November 2020, A Personal Review
Another mindless ramble as to be expected from myself, however, I wanted to reflect positively on how much I achieved this month when starting back out in freedom after leaving a very constrictive job.
On Friday the 30th of October, I went to the office I had worked at for the full year preceding and handed in my keys and MacBook. To come to this job in international fitness media and marketing, I had dropped Union Jab and agreed to work on no side-projects or jobs during my employment.
I wanted a steady job with a contract and salary so that I could get a mortgage, learn to be more patient, pay off my car, learn office politics and lingo, and learn from who is a very experienced business mentor.
Within 6 months, I had the house and mortgage, had worked on many projects requiring daily monotonous tasks, had settled down and learned how to play the game a little more instead of steamrolling projects as I tend to do, and my mentor had left the company.
I had achieved almost everything I’d wanted to, but still stuck it out for 6 months while I planned what would be my best move, as I was incredibly unhappy, underpaid, and underappreciated in this role – not to mention over controlled in my personal life.
I paid off my car in my final month with the company and left this job on a Friday, and on the following Monday, 30 days ago, I started forklift training for my new position as the garden centre manager at a brand new B&M store.
In this time I also heard back on a proposal to work with the innovative novel food brand Human Food, saying that they would be excited to work together in promoting their products across my new podcast and media ventures with CGR Cooke, including my new bimonthly column writing for the leading specialist dietetics and nutrition magazine Network Health Digest.
On Monday the 9th of October, I walked into what would be my new ‘office’ – a sprawling empty garden centre which I would now be solely responsible for overseeing. Working with the northern GC director and area GC hero, we planned and filled the site ready for opening on the 18th. Many 11hour workdays later, I had done a lot of heavy lifting and learned all the required office-based admin tasks that I would now be responsible for.
In this same time, I was contacted by a representative of Newcastle University Boxing Club. This is a club which did not have any competitive team 3 years ago, and I worked tirelessly to coach and hire a head coach for so that we could make our mark on the sport. This has resulted in the team not only winning many medals and competitions in my absence, but they had since lost their coach and needed a new one. They have come to me and I have gladly accepted to start in the New Year.
In a similar note, I have also been contacted for further personal training work with an individual that I am very excited to work with. As some may know already, I get up 5 mornings a week for early morning sessions and adore seeing their progress, so I’m happy that more are wishing to take the opportunity to improve their health.
At home, I have also started on a home gym to stay in shape with everything being shut, including hanging a punch bag and casting my own weights made from concrete. I have lost 3kg and gotten considerably fitter in this time.
Additionally, this month I decided to take a break from both meat and drinking. This resulted in a much cleaner diet, although also likely contributed to me smoking 3 packs of cigarettes this month despite not smoking for years. Oops.
Perhaps it’s understandable why my previous employer tried to chain me down, as it’s easy to see what I get like when not reigned in… however, I am so unbelievably happy by comparison.
“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.” – Bob Dylan
Does this mean I’m no longer a nutcase and don’t get my bouts of random depression? Absolutely fucking not, but it does mean that I’m back on a path that I am entirely responsible for walking.
I genuinely enjoy helping people and find it to be the missing piece whenever I am lacking fulfilment. This was the drive to return to a customer service driven job, and since opening I have received 3 customer compliments, one of which going through head office and resulting in a card with a note and voucher being sent to store. I didn’t want to put this on my social media stories as I hate looking like someone who shouts about how great they are, but I was made aware that others enjoy seeing others successes.
When I think about it, the only people I follow are those who are almost exclusively positive and I become very happy when they share their victories. I suppose this somewhat effort to explain my intentions of writing this ramble is to try and placate my feelings of bragging and being up ones’ own arse, but it is an attempt to view successes not through my eyes of being simply stepping stones, but something to reflect on in themselves.
I, as I know many others do to, tend to reflect mainly on what I can improve. What can I do better next time in learning from what I did last time. Reflection is a key task that is integral to success in any field, but perhaps we can additionally focus simply on what went well and that be the end of it.
Either way, I’m happy with the month of November 2020 and would like to know how others have got on in achieving their relative success. Please do let me know.
Best,
Charlie
P.S. Some other little jobs I'm also happy with include buying a pressure washer, reorganising my tool shed, laying a bark garden footpath, and fitting a surround sound system in the living room.