A weekly newsletter and podcast on career and financial resilience for working women. The HR insider view on growing your value, knowing your numbers and building options outside your job.
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I imagined this vision of the farm
Published 21 days ago • 3 min read
I imagined this vision of the farm
What a quiet morning in the UK showed me about looking back, and why I stopped waiting for a job to look after me.
I'm writing this from a hotel in the UK.
This week's podcast was recorded in the hotel bathroom. It was the only quiet room. My son was out in the room on his laptop with his friends, and I had about 15 minutes.
That's what this season looks like. He starts university next week. My younger one starts next year.
Before the city, we spent a few days in the countryside. A cottage on a farm, right by the coast.
Every morning I do the same thing. I make coffee, open my journal, and write a few notes for the day.
One morning I looked up from the page and out the window. I saw fields and nothing but green. It was so quiet.
The view from our cottage window
I took a photo. I didn't think much of it.
A few days later I was scrolling back through my photos and stopped on that one.
Years ago, I used to picture exactly this - sitting in a cottage somewhere with a coffee, writing, and looking out at green fields.
In my head it was Austria. Or Switzerland. It turned out to be the UK. Fine by me.
I was sitting inside the thing I'd pictured, and I almost didn't notice.
What it made me realize
I'm always looking at the next goal. I hit one, and the next one shows up. So it always feels like I'm not quite there yet.
Not reaching the next goal doesn't cancel out the ones I've already reached.
When I started, I had one salary and a lot of worry. How will I pay the bills? What happens if this job disappears overnight?
So I made a decision. I didn't want to feel that stressed about money again. And I didn't want one job to be the only thing my family depended on.
Over the years, slowly, other income came in. Rental income. Freelance work. Coaching and programmes. Recently, a paid workshop.
Almost all of it came from skills I built in HR and leadership facilitation.
I still work full-time. I still have a salary. I'm not sitting back, and I don't plan to. I enjoy this too much.
That photo reminded me to stop and count what's already here.
The bigger lesson - your career is an asset
Something else shifted along the way.
When I had to think about earning outside my salary, I started to see my career differently. It stopped being a job someone gives me and became an asset I own.
When you own an asset, you look after it. You look for ways to grow it. You ask how to get the best return from it.
I don't wait for an employer to look after me anymore. There's no such thing as a job for life. When the numbers need to look better, people costs are often the first thing cut. Then companies hire again when they need to.
I don't love it. But that's how work works right now. I'm not the person who's going to fix that. I'd rather adapt to it and do well inside it.
So I think about my career the old-fashioned way. Someone has a problem. They'll pay to have it solved. I can solve it. A deal gets made.
I think about income outside my job the same way. Is there a problem people will pay for? And does the pay lead to the life I actually want?
Some work pays, but not enough to be worth my limited time and energy. That second question matters as much as the first.
One action for you this week
This week, find 10 quiet minutes.
Write down one thing you have right now that you once only imagined. It can be small. A skill. A bit of income on the side. A morning routine. A conversation you used to be too nervous to have.
Then look at it for a minute before you move on to the next goal.
You're probably further along than it feels.
Tell me
If you connected with this, you're probably who I write for.
Hit reply and tell me what you're building right now. I read every reply.
Sharon
On the podcast this week
I say more about this on the podcast this week - recorded in a hotel bathroom here in the UK!
Cluster HR Business Partner & Talent Development · 30 years inside the rooms where career decisions are made · Helping women build career and financial resilience
A weekly newsletter and podcast on career and financial resilience for working women. The HR insider view on growing your value, knowing your numbers and building options outside your job.
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