Falling Off The Ladder

Revamp your mindset and thrive in self-employment

Helen Hill

• Publisher: UnlikelyGenius Ltd
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781919638515
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Desarrollo personal
• Subtopic: Éxito personal

**Shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2022.**

The career ladder isn't for everyone.

Falling Off The Ladder is a mindset manual for those who don't fit the one-size-fits-all workplace culture, who have been pushed out or treated like they are broken, and now want to succeed in self-employment.

In this book, Helen Hill owner of UnlikelyGenius™ Ltd, shares the story of her squiggly career and leap from meltdown inducing employment to thriving in running her own business. She shares tried and tested advice, short activities to help you master the self-employment mindset, and guides you in how to move on from the beliefs and behaviours that are holding you back to create a work-life that works for you.

Falling off the Ladder will challenge you to build your confidence, embrace the freedom and joy in finally being allowed to be yourself and be the ruler of your own empire, with no hustling, 'preneuring or 5 am gym starts in sight.Though there will be bunnies.

Part 3

New Ascent. New Rules.

Now we leave the crappy experiences behind, using them as nothing more than a tool to push you forward. You can tear up the rule book that has controlled your life so far and start to rewrite it your own way.

We can all take a leaf out of Matthew’s approach. “The way I see it, those experiences got me to where I am today. It took me eight years from leaving that toxic workplace to work for myself, but it was worth the wait.”

It can be very daunting to think about restarting. It feels huge. Overwhelming in fact. You are likely to still be feeling a huge range of emotions, from anger, fear, bitterness and confusion, to joy, happiness, relief and excitement. And everything in between. But remember that you are still using your years of experience; you are just going down a new route. One that is not going to be dictated to you.

Sure, there will be moments where you feel lost; tough days and battles to be had. But they will be your battles. You will have control (mostly). You will be making the decisions.

It is such a satisfying feeling when you move on from tough experiences to finally be able to show how you have turned things around, how you are flying on your own. For ex-colleagues to see amazing feedback from your clients (and even some of their competitors) and to see your face pop up in lots of places, to be heavily involved in various areas of the industry and to be asked to speak at events, be on podcasts and to win awards.

It allows you to move on physically and mentally, to get rid of the demons that still haunt you, and to finally see your achievements and successes for yourself. And to show the world them too.

Even if you left your corporate job with a happy skip and fond memories, you may need to deal with a sense of loss. Especially if you were a victim of redundancy or a pandemic throwing the world upside down. Or if you fell into it by accident. Isn’t it still a wonderful feeling to succeed on your own and something you want to celebrate? To show you are a capable human being, that there is a path out there which is perfect for you, that you created.

While you can deal with such emotions when starting out on your next step, recognising and dealing with them as early as possible can help prevent you carrying them on into your next venture (as I did initially) or at least help to diminish their ongoing impact. As I mentioned in the introduction, in my first contract role, I let my fragile state affect relationships and I hid away from the expert status with which I was labelled. If I had been more aware of how to handle the emotions and baggage I was carrying into the role, been more open and asked for help, it would have been much smoother sailing.

It is in part three that you will see the most progress, and hopefully (cheese coming through) find yourself.

You will need to reprogramme your brain and your beliefs about yourself. You will have wobbles, and oh, how you will need to establish boundaries – I am still looking for those damn elusive things a lot of the time. But all this is doable, and in this section we are going to look at this, and much more.

Sometimes you may feel you take one step forward to take three back, but it is all part of your development. We all have shitty days. Don’t let them knock you back down. Learn from the situation, reflect, move on.

And, most importantly, document your journey so you can look back and see how far you have come. Some ideas for how to do this coming up!

In the words of the freelance queen herself, Sophie Cross:

“I think finding your voice and knowing what you’re best at can take a long time and is an ongoing journey. If you see it as that instead of having to make the perfect decision and sticking to it, then it becomes a lot easier. Everything can and will change. Change is the only constant and I take comfort from change.”

Let’s embrace the changes to come.

Take it one step at a time, and enjoy.

Those fizzy feelings

The first thing I want you to do is to celebrate, however that looks for you – drowning yourself in a vat of fizz, shoving your face in a box of fancy chocolates, a dance around the kitchen, a brew and a biscuit, shouting a large “screw you” from the rooftops.

Take time to reflect on the huge step you have taken. Let it sink in. Bask in your glory. Take a deep breath.

Feels good, doesn’t it?

Before we get to the real action, I want to share some tips for how I have celebrated moments throughout the last three years as these will be a great way for you to record your journey as you go it alone.

If you can get into the habit of using some or all of these, it will help you to track your progress, identify your personal and professional development, celebrate milestones and also provide you with great social media content.

Here they are, the five tools in my celebration toolkit.

Little book of epic wins

This is a small notebook that sits on my desk. I record all achievements no matter how big or small. It is a great tool to flick back through and remind yourself of lots of fantastic highs.

I just doodle and scribble things down in coloured pens (I treated myself to some nice new ones purely for this) in a very rough style. There is no refinement and perfection. It doesn’t need it.

You might choose to use a digital document or notebook, or journal it. Find a way that works for you. I like the feel of a physical, tangible object. And, as I say, I bloody love stationery (I actually may have an addiction), so any excuse.

Since I first mentioned this online a few other freelancers in my network have joined me in doing this. It is so nice to see the idea spreading and joy being shared.

If you head to fallingofftheladder.com/blog/little-book-of-epic-wins, you can see some examples of my doodleness and joy.

Social proof folder

This is a folder on my computer which contains official testimonials from clients, as well as screenshots of any lovely comments made via email, social media or online chats – anywhere someone said something about me that was complimentary.

It cannot be understated how powerful these are for helping you to recognise your progress and successes. These are words from other fabulous humans, people that appreciate you and your work, or even just make a lovely comment on one of your social media posts.

It is powerful stuff, especially when you are having a wobble or doubting your existence.

Pro...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Someone greased the rungs!
• Making the Leap. Landing the Fall.
• New Ascent. New Rules.
• Top tips from the contributors
• This is me!
• References
• Recommended resources
• Acknowledgements