Playing the long game….

For those of you that follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you will know that 5 weeks ago we packed up our recently renovated 1930’s end of terrace in SE London and moved lock, stock and barrel to an Edwardian semi in the beautiful Cotswold market town of Minchinhampton just outside of Stroud.

To many of our friends & family it appeared that this was a spontaneous decision and it happened very quickly. What I can tell you is that my husband and I had been planning for this for about 7 years! We actually purchased our SE London house for its development potential, we never loved it, it was never going to be our dream home, purely because of it’s location. Both my husband and I are from the West Country, I am originally from Cornwall and hubs is from Somerset, so we always knew we would head back west one day we just didn’t realise we would end up living in London for nearly 17 years.

Living in London was amazing for us, we build the most amazing network of friends, it gave us both fantastic career opportunities, we’ve travelled, managed to get onto the property ladder and our 3 boys were all born there. However, there has always been something nagging at both of us, that calling to the open spaces, fresh air, healthier lifestyle and that calling got louder with the birth of each of our boys.

I began the year of 2018 by returning to work after maternity leave with my youngest son. Whilst I really enjoyed my job, loved the company I worked for and my colleagues, I felt restless, I was rapidly approaching 40 and I hadn’t achieved some of the things I knew I still wanted to do, I hadn’t explored my full potential, so the research & planning started.

I don’t know whether you believe in fate, coincidence, the power of manifestation or any of that other woo-woo stuff, all I do know is that something shifted in my mindset and things started to happen.

In March 2018 I started working with my amazing business coach Ruth Kudzi through her ‘Accelerate Your Success’ (AYS) programme, I started the programme with just a few seemingly random ideas but she helped me gain clarity & see that I had the beginnings of a business plan. An added bonus to joining AYS was that I met the most amazing group of inspiring women that I am now privileged to call friends. These women have been a game changer for me, I didn’t realise how important it is to surround yourself with like-minded people, to have people around you that get it! We are all small business owners at various different stages, we cheer each other on,

motivate & support one another, offer advice, bounce ideas around and they make me laugh, there is always someone available if I need it.

At the beginning of AYS I had to set myself some 12 month goals, we then reverse engineered and mapped out where I then needed to be in 6 months & then 90 days in order to get closer to making those 12 month goals happen.

Fast forward to today in March 2019 and my life has completely changed beyond all recognition. I am typing this blog post sat at my kitchen table in my new house where I can hear the birds singing. Minchinhampton common is a 5 minute walk away and I am literally living my dream life working for myself as a freelance surface pattern designer and I am also coaching other creatives to help kickstart & cultivate their own creative lives & careers.

If I can do it, you can do it too. It’s all about playing the long game, have your dreams, set your long term goals and then start reverse engineering to break things down into smaller chunks in order to make it happen.

For those of you that follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you will know that 5 weeks ago we packed up our recently renovated 1930’s end of terrace in SE London and moved lock, stock and barrel to an Edwardian semi in the beautiful Cotswold market town of Minchinhampton just outside of Stroud.

To many of our friends & family it appeared that this was a spontaneous decision and it happened very quickly. What I can tell you is that my husband and I had been planning for this for about 7 years! We actually purchased our SE London house for its development potential, we never loved it, it was never going to be our dream home, purely because of it’s location. Both my husband and I are from the West Country, I am originally from Cornwall and hubs is from Somerset, so we always knew we would head back west one day we just didn’t realise we would end up living in London for nearly 17 years.

Living in London was amazing for us, we build the most amazing network of friends, it gave us both fantastic career opportunities, we’ve travelled, managed to get onto the property ladder and our 3 boys were all born there. However, there has always been something nagging at both of us, that calling to the open spaces, fresh air, healthier lifestyle and that calling got louder with the birth of each of our boys.

I began the year of 2018 by returning to work after maternity leave with my youngest son. Whilst I really enjoyed my job, loved the company I worked for and my colleagues, I felt restless, I was rapidly approaching 40 and I hadn’t achieved some of the things I knew I still wanted to do, I hadn’t explored my full potential, so the research & planning started.

I don’t know whether you believe in fate, coincidence, the power of manifestation or any of that other woo-woo stuff, all I do know is that something shifted in my mindset and things started to happen.

In March 2018 I started working with my amazing business coach Ruth Kudzi through her ‘Accelerate Your Success’ (AYS) programme, I started the programme with just a few seemingly random ideas but she helped me gain clarity & see that I had the beginnings of a business plan. An added bonus to joining AYS was that I met the most amazing group of inspiring women that I am now privileged to call friends. These women have been a game changer for me, I didn’t realise how important it is to surround yourself with like-minded people, to have people around you that get it! We are all small business owners at various different stages, we cheer each other on, motivate & support one another, offer advice, bounce ideas around and they make me laugh, there is always someone available if I need it.

At the beginning of AYS I had to set myself some 12 month goals, we then reverse engineered and mapped out where I then needed to be in 6 months & then 90 days in order to get closer to making those 12 month goals happen.

Fast forward to today in March 2019 and my life has completely changed beyond all recognition. I am typing this blog post sat at my kitchen table in my new house where I can hear the birds singing. Minchinhampton common is a 5 minute walk away and I am literally living my dream life working for myself as a freelance surface pattern designer and I am also coaching other creatives to help kickstart & cultivate their own creative lives & careers.

If I can do it, you can do it too. It’s all about playing the long game, have your dreams, set your long term goals and then start reverse engineering to break things down into smaller chunks in order to make it happen.

What one thing could you do today to get you one step closer to your dreams?

If you are a creative minded person and you are interested in finding out more about how I could help you to set long term goals and reverse engineering them to help you make them happen, please get in touch.

You can either drop me an email here alternatively you can find me on Facebook here or you can join my Facebook group here where I regularly share coaching tips & advice.