In Part l I talked through my 3 years to Work Happiness from January 2017 feeling unsettled and unfulfilled in my work and career direction to starting my own coaching business in January 2020, and all the meaningful steps I took in between without knowing the end goal at any point other than when I actually arrived at it…
I haven’t stopped making moves to create a more balanced, fulfilling and exciting life that feels good to me. My confidence has definitely been boosted from stretching out of my comfort zone and being rewarded for it, and perhaps I’ve got a taste for pushing the boundaries a little.
Here in Part ll I’ll talk through the last two years since then and the key milestones that have brought me to where I am today. You can catch up on Part l here.
September 2020
So the business was up and running , and very very slow. A mix of being a new business, a new career and also mid Pandemic where my original face to face business development disappeared the moment working from home was announced.
In between the first lockdown and knowing a winter lockdown was coming, having been working on my own, from home, for the first time, I needed a change of scene. A mentor encouraged me to work from Lisbon for a few weeks, he said
‘I know you and I know Lisbon, you’ll love it’
So I thought about it, decided that I had nothing to lose and not a lot of time to waste before winter, and I did it. I love to travel, have travelled on my own too so I wasn’t too fussed about not knowing anyone and packed a backpack and my laptop and spent 6 weeks in Lisbon.
I LOVED it. The lifestyle, the pace, the weather, the expat community, the city was quiet being mid-pandemic, so beautiful and I felt lighter, creative and my business started to do good things too.
This was an opportunity I hadn’t thought about, that I said YES to, and one that changed the course of my future.
December 2020
Back in London, I didn’t feel the same as in Lisbon. I made the decision to make an international move, reviewed the year to set some new personal and professional goals, put my apartment on rent and started planning.
I kept in touch with some people I’d really clicked with in Lisbon to ‘keep the dream alive’, keep my motivation and keep reminding myself what life could be waiting for me, I just needed to persevere through the pandemic of no flights, a tricky time to rent a London flat and packing up, saying my goodbyes and taking the leap.
April 2021
Flights between the UK and Portugal resumed and 19th April….I landed in Lisbon! For the first time as an expat. It still felt right intuitively.
I continued to build the business, build new social networks, integrate into sports groups, expat groups, meet neighbours and friends of friends and a new chapter began.
December 2021
With new feelings of lightness and creativity, the work came in (there was much more to this but this change in my energy definitely made a difference). I had 2 big pieces of client work come in off the back of earlier work I had done and made 50% of my 2021 revenue in Q4, which was a huge boost to my confidence and validation for my work and business prospects.
February 2022
My business hit six figures. This was an absolute milestone for me, I never really thought I would get back on the road to big city bucks, and was very OK with that. This level of financial achievement has been a product of hard graft and smart decision making including:
- Phasing out lower paid work to make space for higher paid work
- Delivering quality output and value for my clients and coachees that has driven repeat business and referrals
- Being confident with my pricing and my pricing strategy
- Making consistent and genuine effort in cultivating important relationships
- Persevering with the small and big things – I have a disciplined approach to the boring things that helps me generate more income than if I didn’t
July 2022
Over a year into my new chapter of life, and I feel more and more settled, the business continues to grow, my skills are developing constantly and I still feel in a honeymoon period in Lisbon.
I did a big trip to Colombia and delivered face to face training in Germany. I’ve had friends and family come to visit. I’ve travelled with new friends and developed a slight addiction to Padel!
A massive milestone for me at this point is achieving my PCC level credential from the International Coach Federation. I’d been working towards this since November 2020 (when I received my ACC level) and had diligently recorded my coaching hours, taken coach mentoring to improve my sessions and continued to check against the coach competency framework. I wasn’t sure I would hit PCC so soon and it thrilled me to have validation in a sense.
December 2022
I remember having a conversation with a coach once upon a time, about what I wanted to work towards in my future. And a ‘life of thirds’ came to me. I had a vision of working a third on my paid career, a third on volunteer work and a third on fun and adventure.
And I realisedI was at a point I could start to craft my weeks to move towards this. I started to book Mondays and Friday afternoons off from taking work – and have the discipline most of the time to stick to this. I have started volunteering with The Lisbon Project as a skills guide, helping refugees and migrants in their approach to finding and securing work as they integrate into society (I missed my Samaritans work dearly).
I continue to book travel trips in Portugal and internationally, discovering new countries and cultures.
I’ll see how this approach continues to work for me in 2023 and how it might be adjusted, refineed, reworked depending on what work happiness evolves to mean for me.
January 2023
One thing I read recently that made me smile, is that optimists are bigger risk takers. As an optimist, you have more hope and feel more positive that things will work out, resulting in more of an appetite for risk. It’s definitely something I’ve learnt about myself – as well as enjoying change, I also enjoy taking calculated and thought through risks in pursuit of happiness, fulfilment and generally wanting to live this life well and working out what that means for me.
And then doing it 🙂
This year my goals are around learning Portuguese (it’s hard!), writing an online course for passive income to keep my life of thirds dream possible, and developing coach maturity. This year I want to spend more time training and investing again in my professional development to increase the coaching depth I bring to my sessions.
What I have learnt:
- Feeling a sense of stuck, like you want things to change, like there could be more is an opportunity
- The idea of change can seem much riskier than the reality of it – and this can be a huge blocker and generator of fear
- Perseverance is key
- Hard work is hard, and worth it
- Portuguese is very hard to learn
- Padel is a lot of fun
- Learning never stops
Does any of my story resonate with you? You might be at one of the many stages that I went through, or even at the very start, not knowing where to start. I’d love to hear more, feel free to book in a call and let’s talk.
Photo by Clemens van Lay on Unsplash