The Pretty Muddy event in Rother Valley.
Once again it’s been a really busy year – we find ourselves more often than not saying “We just don’t know where this year has gone!” in much the same way we did the year before. It seems that we are so focused on doing the doing that we have lost sight of all that is around us.
I don’t want this blog to be negative, we’re having a great year. We’ve been involved in some amazing projects and have some fantastic news to announce (watch this space) but I can’t help thinking that I need a new challenge.
For the last – nearly – eight years we have had Open; we have focused on building a reputation, delivering results and staying true to our values. That, thankfully, hasn’t changed and we are still the straight-talking agency we set out to be.
What has changed since then however is that we now have an enviable, and if I do say so myself, fabulous list of clients that we are very proud to work with, we have a growing team (please pass on details to anyone you know who is looking for their first or next role in PR) and we have plans to make our office space more bright and vibrant.
So, what is it that we don’t have? Well, it’s not so much what ‘we’ don’t have but what I feel that I have lost. Somewhere in the last eight years, I have forgotten that I need to focus some of my time on me.
Selfish, I know. But I have realised that both professionally and personally I have lost my way. That isn’t to say my work has suffered, far from it, but it has become my priority and my only focus.
I’m not sure when it became apparent; there wasn’t so much a lightbulb moment as much as a number of discussions, passing comments and a niggling doubt in the back of my mind that I was doing something wrong and that something had to shift.
And so, I have put a plan into action.
Here’s a really quick list of things that I am going to do and have committed to achieving before the end of the summer:
- Join a gym – I’ve been going for about 3 months now and really enjoy it. I find it a release and it gives me space to think and re-group. Plus, the added bonus is that I should lose some weight. What I need to do is keep it up.
- Lose some weight – I’m not so much cuddly as noticeably overweight and so that has to be addressed. I have never been fat but am very aware that I need to sort myself out and stop using excuses to make myself feel better.
- Read business books – I went through a phase of buying a number of books that I intended to read but never did. After reading a clients debut book on networking recently (Making a Splash by Rashmi Dube) I realised that I either get on with it or I take them to the charity shop. I’m getting on with it.
- Take time out for the business – I was at a new business meeting and was asked ‘Why don’t you put your own good advice into practice?’. I had no answer, other than I focus entirely on clients as a priority. Not really good enough to be honest and so I’m going to start to blog again and give some time to Open.
That’s it for now. There are a few other personal things that I have also challenged myself with and hope that by the end of the summer I will be able to set some new goals, but for now, I’ve enough to be getting on with.
I appreciate some people scale Ben Nevis and others climb Mount Kilimanjaro but for me, I’m going to start with something a little more realistic.
I know already that there are going to be times when, just like with New Year’s Resolutions, I wish I hadn’t bothered, but I am also aware of the feeling that I get when I have achieved something I set out to do.
I’m on a mission and I intend to see it through.