Fuck Doing It Right
I’ve never been good at following rules. Well, that’s not strictly true. Throughout my life, breaking rules or doing something wrong has always felt uncomfortable. It’s just that over the last few years I’ve realised just what that discomfort means.
When you stay inside your comfort zone, nothing changes. Throughout human evolution, our comfort zone has existed to protect us. Speaking out against our peers was a death sentence. Being weird meant that there was something wrong with you. Hell, if you were sexually frustrated and overly emotional as a woman before 1980, you could be hospitalised with a hysteria diagnosis. Let’s not talk about the treatments here.
The fact is, if you are avoiding discomfort, nothing has gone wrong. Your brain is doing what it was designed to do - it’s protecting you. And that’s not a bad thing, it’s just a thing.
The issues arise when we avoid that discomfort without thinking about why. When I say that I’ve never been good at following rules, I mean that I have always felt uncomfortable about doing what I should be doing, when I believe that the thing I should be doing is fucking stupid.
For example, I never wanted to attend university. I never had any interest in going into academics, and I had much less interest in working in a corporate office role. I spent a year after finishing school planning to attend circus school instead, though that didn’t really work out. Instead, I went to university, because after a year playing video games in my mother’s house, I accepted that maybe there was a reason that I should. I didn’t do well. I hated writing essays, I struggled to meet deadlines (and by struggled, I mean I didn’t), I had no interest in attending optional lectures. And so I failed module after module. The rules never made sense to me. Why did an institute of learning have to check how much I’d learned, whether I’d learned everything the right way, and whether I made it to class? Why couldn’t they instead focus on whether I was excited to learn? Or let me explore the things I was fascinated in?
But those were the rules, and I thought they were stupid, so I didn’t follow them. For a long time, I took this as a sign that I wouldn’t ever be able to accomplish much. But I did. And I have.
I never worked in corporate. I’ve spent almost fourteen years working in hospitality. I’ve done other jobs here and there, but I’ve primarily worked behind bars, and I’ve loved (almost) every minute of it. I love the people you find in that industry, and the creativity, and the problem solving. I’m drawn to the chaos. When I first decided to start training as a coach, I thought I’d struggle to convince people to hire me because I didn’t do it the right way - I didn’t spend years working my way up the corporate ladder before teaching people how to do the same. I don’t wake up to a green smoothie every morning, and go hiking before sitting down to work. I thought that business meant that I’d be making P+L sheets, and pretending to be a Business Person who uses words like ‘synergy’ and….other business words.
I decided instead to do it my way. To let myself take time. To slow down, and find people that I love working with. I decided not to work with every person that shows up in front of me, just to get paid. I decided to intentionally choose who I would love working with. To slow the fuck down, and talk for at least an hour and a half with each potential client. To do things that make me uncomfortable in a good way. To learn and get curious and explore and try new things. Because I’m not in this just to solve problems and thrive in the chaos - if I wanted that I’d just carry on bartending and leave it at that. I’m in this to build a business that I love. To work with clients that I adore. To have fun, and enjoy every moment. To be open, and willing to be uncertain, but most of all to do it my way.
Often that looks messy. I have a website that is far from polished and professional. Sometimes you can hear my cats shouting at me on zoom calls. My desk is usually covered in post-it notes and mugs. There’s a pile of cardboard in my office from building furniture in there months ago. I sometimes spend a full day watching netflix because I don’t want to do anything else. And that’s okay, because it would be pretty fucking hypocritical if I can’t embrace all of me? The point is, that I’m in this to do something I love. And to help other people learn how to love everything they do. It’s that simple. And if that means breaking the ‘rules’ then so be it. Let’s have fun instead.
