Episode 1: Best to Start at the Beginning.

I woke up one morning last week with a banging headache. Except it wasn’t morning, it had slipped into the afternoon and I was late to get the train back to Bristol. It was the 1st of January 2018 and I had spent the weekend hiking muddy paths and sitting by a roaring cottage fire with my closest friends eating cheese and playing Absolute Balderdash. I couldn’t want for more. Except for, of course, an answer to the general underlying discontentment I felt with all aspects of my life.

Simple right?

Thinking back, my existential crisis started last October when I was enjoying a glass of wine at a monthly goal setting event with my woman’s support group. I thought about talking about my recent holiday to Australia and how it had helped me to reach my fitness goal, or how I had reached my goal of redecorating my house when suddenly I blurted out: ‘I’m not enjoying my job!’.

I suppose it’s not uncommon for people to fall out of love with their jobs, but you see I didn’t think that I had. In fact, I thought I loved my job. What was even more unnerving was the response from my group, ‘Thank goodness! We’ve been waiting for you to realise that for ages.’

Oh. Was I the only one who didn’t know?

This is the day my mission really started. A mission to work out what I really wanted, what was my purpose? My values? And well, I was surprised to find that I wanted to change almost everything, but let’s get to that later.

After a couple of months of reflection and asking other people how they found their purpose and what they felt their values were, I gave myself the challenge of working this all out during my 2 weeks of Christmas leave, except I didn’t have any eureka moments. Until I got the train home that is….