work 14 hours a week at a university and do the majority of the childcare for my young children. My husband is an on-call firefighter, so even when he is around, our free time (and his ability to be help) is unpredictable 🙃
10 years ago, I could not have enjoyed this version of my life, with so much flexibility and lack of control 😂
I would have constantly been thinking about everything I should be doing. Scanning the horizon for who might need me next and how to deal with last minute changes to a plan.
I’d have replied to one client while worrying about when I’d have time to reply to another. There would have been a lot of worrying 😅
But learning to focus on one thing at a time, to enjoy what’s in front of me without constantly panicking and creating plans A, B, C and D, means I can do things I couldn’t previously.
I can enjoy a life where my work and my free time are completely intermingled and I still feel like I have oodles of free time.
I laugh regularly. I enjoy time with my children, my partner, my friends, my colleagues, even when I don’t know when it’ll be interrupted by work. I enjoy (for the most part!) getting stuck into a challenge in my uni job that stretches me, and then I put on a good podcast, enjoy the drive home and forget about it.
But how many of us do that? How many people look forward to a day of work AND look forward to going home again, rather than just feeling relief it’s over?
And how many of us wake up and count how many days it is until the weekend, and then spend the weekend counting down how many hours until Monday?
So many of us (and this used to be me) treat enjoying our job as a luxury. We put so much emphasis on clinical CPD and “being the best we can” but perhaps don’t realise that being in a state of burnout adversely affects patient outcomes too.
Why don’t we prioritise CPD that helps us enjoy our job? It’s not selfish to prioritise your wellbeing. I’d argue the opposite.
If stress feels overwhelming, you’re never switching off and you feel like you’re always focused on the next thing, I’d love to welcome you to an in-person CPD event.
🙅Too Stressed to Pee
A single CPD day. Think mini-retreat vibes, a walk on the beach at lunch if the weather permits, and skills to make work enjoyable again.
🏡 CPD retreat weekend
48 hours without your to-do list so you can really practise the skills we’re talking about.
Both held in beautiful settings, with great food (because I know that’s important).
I hope today is a reminder that you should enjoy more of your job than you find stressful. And even when it’s stressful on paper, it doesn’t mean you can’t learn to enjoy bits of that too.
Sending love,
Lucy x
PS. This isn’t a post to say boundaries are bad. I have strong boundaries in some areas of my life (my uni role) and very fluid ones in my coaching business. Both are appropriate. The key point is that we can learn to cope with, and enjoy, things we previously couldn’t have. We don’t need to wait for it to “get easier”.
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