Pam Molyneux SmartPA®

Pam Molyneux

It’s National Work Life Week 11th - 15th October – an annual campaign run to get employers and employees talking about wellbeing.

Iqualified as a Corporate Wellness Coach in August 2021, a recent qualification to represent the 25 years of working in corporate HR supporting managers and staff to be the best version of themselves – now I focus my efforts with business owners.

But what does that even mean, being the best version of yourself?

Well for me I found that out the hard way a few years ago when I hit a wall – a wall of shear exhaustion. I was in the security bubble of working in a corporate setting so it was all good, I had a manager watching out for me, I was surrounded by policies and protocols that would help me.

Not true in my case I am afraid. I accept responsibility that I am in charge of my wellbeing now but at the time, felt compelled to just do that extra work, to just answer those emails that dropped in the inbox overnight. That was the crazy illusion I was telling myself and, in the end, it caught up with me – after a concentrated couple of years of working ridiculous 15 plus hours per day, travelling the length and breadth of the country, dealing with stressful people management issues every day.

After two weeks of just being able to get out of bed to take the kids to school, to then crawl back into bed until pick up, get them dinner, have some kind of evening and in bed at the time they went, a voice screamed at me saying is this it – is this what you have worked so hard for, is this what your legacy is going to be.

I was lucky, thankfully I found the strength from somewhere and with the support of my family, to go that bit further one day and I joined the gym and built myself up - swimming, yoga, going on the running machine.

Physically and mentally, it was a battle – building confidence again, working through those inner voices of guilt, shame, feeling a failure. But I got there, after nine weeks, I returned to work and vowed never to go there again and thankfully haven’t, but it takes work, it takes regular daily reminders of what I have achieved and that it is ok to have a pile of other stuff that still needs sorting.

So, my plea to you as a business owner, as a manager in charge of staff, as a member of staff - reflect on your working practices, take stock of what your contribution is in comparison to what your work life balance is and walk away regularly!

If you ever need to talk, lets grab a brew – please remember, you are never alone. Solver of distractions to keep business owners focused on their business with SmartPA E @pammolyneuxsmartpa D www.smart-pa.com N 07977 459177