There’s nothing worse than feeling as though you’re just a puppet on a string controlled by whatever it is your job has in store for you.
It’s even worse when the job causes emotional distress and keeps you in a constant state of unease due to it’s “on call” nature.
What makes it even worse…
You find the job completely unfulfilling.
Yep, I’ve been there.
In a way, I am still there, however, I am surfacing on the other side.
If you are there too, have no fear, you will make it through to the other side and, hopefully, my story will give you the faith you need to know it.
A Bit Of History
It was at the start of March 2013 that I started a completely new job in a completely unfamiliar industry
Prior to this, I worked for 17 years in the fitness industry. From aerobics instructing to personal training to coordinating all fitness areas of a local government-run fitness centre. I loved my career thanks to my passion for maintaining a functional body, being able to participate in activities with others that have such positive results, and working with like-minded people thanks to the fact the fitness industry generally attracts positive people.
But the time had come to end my fitness career. I decided that my body had had enough of having to exercise when it really didn’t feel like it, and, when the local government-run fitness centre I worked at shut down, I decided I did not want to work at a privately owned fitness centre because I had no desire to involve myself with the pushy sales tactics.
Having no idea where I wanted to go with my career I took on a job offered to me by a friend who, with his business partner, owned an asbestos air monitoring company.
My Work Life Took A Major 180-degree Change.
February 28th 2013 was my last day working a job that was reasonably predictable with March 1st 2013 being my first day working what I believe is one of the most unpredictable jobs anyone could ever have.
- I went from having a set roster, set appointment and fitness class times, a regular income which was paid into my account on a set day every week, and a fixed workplace to the complete opposite. My bosses would send me to jobs located anywhere from 5 – 500km’s away on any given day or night, I didn’t know my hours of work until 6 pm the night before (and that was if I was given any work at all), and I had no idea when I’d get paid and when I did it was by cheque because my bosses didn’t even trust each other.
- I went from working for people who were highly organised to working for bosses who seemed completely unorganised with their lack of organisation considerably affecting not only my work schedule but fellow sub-contractors schedules as well. After a lot of discussions with many other contractors, I also learned I had gone from an organisation that prioritised fair treatment of workers to a private industry where a lot of bosses treated their workers quite poorly.
- I went from an industry where everything ran on time to having to deal with contractors who could be up to two hours late arriving at a job – not to mention the number of hours they could be late in completing a job -It didn’t take me long to discover how much I really loathed having to wait around for people.
- I went from an industry which involved a lot of consideration and communication to one that seemed to me to be completely inconsiderate, lacked appropriate communication, and had a “dog eat dog” approach to business.
- I went from having set hours of work to being so on-call that planning anything became impossible unless I was willing to risk losing work – to the point of not being able to plan important appointments. The asbestos industry runs 24/7 and the risk of being thrown jobs at the last minute and at any time of the 24 hour day was always high.
The amount of anxiousness I felt was like nothing I had ever experienced in my adult life before. It even had me, a 40 plus-year-old woman, in tears many times, but, without knowing what else I wanted to do with my life, and without having any other qualifications outside of the fitness industry, I had to just “suck it up” and push through my (as much as I do not like using the word) hatred of the job. This job was the first ever adult experience I’d ever have in my life where I used that H.A.T.E word.
However, I understand everything happens for our greater good and I am now thankful for the important lessons and personal growth this job has provided me with which I needed to move forward in life.
Lesson 1: Overcoming my fear of lack with regards to money
There were many times during the first year or two of starting my new job where at 6 pm I’d find out I had no work the next day. For the first year or so of working my new job, I found it quite stressful not to get work as I had financial obligations that needed to be met. There were some weeks I’d barely earn enough to buy groceries that were needed. I ended up stressing myself out on my days off rather than simply enjoying my free time.
Thankfully after about 18 months, I learned to love my days off. I became thankful for them, so much so, that I often wished I had days off rather than work a job I really disliked. My fear of not earning the income I needed was replaced with a knowing that whatever money I needed would be provided to me, and it was. I have now reached a point where my “affirmation” is, ” I love feeling relaxed about money”, and I am grateful for being able to feel relaxed about money, especially when I decide to buy things purely for desire and not from necessity.
Lesson 2: I learned I am actually highly motivated
I remember my days in the fitness industry where I thought about what type of career I would take on once my fitness days were over and the concept of working from home did surface a few times. However, I dismissed the idea thinking I would not be motivated enough because I was the type of person who needed to “go somewhere” to work. I was like that with my own exercise training. I needed to go to a gym to exercise so why wouldn’t I be like that with work.
However, having being assigned many days off from my new job, I found myself achieving many other things around my home. I learned what a “do-er” I am and that I’m not the kind of person to just sit around. I needed to achieve things during my days off.
Lesson 3: Discovering a love for outdoor exercise
Working in a gym meant free membership so all my training was done indoors. People asked me if I trained outside and I’d always comment on the fact that I could never see myself doing it as I didn’t want to have to deal with varying weather conditions, especially rain or extreme heat.
A lack of cash and the amount of travel my job involved motivated me to start running and cycling outdoors. These forms of exercises are relatively cheap (no membership fees involved) and are also highly transportable meaning I could run or cycle anywhere I had to work.
As soon as I started exercising outdoors I really enjoyed it, even when the weather wasn’t the best. During the extremely hot days, I’d get up at 4 am which, as much as the thought of it was tough, the experience was always invigorating and made for a motivated day. As far as the rain and winter cold weather was concerned, I just had to buy appropriate training clothes
Now, I do not believe I could ever train inside a gym again. The closest I get is the weight training I do at home.
Lesson 4: Re-discovering an old passion
The great thing about working an unfulfilling job is that it gets you thinking more about what it is you enjoy doing. I reached some pretty low points working my asbestos air monitoring job, where I started to wonder what I had to live for. I do not have children, my family is quite minimal and, to be honest with you, I’m quite the loner so having a job that provided me with little to no joy made things tough.
But I always knew my dream and that was to live on some property outside of the city so I could own a couple of horses and do what I did when I was younger, hang out with horses and ride. Or was it? Maybe it was just a childhood fantasy.
I wasn’t sure what I really wanted anymore so I decided to explore my childhood dream by taking up horse riding lessons. I loved riding as a young child up until the age of about 21, but I questioned if I would like it now. Perhaps my memory of riding and hanging out with horses was better than actually doing it now.
But no, it wasn’t just the memory of it. I absolutely loved it. My first riding lesson gave me a sense of coming home, and it does every time I go. I went form 30 min fortnightly lessons to 1 hour weekly lessons and last year I took 10 days off work and had a riding lesson every second day.
Not only did I discover my joy, but I also realised that my dream was still very much my dream.
Lesson 5: Emotions act as a guidance system
I have done a lot of personal mindset work on myself. In fact, one of the first things I did once I realized how much I disliked the job was to purchase a new book all about eliminating “bugs” aka worry, doubt, regret, fear etc from the mind.
I’ve read a lot about how it’s our thoughts that create our feelings so I worked hard to eliminate certain thoughts from my mind so as not to allow my job to get me so upset at times.
However, there were certain scenarios where I just could not. I remember a couple of scenarios where I became so angry I even scared myself. I had never in my adult life reached such extreme anger.
I’ve learned that sometimes emotions come first, before the thought.
Emotions are there to guide us.
Emotions can teach us what it is we need to move away from.
As much as I worked on my mindset to not allow work to affect me so badly, I decided to accept the fact that if a job has such a negative effect on your state of being, all the mindset work in the world won’t change it and I had to work towards pursuing a job where I would feel good.
Lesson 6: Discovering how I’d love to earn income
Once you know what you don’t like, you can then define what you do like. I realised:
I have a strong desire to work for myself.
I need to be able to earn income in a way that enables me to schedule my day so I can prioritise the things that are important to me and schedule my work areas around that. Yep, I need to take back control of my days.
I want full responsibility for what I attract to my business. Even if that means attracting some negativity, at least I know it was caused by me and not someone else’s state of mind. I can work on myself but not anyone else.
I want to be able to earn a good income working part-time hours.
It’s time to work from home. I know I have the motivation and considering the fact I want to live out of the city to experience my childhood dream, I know I’d prefer to use the typical work commuting time to do more important things like riding my horses.
These conditions seemed impossible to attain – but then I was made aware of the income earning potential of the internet
Putting what I’d learned about myself into action
If it wasn’t for my current job, I would never have discovered how I want to earn income or the fact I had the qualities to earn income in the way I wanted to. I would also not have discovered my “why”.
What is a “why”
It is a strong reason to continue on a new path in order to achieve something very important to you.
Thanks to the experiences my asbestos air monitoring job has given me I was able to make the decision to, once again, take a complete 180-degree turn to follow a completely new path – a new path to start an online business.
Not an easy feat starting your own business, let alone having to learn completely new skills.
But, thanks to having my “why” I am taking the steps I need to continually move forward.
Motto Of The Story
It’s true, it does take being in pain to make important life changes.
If not for my unfulfilling job I would have not learned some very important things about myself nor gained enough trust in the process to let go of limiting beliefs.
My Advise
Thanks to my experience I can honestly advise anyone else who’s in a similar predicament as me to:
- Start focusing on what you do like and do so for every aspect of your life
- Learn as much about yourself as you possibly can. One of the greatest things we can do to move forward in life is to “know thine self”. It’s impossible to know what you really want when you do not know what you do not want. Appreciate being shown what you do not want as it will enable you to “turn it around”.
- Trust that you will be shown a path that will help create the necessary changes you need. The Universe does have your back.
Have you had enough of feeling as though your job has taken over your life? Would you like to work towards feeling like you have some actual control of your day and what you do with it… so that you can move towards a life with more fulfilment that allows you to do the things you know are more important to you – just like I did?
Allow me to share with you a free On-Demand Workshop series where you will meet one of my mentors, Stu, who will share with you some education about starting an online business in the digital economy.
Click the link below and you will be taken to my website, where you can provide your name and email so that I can send you the video training and you can receive the information you need to find out if it’s a fit for you.
Don’t worry, if you have any questions, I am here for you. Just reply to any of the emails I send with your question. If you do not see my reply in your inbox, please check your junk mail.
Here’s that link:
Yes please, I want some information about starting my own online business!