Be your own best lottery ticket and bet on yourself
“I am my own best lottery ticket so I invested in myself”
(Reece Witherspoon, actress and successful businesswoman)
I love this often repeated message from Reece Witherspoon, actress and businesswoman promoting the work of women in film and books by running her own production company despite having been repeatedly told it would never work.
Of course, not many of us have the financial resources that Reece started with and perhaps our dreams are much smaller than setting up a film production company - or not! But we are all still our own best lottery ticket and ‘investing’ in ourselves doesn’t have to mean just finances. Perhaps you want to:
Spend more time doing something you love but it means giving up something else
Learn something new but are fearful of beginning or of what people might think
Enrol to study something you missed out on when younger
Make a change at home or work but don’t know where to start – like setting boundaries at work so you can spend more time with your family
Set up your own small business or a side-line
Do something to impact on the world - charity, social change or activism
Write a novel/blog/poems/paint...whatever your creative dream is
Big or small, change comes with a level of trepidation but if this dream or plan is important to you, here’s the thing...
Nobody else is going to do it for you!
The phone is not going to magically ring with someone offering you the perfect opportunity
There is never likely to be the perfect time
Change takes energy and commitment
Nobody cares about it as much as you do!
So, investing in yourself is about more than money. It’s about giving yourself the permission to devote time, energy and commitment to make stuff happen. It’s working out what is important to you and focusing on that. Knowing where you want to get to means you can plan out a route map to take you in that direction. The road may be winding with a few ring roads or wrong turns but if you know your direction you can reset your course to get back on track.
There is also bravery involved as every change usually means letting go of something else. That something may be your usual way of doing things or those pesky limiting beliefs that hold you back. This is often not a quick fix. It involves some soul searching and changing mindset takes deep work, perhaps with a coach.
Many of us live our lives with that nagging feeling that there is something missing or something else that you want to do – maybe we feel we are lacking a sense of purpose. That word ‘purpose’ can seem a bit fluffy and vague. I personally link purpose is with feelings of excitement. When I am feeling excited about something I am doing, reading or seeing, that is not a random feeling. It is usually because it is linked to something really important to me and my values – my purpose.
Perhaps you could link it to the opposite of excitement - when you notice yourself feeling frustrated, angry or helpless, this is often an indication that something is very important to you and you want to do something about it. Our feelings are a great indicator of what we value.
A personal example
I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy all my employed roles and I’ve learned lots from all of them, meeting some amazing people along the way. However, during the pandemic, when my role started to shift away from its original purpose, like many people I started to question whether I was doing what I really wanted to do.
I stumbled across a series of live webinars, hosted by the local Institute of Directors and led by Tracey Forsyth, a ‘super coach’ in the UK. She led us through a series of exercises linked to purpose and having gone through the process, I wrote in big letters in my notebook, underlined in red– I AM IN THE WRONG JOB.
Once this thought was out of pandora’s box, I couldn’t put it back in. Part of the exercise had also been around what excites us or brings us joy. For me this was:
Encouraging and motivating others to reach their potential
Studying and learning, learning, learning and then sharing that knowledge
Writing – I had always wanted to write a novel (haven’t we all?)
Planning adventures
Wildlife conservation
I wanted rewarding and impactful work that made the most of my skills and abilities and paid the bills but which also offered me the autonomy and flexibility I craved to explore other interests. What the end destination is will be different for all of us depending on where we are in our lives but for me, the world of self employment beckoned.
Another 18 months passed with a lot of thinking, plotting, planning and talking myself in and out of making the changes. If I had invested in a coach, it might not have taken me that long! Having been employed by others for about 40 years, going solo felt like a daunting prospect and I had to talk myself through many feelings of impostership. In the end though, I was more excited than scared and I knew nothing would change if I didn’t bet on myself and invest in myself. I took the plunge and committed myself to making this work.
Now, another two years down the line I am:
A qualified coach with the ICF incorporating certifications that include coaching outdoors and using physical intelligence
Starting my third year as a self-employed coach and facilitator encouraging and supporting others just like me who want to make a change to identify their own route maps and follow them
Supporting busy and time poor professionals to manage feelings of overwhelm, take some control and fall back in love with their work
Carving out a day a week to write that murder mystery novel – and yes I am doing it and totally loving it!
Planning and going on adventures for as long as the world still lets me and writing travel blogs published by the Company I travel with the most
The next step will be to consider how to incorporate wildlife conservation into my life but it will happen because it is important to me so I will make it so.
If I’ve made that sound easy...well it wasn’t but it also was. It wasn’t because it took a lot of planning, soul searching, commitment and intention along with a couple of occasions when I woke at 4am after resigning feeling panicky and wondering what on earth I had done! I have had to learn how to live with uncertainty and the ups and down of self employment.
But it was easy because I knew where I wanted to get to and why I wanted to get there. I was always excited about the possibilities and I was doing something for myself by myself (but of course with the support of others). And so I can tell you that, although it sounds like a cliché...
“On the other side of fear lies opportunity”
So, my invitation to you this month is to ask yourself...
What do you feel excited about?
or
What do you feel angry/frustrated/helpless about?
Notice that feeling. Pay attention to it. Use that awareness as an inner compass to move you closer to what you want to do, however big or small, and who you want to be.
And then, bet on yourself because you are your own best lottery ticket.
If you want an objective thinking partner to help you work out how to get past the fear and toward opportunity, then get in touch on flamingoplm2022@gmail.com