Choose your hard

‘Write’ originally meant to carve. To mark. To leave your trace.

I get asked if I find writing hard, if I get bored.

I don’t, I love it. Writing is one of those rare activities I can find myself getting lost in.

I do it because it helps me make sense of the hards.

When I share my writing, it’s in the hope something that may make a mark with someone else. Hoping it meets them where they are.

And like the word, it is rooted in the need for connection.

Honestly, this has been a particular need during this time I’ve not been in corporate work.

I’ve spent my entire adult life with an omnipresent supply of other humans, in the same industry, environment, project or trenches of the job role. And in the past I craved the phone not to ring, no email or WhatsApp pings.

A week without Teams meetings seemed the greatest gift of all.

However this has not been an adjustment I’ve succeeded in loving.

When people ask how it’s going, or what I’m up to, the surface answer is easy - the book, meetings, yoga, wonderful coaching clients.

All true.

And what is also true is that this part is hard.

It’s hard to pivot your sense of value as not coming from how busy your diary is.

It’s hard to be advised to niche down… be more specific about the job description, title, or ideal client you want, when you pride yourself on being a generalist.

And it’s hard to not have the daily validation that you are having an impact because you get to show up somewhere daily and try.

It’s hard to realise that the framework you’ve been using to prop up your identity in the past isn’t there anymore.

We get to choose our hards though.

Perhaps you recognise it?

Maybe you’re currently in the job search.

Or you’ve lost your desire to learn in your current role and are feeling a little untethered.

Or something is missing.

Or you’re doing well.

At least, that’s what it looks like.

From the outside, things make sense.

You’re capable. You’ve built something.

People rely on you.

And yet…there are moments, usually in the quiet, where something feels slightly off.

Not wrong. Not broken.

Just… not quite it.

You might not say it out loud.

Maybe just over a glass of wine, or in those late-night thoughts when everything slows down.

But it’s there.

That sense of:

Is this it?

Why does this feel harder than it should?

When will I find the next thing?

When do I get to just be, without holding everything together?

That space, the quiet dissonance between how things look and how they feel, is real.

I didn’t write the book for an imaginary reader.

I wrote it for you. For here. (And sometimes to read back to myself.)

If it allows someone to make their mark, in their own unique way, if this leaves even one person feeling a little less alone their own hard, that’s enough.

That’s why I write.

Why I’m not bored with it ✍️…as long as there’s an abundance of coffee and blank space.

And I’m here if your own hard needs a good listening.