Since taking the decision to leave teaching after a fulfilling 16 year career, I have learned a lot about myself. The greatest lesson I have learned in the journey to becoming an entrepreneur is that many of the reasons I was itching for a different path was because I was far too worried and occupied by brief moments; both high and low. Long story short, I had no vision or long term strategy for which to gain perspective within each of the moments I was experiencing. This, I feel, was the biggest driver in taking the very difficult (yet also exciting) decision to leave what I always knew.

During my transition, there have been many moments that could have easily derailed me and pushed me back into the safe option of re-joining a school. And, without the ability to reflect, grow, and learn from past mistakes, I know that two particular moments could have been the catalysts that facilitated my return to school life. Read my story below and see if you can pick out those moments…

My story:

As mentioned in my previous blog post, the initial idea of leaving the classroom was to set up a company that provided Positive Psychology Coaching and methodology to help people in front-line services navigate the difficult terrain of the public sector. This first company failed due to things that were ultimately not in my control. This lead me to place where I was having to claw for everything and anything I could get in terms of income. So, I took on tutoring, marking, another part-time teaching role, and much more. I was living moment to moment. In addition, I decided to resurrect the idea of coaching and set up another new company to try and see this vision come to life….albeit, starting from a significant deficit. In the first year of this life, the moment to moment living was paying the bills, but it wasn’t enriching my life. I had said yes to too many things and wasn’t performing any of the roles to the best of my ability. Rather, I was scraping by and doing a ‘good’ job instead of a ‘great’ job. Internally, this became hugely frustrating but I couldn’t work out for myself why I wasn’t very happy. Following a conversation with my two new business partners, Toby Cowern and James Pope, it was clear that I was spreading myself too thin. However, I didn’t know how to make money any other way. Surely the best way to earn money is to do loads of things and work like hell in the process? Toby kindly pointed out to me that the main issue with my situation was that I hadn’t considered the journey or the wider picture. I hadn’t planned or strategised which led me down the path of saying yes to everything. Following this advice, I engaged in some coaching sessions where I established some specific goals, identified the barriers to achieving them, as well as unpacked my ‘why’. I put together a plan of action to achieve my goals and am happy to say that my list of ‘jobs’ has now been significantly decreased, yet the income has actually increased! The most important element of the above was that I created a road map for achieving my goals that was honest, ambitious, and realistic. It incorporated the barriers that I needed to overcome and, most importantly, helped me to make decisions early on in the process which then enabled me to simply keep going.

Coaching and having a good coach can be transformative. I have been coaching others for a long time in a similar matter to the above but sometimes, no matter how good we are, we need someone else to shake us up a bit in order for the good to fall out. I learned through the coaching that I needed to regularly step away from the everyday moments in order to reflect on the journey and reconnect with the wider vision. At my worst, I was ready to throw in the towel and go back to the safe. My coach helped me to see what I was worth, what I was capable of, and helped me to design a strategy the suited my ‘style’ of life. As a result, I’m making progress every month and things are looking good.

This coach has now given me a further opportunity to work within an organisation that fits my value system perfectly. The coaches name is Floyd Woodrow and he is the CEO of Compass For Life, the company that I am now a certified trainer for. His guidance and understanding have allowed me to progress further than I thought possible and we are only at the beginning of the journey.

With excitement, confidence, and enthusiasm, I can’t wait to see how I develop further in the next 12 months.

Check out Floyd and the rest of the Compass For Life team here:

Compass For Life | Challenge and transform. Elite leadership programmes.