I used to spend days like these crying on a bus to work. Grey, rainy January mornings on the way to somewhere I didn't want to go. Dreading the day and the week ahead, and asking myself "is this really IT?"
I felt so trapped - and not just because we were stuck in a traffic jam with about eight other number 73 buses, fighting our way through London's Kings Cross.
I was stuck in a career and life that wasn't one I felt I'd chosen, but that I'd somehow landed in, and I had no idea how to change.
So many of us spend our one precious life stuck in a jam in the rain - a miserable commute, travelling to an office that feels more like a prison where we spend the majority of our daylight hours doing unfulfilling work.
But it doesn't have to be that way. Now more than ever before, we have the power to design a work life that works for us and the life we want to lead. Or as Lizzie Penny and Alex Hirst coin it in their new book - our 'workstyle'.
Nowadays, on days like today, I can curl up on the sofa with a cup of tea and a whole packet of chocolate digestives (this is why I don't diet in Jan...)
I have the freedom to choose when and how I work.
I don't have to put any makeup on or even change out of my tracky bottoms if I don't want to (yes, today is one of those days!)
I do work that gives me a deep, deep sense of meaning and purpose. And I get to help others find theirs too.
"Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake…" Francis Bacon.
Photo by Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash