My story
Let me start by saying to you that on paper; my CV looked good. Great grades, but I had never really excelled at anything at school academically. The one thing I always wanted to do was (become an actress or perform on Broadway) I was quickly shut down when a) I realized I couldn’t sing and well that and b) everyone told me it wasn’t realistic and hard to make it big and yadda yadda yadda…you know what I am saying. I kept being told I would need a ‘back up’ in case I never made it. What they really meant was: ‘Don’t even think about, you will NEVER make it’ Those were my first experiences of total and utter dream squashing at it’s finest. I had no desire to enter into the corporate rat race even though it seemed that is what all my peers wanted to do. I flirted with the idea of every profession that ‘sounded’ good just so I could say I was a … blah blah blah… just so my parents would be proud of me.
But truly none of it lit me up. I felt frustrated and confused and lacked direction.
So what do you do as an early twenty something-year-old who has no bloody clue of what she wants to do…you escape by travelling and becoming a holiday rep so you can forget that the real world exists!
So off I went abroad for 6 amazing and hard years in Greece and Ibiza and relentlessly worked my way to the promotion I had always dreamt off. I managed the largest resort in Ibiza as a Holiday Rep as a resort controller. This is where I met the love of my life and baby daddy: Richard. Then out the blue after being offered another big promotion, I found out I was pregnant! I was over the moon as my BIGGEST dream had always been to be a mum but I was petrified. What job could I?
The career I had worked so hard for would come to a sudden halt. I was back to square one and this time I had another human to look after and no job.
I got my first job in the UK in years and kept my pregnancy a secret so that they would employ me. The next 8 months that unfolded were horrific. My manager treated me horribly and I’d spend most days in a mix of hormone induced floor of tears. I had been bullied throughout my school years and it was soul-destroying but to be bullied as a 26-year-old felt somewhat worse. I had suffered from a long bout of anxiety growing up brought on by the deep-rooted belief that I wasn’t good enough. I had never quite made the cut for anything. Not the sports teams, the main part in the play or even the cool girls group at school. I found it hard to make close friends and always felt this uncomfortable feeling like I never fit in. I was anxious in my relationship (with my now husband) and my job was killing me emotionally and mentally but I couldn’t leave.
I needed the money and nobody would take on a pregnant woman. I then went into labour 4 weeks early.
I know you have heard it once and you will hear it again but having a baby changed my life. When Layla was born in 2012, I felt, for the first time that I belonged. Like I had a purpose in my life. I had never felt love like this and had the wholehearted urge to be at home with her but I also wanted to be successful.
I had always had an ambitious spark and being a stay at home mum would have never cut it. I wanted BOTH. I tried to start a few businesses during my maternity leave with her and gave up on all of it. I ended having to go back to the job I didn’t like. Why? Because I was good at it and it would pay the bills and I was promised a new manager and she was great. However, each day as I would leave Layla at nursery, I would cry. It was heartbreaking and she hated being away from me and I hated being away from her.
I sat in my car one day and prayed… PLEASE help me get out of this. This is not how I wanted my life to be.
I became obsessed with reading books on personal development and making money and by chance, I came across coaching. I remember every hair on my body rising in the excitement that I had found the ‘thing’ that I wanted to do. I found a course and started at university a few months later.
In the meanwhile, I had got pregnant again and the doom of a budgeting maternity leave was over me.
One day an email landed in my inbox that I could not shake off. It talked about how to build an online business from your home. The stories of the money that these people were creating excited me. THIS is what I had been looking for!!! So at this point, I was working 40 hours a week in a demanding job, looking after a toddler who still did not sleep through the night, studying at University and now trying to learn how to build an online business in the spare hours I had. Oh and I was 7 months pregnant and started to get contractions.
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