Reflection and Realization
Eighteen months ago, I found myself waking on a Monday morning with nowhere to be, nowhere to go and a day stretching out before me with no idea what I was going to do. I was on six months’ garden leave with no job to go to.
For over four decades, the alarm was set every evening, and the following day, I would be filled with meetings, juggling my time, managing a team, and clients requiring my attention. You know that feeling. Getting through the day, collapsing at home at night, juggling the family and home and a satisfying glass of wine to reward me for getting through the day.
Yet here I was on a Monday morning, for the first time in my corporate career, with no one demanding my time or my energy. It should have felt expansive, yet it felt completely foreign. I’ve built successful teams and businesses, and then sold them. My life had been built around striving, getting through the day, with the illusion of becoming successful as my goal.
Understanding Success
Success, what does that mean to most of us?
From a young age, we are encouraged to want the big house, wonderful holidays, the nice car on the drive, designer handbags and shoes. These become the measure of our success. The more we work hard, the more we are rewarded, the bigger the salary, the promotion, the bigger the deal.
I’ve spent all of my working life working incredibly hard because I believed it was expected of me to be successful. Yet now I know that this isn’t true success.
Key Question: Who Am I?
On that bleak morning in January, I had to ask myself: Who am I without the title, the salary, and the enormous list of to-dos?
I had space to feel and space to think, and truthfully, I had no idea who I was.
Transformation Over Six Months
Over the next six months, that space allowed me to finally understand how I had repeatedly burned myself out by giving my energy away freely. Losing myself constantly, whether that was proving my worth and value in the boardroom, or that I could apply myself so that I was needed, which equalled value to me. Every decision and action I took was meant to prove to everyone else how I was valued.
Action Step: Recognize Patterns
– With space, I began to realize that I had repeatedly looked outside of myself for validation.
– I had attached my value to what people thought of me, whether that be my seniors, my colleagues or my loved ones.
– I realized that being needed or valued had become a large part of my identity.
Once I saw this, I couldn’t unsee it, and this is what changed my life.
Exploring Inner Self
I realized that I constantly said yes when I longed to say no. How often I put other people’s and businesses’ needs before my own, and how those decisions were physically and emotionally draining me.
The space forced me to look at areas of myself that I had ignored for many years.
Somewhere along the way, I had lost myself. It wasn’t just other people who were treating me poorly, but me as well.
None of the changes I made came easily.
Some days were incredibly uncomfortable, and I didn’t know who I was becoming. It was a process. The patterns and behaviours I’d worked so hard at were what was keeping me stuck.
I took each day as an opportunity to explore and be curious about myself. They weren’t dramatic changes, but small changes each day. I learnt to notice my patterns, pause, and choose a different way.
Action Step: Listen to Your Body
– Sometimes that meant saying no when previously I would have said yes.
– I learnt to listen to my body when it was tired or needed to rest.
– It was learning to trust my inner voice, which I had been so expert at ignoring.
Finding Joy
I found joy.
Before, when I asked, I had no idea what brought me joy. I had happy moments, the holidays that finished too soon, my family, the new dress that I felt fabulous in, but I had no idea what brought me joy.
Joy is not fleeting; it is a permanent state of happiness and pleasure. It’s something that lives and breathes within you, and I learned what this meant to me.
– I follow joy in everything I do, both in business and in my daily life.
– I play silly games with the grandchildren.
– I craft.
Self-Acceptance
I can sit in a field and be.
I can accept that compliment.
I can look in the mirror and say I love you and truly mean it.
I trust myself to love myself for who I am, for who I have been and who I have become.
I did not implode my life.
My success is no longer measured by my title or my salary.
Now it is knowing who I am, and trusting the life I have built to thrive.
Name: Tina Pennycuick
Professional Title: Founder, Thrive & Co
Bio: Business advisor, coach, and author, Tina Pennycuick, helps successful people find the space to think differently and gain clarity through practical business insights, observing unhealthy patterns in energy and behaviour. She helps leaders rediscover themselves so that they and their businesses can truly thrive.
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