We do not all turn into pumpkins on December 24th

A time of year end chaos and reflection

Everyone, including myself, seems to have a weird sense of urgency that the Christmas countdown means something more than just a date in the diary, broken up with a few nice days off and then back to the daily grind. I think we all just need to chill out.

The end of the year brings a weird time of reflection and I don’t really like it. Maybe that’s why we all go a little bit on one… I can’t speak for everyone else, but for me, I don’t really like it on a personal or professional level. For me those two things are very intertwined. Work-wise, I’ll always think I haven’t achieved enough. And maybe that’s silly as achievement can mean anything you want it to really. It can mean building your confidence in a certain situation, or, it could be turning over millions of pounds. Unfortunately I am quite far away from the latter. Personally, whilst I honestly feel lucky every single day of my life, and I am good at recognising that fact; I don’t want to say ‘blessed’ as that makes me feel a bit blurgh, but I honestly do take a moment pretty much every single day and recognise how lucky I am to have the people around me that I do. Although I feel lucky, I do still always feel a bit down this time of year. I can’t wholeheartedly confirm why. It could be because, like I said, my personal emotions are interlinked with my professional success and so if I feel I am under achieving, and the end of the year shines a bright light on that fact, I maybe won’t feel at my happiest, or, it could also be that my Dad died around new year and so the feelings of despair around that, start to kick in around now. Luckily, I absolutely love Christmas. I am that person that wakes up at 4am and 6am and gets excited on a childlike level. So, that kicks me into touch and then, I can also get back into the start of the year feeling excited for what’s to come.

With this time of reflection, I also keep thinking about what I would do differently if I could have my time again. They say you can’t put an old head on young shoulders and I think the same goes for business. You can’t put all your experiences on your past shoulders as you wouldn’t have lived them yet. So, despite my brain telling me otherwise, that I shouldn’t have done this or that, I’m trying to train myself to feel like I shouldn’t have done anything differently. It’s been and continues to be a steep learning curve and if nothing else, I have achieved that.