Fireside

As I have been collecting my thoughts ahead of writing this review of 2021, that well-worn, never-quite-attributed quote keeps coming to mind: you overestimate what you can do in a day, and underestimate what you can do in a year. That really feels like the story of my 2021 – not much happened, but so much happened. This time last year I was at the bottom of a very dark hole, so much so, you may remember, I couldn’t even write a proper year review. It feels mind blowing to now be in a new home, free, in the wide open air; I am so glad that my hole-dwelling self raised from her depths a resilient persistence to get us here. And yet, this also feels like the year I didn’t really do much. But let’s see if that’s case when I tell the story of 2021.

Q4 is always a bit of a strange one because there is this push/pull between “making the most of the end of the year” and also hitting November and thinking “well that’s the year done”. Even as the product businesses shout at me that the year is very much not done, I do feel that no matter your business, by the time you get to November there’s a sense of “getting through December” and thinking forwards to plans for the next year. This is not a time for starting, it feels, but a time for culminating and looking ahead. So today I thought I’d speak to this a little bit, and give you some ideas to shape your thinking.

I wanted to talk about this topic today because it’s a common barrier to doing what you want with your life: other people. It doesn’t matter how certain you are about what you want and where you want to go, other people always have the potential to derail or deflate your plans; and when you’re not certain, not confident, then they can stop you from even considering it. As with so much, this is a difficult topic to generalise, depending as it does on our own relationships with others, our personalities, our tics in relating and how we’ve been socialised. But my hope with this episode is to draw attention to this barrier, suggest a few tools, so that you may feel slightly more equipped when you come up against it.

Today I am back with Cait, and as we promised in our last conversation, today we’re wrestling with the question of how to rebuild confidence. As with all great conversations, this took us to many different places, and uncovered things we didn’t even really know were there. So we talked about commitments to self and to others, self betrayal, self sabotage, the difference between confidence and trust, and came out with perhaps more questions than answers. But isn’t that the way of life?

Today I am back answering your questions following the mindset Q&A episode a few weeks ago. Today’s questions are more practical, about sticking with your path, redirecting your career, choosing which ideas to follow, figuring out what you want and simplifying rather than being stuck in the busy trap.

This week I’m sharing my next conversation with Sasha. It’s a little earlier than planned, because I have been moving house this week. This week was definitely not the time to be recording a new solo show, so I’m bringing this conversation forward. Earlier in the month, Sasha sent me an article about time millionaires, that we decided that we should talk about in the podcast. So on this episode we talk about how we’re valuing our time, productivity vs leisure, and the dreaded screen time.

Hello, today you are meeting my final guest co-host Syreeta. In this conversation we moved from relating in person and online and what the ramifications of the last year are on how we do that, and how we’ve both dealt with a winter in our work and the awareness that you are the same human at work that is dealing with a lot in life.

In this episode we discuss being in our bodies, and living as a part of nature rather than outside of it. There’s a lot of internals and externals in this conversation, as well as some lovely truths as well.

Today is the first Q&A episode of the new iteration of the podcast, and I have to say that everyone who submitted questions via Instagram knocked it out of the park. Your questions were so thoughtful and piercing, and it has been a wonderful challenge, and also a joy, to put this episode together. Your questions were also so numerous that I’ve had to split them into two episodes - your more practical, efficient work-y questions will come another day, but today is all about mindset and the emotional experience of this thing.

Hello! Today I am back with another co-host this week, and sharing the first chat with Cait. We had a big old catch up about what we're even doing with work at the moment, and something that seemed to be a big topic for us was experiencing a huge disappointment in work, and how that affects...well, everything. Cait is always so open and honest and today is no different.

Hello, welcome back to Grow With Soul, thank you for coming back, it is very much appreciated. It is just me again today and today’s episode I think follows along nicely from last week’s episode with Sasha, probably because this was all stewing and condensing in my mind since that conversation. We spoke a lot about the career ladders and following growth trajectories without even really interrogating them, and this episode is kinda the next step from that - what do you fill the vacuum with that’s left behind when you stop chasing a growth you don’t even want?