I mentioned in an earlier post about the visualisation work that I did at a business retreat. After writing about how I would like the world to be, Jennifer asked us to think about “who is your audience, how do you want to touch them, and what do you want for them”.
She then invited us to write. She didn’t tell us what to write or how to structure it. It was freeform. I started the next piece by writing a title My Nan. You’ll recall that the previous day, Jennifer had interviewed me which opened a floodgate of tears when I mentioned my Nan.
I’m not sure what exactly prompted the tears … was I grieving for my Nan? Was I sad that she didn’t meet her grandchildren? Was I crying for her experiences as a mother. She left her husband and her children too, perhaps in her late 20s to mid 30s. How desperate does a mother need to be to do that? I don’t know if I have the history right. Or maybe she wasn’t desperate and was glad to get away. I don’t know. This would have been mid to late 1940s. Pretty radical stuff for a woman at that time. Later when she was 40, she met and married another man who was 20 years her junior. What a woman.
That’s why the title of my next piece of writing was My Nan. However as you see below, the writing itself is not specifically about my Nan. Or is it. Maybe it is me talking to her through my writing. I don’t know. Let me know what you think:
Not everybody lands or falls into the career that’s right for them. As women, as mothers, perhaps one of the gains of inequality, one of the advantages, something to celebrate about being the ‘default’ parent, is that we are gifted with this amazing opportunity to take stock of who we are and where we are in our career. Maybe you trained as a lawyer or a teacher or a physiotherapist, and perhaps you are very good in that role. Maybe you’re brilliant even, and your clients love you, and it’s good money, and it’s taken you years to train, and your parents are very proud of you.
BUT
And that’s the thing. There’s a but.
But you aren’t feeling the love. It doesn’t excite you. It doesn’t make you feel inspired. You’re not passionate about it. You’re wondering if there’s something else.
If you’re wondering, could I do something different, could I be someone different, then the answer is probably yes. When you’re 18 and make decisions about career and university, who’s really ready to make those decisions? Very few of us …. we haven’t lived, we haven’t loved. Some of us haven’t been loved. Yet we are often steam-rollered into career paths, bowled along by money, status, career, promotion and ambition.
Having children, we want them to grow up happy and fulfilled. We want them to have happy memories of family life and childhood. We want to be role models for them.
But we can’t do that properly unless we love what WE do, and do what we love. As women and as mothers, we need to be fulfilled, to live our purpose, to give ourselves permission to explore different options and alternatives to what we have now.
Sometimes we need to make big decisions. Decisions that are scary and maybe overwhelming, and potentially life-changing. But you can’t make good decisions, those big decisions, without more information, facts. You want your decisions to be informed. You want clarity and focus.
And that’s where I can help.
How does this resonate for you? Leave a comment below.
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