I’ve made some career changes

It turns out I can do it all...

Photo by Alexas_Fotos on Unsplash

After years of juggling my writing and coaching business around my full-time day job, I have finally made a change. Did you hear that? I’ve made a change! My writing is now coming first. The days of getting up before I’ve gone to bed just so I can bash out a few hundred words at the kitchen table before work are over.

From now on, my life is going to look very different. Instead of writing in snatches of time, I can have long days focusing on my creative projects. I’ll have freedom and flexibility. There’ll be time and space to breathe. Less chaos and more calm (although, given my chaotic nature, that might be too much to wish for). And even though I am completely and utterly terrified—because let’s not forget I have a mortgage and a menagerie of animals to pay for, as well as ever-increasing face maintenance costs (not for vanity but so I can leave the house and not be mistaken for a man)—I am optimistic that it’s all going to be fine. Better than fine; this is going to be a success.

It’s been hard to get to this point. I’d go so far as to say, ‘a struggle’ because giving up a good job to chase writing dreams is ridiculous. Except it’s not. Life is short. I realised that at Christmas when I sat next to my father-in-law in his hospital bed, holding his hand as he died. Life is short, fragile, messy, and unfair. It can change in an instant. Following dreams is important, but so is making my monthly mortgage payments and paying the vet bills for my geriatric pets.

I was torn between what my head says (keep the day job—do not throw a grenade into your life) and what my heart says (fuck it, let’s do it). It’s been quite the dilemma, resulting in a lot of heartache and many sleepless nights. I was frazzled from trying to do everything and frustrated that my progress in fulfilling my writing ambitions was painfully slow. And I am ambitious. When I took a personality test last year (for a work thing), I scored 100 percent in the ambition section and shocked the coach I was working with. ‘That’s never happened before,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘No one has ever scored 100 percent.’

But that’s me. Ambitious, driven, and also slightly deluded. It’s not a winning combination because knowing where I wanted to be and not being there, or even moving quickly enough to get there, has not been good for my mental health, general wellbeing and happiness. Understatement, here. At times, I was so frustrated I wanted to scream as loud as I could and bash my head against the door. (I didn’t, of course, because—ahem—I am in control of my emotions and also, I live in a new build house and I’m not sure the walls could take the battering). Interestingly, the personality test also revealed that I valued freedom and felt stifled by working nine to five, which is marvellous to know, but not at all helpful when I was knee deep in a nine to five.

Anyway, I desperately wanted to make a change, but for a while, I dithered. The husband jokingly kept calling me ‘the tortured artist’. ‘Just do it,’ he’d say. ‘Why don’t you just do it? You said you were going to do it? Why haven’t you? JUST. DO. IT.’

He should work for Nike, really.

As well as the tiny problem about having to make a living, I also didn’t particularly want to leave a job I enjoyed. I work in marketing and communications in a creative, fast-paced role, and I love it. I work from home; there’s lots of travelling around the UK too; and my colleagues are so much fun. I’ve worked for enough organisations over the years to know when I’m part of something special. Saying goodbye would be really hard.

I had to do it though, because being a writer means everything to me. I had to try. If not, I would only regret it. So, in early March, the decision made, I asked my colleague if I could have ‘a word’.

‘You’re not leaving, are you?’ she said.

‘Well,’ I said, and then blurted out how I was feeling about juggling my writing with work and how losing my father-in-law had made me reconsider everything.

‘But there’s still so much more to do here,’ she said.

‘I know,’ I said, feeling sad at the thought of goodbye. We were very much a team with lots of creative projects that we wanted to complete.

‘I see you as a friend,’ she said. ‘If you leave, we’d still keep in touch.’

‘I don’t want to leave,’ I said. ‘But I can’t do everything.’ Then, because I am obviously not in control of my emotions, I cried.

My colleague is a trained counsellor—always handy to have around at moments of crisis — so she went straight into counsellor mode, talking about how it was important that I don’t look back on my life with regrets. But also, how grief changes people and how if I left, I’d not only have the grief of losing a loved one but also the grief of losing a job I love, and I should think about that, but also…no regrets.

‘There are options,’ she said.

And while I’d assumed that I had to make a choice between writing and my job, she said that part-time was an option. I could leave, or go part time, and think about the hours that would work for me to allow enough time for my writing.

I took a week off work to think it through and then, with the support of my colleagues, who were very much in the ‘we can make this work’ mindset, reduced my working days to just two a week. So, as of the beginning of May, I’m working Mondays and Tuesdays with the day job, then the rest of the week is all about my writing and coaching business.

Another colleague called me to say she was really excited for me but pleased I was staying. ‘You’re really special,’ she said. ‘In a good way, and impossible to replace.’ So obviously, that made me cry a bit more, but not before I’d shouted to the husband. ‘Chris, did you hear that? I’m really special—in a good way!’

‘Really special,’ he called back.

I work with the best people. Not only do they work hard, have a can-do attitude, and get things done, but they’re also really fun. When we get together, we laugh such a lot. There’s always a singalong too, and we’ll belt out Will Young’s ‘Leave Right Now’, or any of Westlife’s back catalogue. I think my colleague wanted me to stick around so we could add to our repertoire.

So, I am. I’m grateful I didn’t have to choose between writing and my job. It turns out that I can do both. So, not much has changed, and yet everything has.

I’m adjusting to my new routine, planning my writing projects and which cafes I will write in (because my writing future will definitely involve tea and cake). It’s exciting and frightening (the future, not the tea and cake), but making this change is the right thing to do. I wonder what might be possible now that I have more time.

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I’m Liz Champion, a writer from Yorkshire, who likes nothing more than belting out a bit of Westlife on a work night out. I’ve written three books—all collections of creative nonfiction. My latest, Before Work and at Weekends, is out now.