“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Nelson Mandela
Starting somewhere
I’m in my soon-to-be late thirties in a very different place than I expected. A few burnouts, several mental health crises, and some diagnoses. Now I have been in what I considered my dream job for over 1.5 years, including a relapse, but the sheen is coming off. I don’t have a clear transformational journey worth going on eg promotion aspirations, in the medium term. The conversation with my 21-24year old self would be a tough one on goals, objectives, and methods. If only I could have shown them the damage to mental health and long-term well-being.
Anyway, I started casting around for a renewed purpose for two reasons. Thanks “How to begin” and previous coaching material helped me clarify that I want to
- Provide a rewarding sense of purpose in what I do and why I do it – my entire life cannot be powerpoint slides, reading and sleeping
- Set off on an endeavour that provides the non-work red lines, and helps me grow (stretch objective: helps others)
As soon as I worked through the coaching books, a thought without a thinker came to me – write a book! Everyone has one in them, right? Why not start here? I have friends who have written books, so if they can I can. Awesome, so what should the book be about? How do I find time to write it, do I really know what I want to say..? All these considerations made me rethink. Maybe to get to a book I should practice actually writing and researching the topic, instead of some badly formed concept of a project I’ll never be able to share with people.
Sizing the mental health elephant
So where better to start than with the wider call to action I now feel, in crafting a blog. I am especially thankful to those who reviewed my original “shitty draft concept” messages. So briefly put, we know there is a mental health crisis in the UK and many other developed nations. For example, over 12m people are on anti-depressants in the UK.
Mental health management is hard when neurotypical never mind more malignant mindsets and problems. Mood, diet, hydration, light, sleep, eating, movement, exercise, social circle, support network. There is so much to consider and how to actually operationalise it in your life can be hugely daunting. The UK crisis of care sees so many people just processed with no proper post-GP interventions or therapies, if this cannot change then more people to share more resources and stories to help others on their journey.
Bringing that thread with an urge to share my stories for selfish reasons (catharsis, confrontation of issues, then improvement), but also with a genuine want to help people who may have been, are going, or are about to fall into the issues and risks I have gone through in my personal and professional life. After all, the stigma of having “mental health problems” is partly self-perceived and I know that feeling very well as you internalise your own shame.
The stigma is real and persists – even if society and non-work people you have relations with have eased over the last 5-10 years, I really do not think things have moved far enough on. Especially with the realities of professional services and their ever-increasing demand on employees’ time. A lot of my peers are now moving into management and senior management position yet are keeping their troubles under wraps, don’t feel they can be their genuine selves, or a whole host of other issues. I would love to have data to substantiate this point, but since few people speak up, that limits the availability of reliable data somewhat. In my head, this is the primary audience I am writing for.
Situation, complication, resolution?
As my ideas and concepts progressed the glory of the widely read and maybe even influential blog, making it on podcasts or even starting my own tried started to creep into trying to structure and make this a reality from scratch – these cannot really be the driving force. The vanities are not enough to look to make a meaningful difference to people who come here, or even just me where writing is therapy too. I need to feel the element of helping and unraveling my own situation too.
So, here we are, end of post 1 – with my purpose laid out better. Clearly, I need to find my writing “voice” I used to have many years ago in Web 1.0 times, but hopefully, I’ve started again the journey with many rewarding milestones on the way.