So many of us spend our lives complaining about our jobs, they're not fulfilling enough, don't pay enough, clients or colleagues get on your tits, too much work, not enough work, too long hours and anything else we can add in to the list of annoyances.
I'm in the camp where I go through fluctuations, sometimes I love my job, sometimes, well there are other things I'd rather be doing. It tends to be based on how busy I am. If I'm crazy busy I'm happy, if I have time to get bored, my mind has too much time to wander...
One day last year I saw this quote and it really got me thinking:
"For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something." Steve Jobs
With five out of seven days being ones you get up and go to work (over 70%), this really is one of the biggest parts of your life and you have to make sure you can look in that mirror every morning and say 'yes, this is what I want to do, this is what I want to get up for'.
Having been made redundant in the past, I'm so grateful for what a job gives me; the routine, the salary, the talking point, something to get out of bed for in the morning. But the fulfilment, the passion, the excitement needs to be there as well.
And so I took a risk. I knew if I didn't change something then I'd stay looking in that mirror saying 'No'. So I plucked up the courage, which was not an easy thing for me to do, and asked my boss for January off (unpaid) to go and do a yoga teacher training course in India and to then go down to four days a week once I was back to give me the chance to write a blog and start doing some yoga teaching. Two things I'd always wanted to do.
So now I go to bed excited for the next day to come. To get up and go and do my ashtanga practice, which I'm absolutely loving (nothing else has got me out of bed this consistently at 6am in the morning!), teaching friends yoga when I can, starting up some bonafide classes and writing my blog. I have Wednesdays off, which means I only ever work two days in a row and it means I'm actually productive rather than if I took a Friday or Monday off where I'd be running off on lots of long weekends here and there.
Lots of people have said I'm jammy, lots say that they wish they could do the same. And the point of this is I took a risk and had to put myself out there and if you're willing to, you can too. If you're looking in the mirror every morning and wishing things would change, only you can make it happen. Take a risk in life and you never know what could happen.
And to finish off in the words of Steve Jobs;
"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it."