The goalposts are meant to move
It’s been five years since I started Humble Phoenix and much has changed in the world and my own life. So, I felt like it was time for a retrospective! I wanted to reflect on what this journey has taught me and how I've landed where both I and the business are at now. No help from ChatGPT, just my raw thoughts and the lessons I've learned.
Putting these thoughts down on paper has been tricky and honestly I’ve spent a long time procrastinating and delaying, stopping and starting ... avoiding.
Acknowledging where I’ve been successful and (more commonly) unsuccessful is not something that comes super naturally to me (at least on paper - the self-talk is something else!). I’m more likely to be moving into the next phase than looking back.
But I know how valuable reflecting back can be. And it did show me the lessons I’ve learned and the ways I’ve grown over the last five years.
This is the first of a three-part series of those reflections …
Lesson 1: The goalposts are meant to move
I started a business, left my steady-income job, then a pandemic hit, and we were all locked in our homes. We all had to pivot and rethink how we lived our lives amid incredible (dare I say unprecedented in our lifetimes) fear and uncertainty.
While I had assumed that I would be offering in-person Reiki healing and training and started planning for that, I could no longer work that way.
I had NOT planned to offer online meditation and Reiki sessions. But like so many others I had little choice but to ride the wave, embrace the Zoom, and move in that direction. Thus, the Reiki Meditation membership was born! Taking the lead from my own teachers and others I saw on social media, I too worked out how to offer my services online, which will continue to be an option even as I prepare an in-person healing space again this year.
Starting a business was something I’d always thought I would do ever since those playground shops and cafes we opened and the game ‘architect & secretary’ I created with my friend at weekends.
There was a period when I wanted to open a recipe book shop/café (I’m sure someone has done that now!). I’ve had the idea of a consulting & healing centre that specifically supported graduate practitioners and new businesses, which honestly, I still think is a great idea! For a while now my long-term plan has been to open a retreat centre.
But when something is an idea, we can underestimate what it takes to bring it to life, what it actually looks like and will ask of you. In a solo/micro business like mine, you must be a little bit of everything – marketing, accounting, admin, strategy, tech support – as well as do the thing your business does. It’s a lot!
I’ll never know whether bringing Humble Phoenix to life during 2020 and in the post-Covid years was harder because of all we had to go through. Let’s be real, it was always going to be an uphill climb starting something from scratch. But I do know that I’m grateful that I got to participate in the NEIS program and that the Job Seeker Covid Supplement gave me an income I would not have had otherwise.
I’m grateful to have had those months at home to reset, rewire, and ultimately rest. By about September 2020 I realised that this would be / had already been the career break I needed. My nervous system was shot to pieces, I wasn’t managing my energy, I couldn’t see a way to be and do all the things I wanted. So, by stripping everything back I could restart a new kind of life that was exactly what I needed.
I did end up returning to the professional workforce in early 2021, initially just dipping my toes in but gradually fully recommitting to and embracing that part of me. While it sometimes takes up more time and energy than I’d like – and has taken me away from Humble Phoenix over the last couple of years – I’m grateful for the income, the routine and the ability to work in a team on interesting projects.
The other big shift in my life has been to go back to renting after 11 years of owning my home. There are pros and cons to both, and it was big goal of mine to have that security of owning and knowing I was ‘on the ladder’. Achieving that goal was one of the most significant moments of my life and one I will never regret, no matter how hard the end of that period became.
But it’s also a story we tell ourselves – that owning is inherently better than renting. I’m sure you could substitute any number of things for those two options – eating meat vs vegetarian; comedy vs drama; working for yourself vs someone else.
It was a wonderful experience … until it wasn’t. It was something I wanted … until it wasn’t. It’s something I wouldn’t change … except for the last 12 months.
Having now sold, moved and settled into my new home (with space to have clients come to me here!), I feel content and at peace. People have regularly commented that I look as though a weight has been lifted from my shoulders, that I seem happier than I have for a while. And it’s true! In a similar way to when I bought a one-way ticket to the UK at 21, I feel like I can both reinvent myself and bring with me the best parts of my old life.
So don’t be afraid to shift the goalposts once you’ve achieved that target, when that thing you’d set your sights on no longer feels right or something better has emerged.
I’m in a phase of “in between” right now – between what was and what will be.
Sometimes that feels like a dark, uncomfortable void space. Sometimes if feels full of possibilities. Sometimes I just feel a little numb. And all those things can be true at the same time. All of them are valid and real.
Underneath it all though, I feel like I have physical and emotional space to set some new intentions and goals and nothing feels impossible.
Lesson 2 is waiting for you here.
Stay tuned for the third and final lesson 3!
Photo by Utsman Media on Unsplash