I’m not really sure where I’m going with this post but it’s early in the morning in what I think is the 10th (??) week of lockdown and I’m feeling….. I guess I’m feeling grateful.
This strange situation we all find ourselves in has given everyone an opportunity, whether we want it or not, to look at our lives. Some people have been able to do that whilst learning a new language, drinking coffee and spending hours in the garden or on online exercise groups. Others (myself included) have had to do it at break neck speed, trying to manage a business or a job whilst also coping with the trials and tribulations of having kids ripped away from their friends, locked in with siblings and parents and attempting to get at least some of their day spent doing something useful.
Whatever your lockdown experience, the chances are, it’s involved a little bit of fear, whether that’s about health implications, emotional repercussions or financial difficulties. And I’m no different. As student landlords, if our tenants had followed the student union advice and just stopped paying, we would have been in serious, possibly life changing trouble. If the universities had decided to go 100% remote learning for the next academic year, well, sleepless nights and contingency plans amany around that one.
As I type, most of the tenants are paying and the universities we rely on have announced an on campus return in September but here’s the thing. Even if they hadn’t, even if we had reached the brink of financial ruin and had to change path (because we would not have gone over, there is always another route to take) I AM GRATEFUL FOR THE LIFE CHOICES THAT LED ME HERE. I am pleased that a few years back we took the plunge and quit our jobs to make property our full-time work. To make us our own boss.
Financially, we are in a solid situation. There are definitely many people with more money but that’s not our aim; financially, we are were we want to be. Because our reason for making this change to our life was not about money, it is built into the company name; WSE. It stands for Will, Sophie, Evie; our three fabulously feral kids. Our decision to become our own boss was largely driven by the knowledge that we always wanted the ability for one, or both of us to be at the school gates at the end of the day to pick them up. That if there was a school assembly we didn’t want to ask anyone’s permission to go. We don’t want to count our days off and “run out” of holiday time. We want to live our adult life as adults where our choices are ours.
I can feel I’m starting to bang on a bit now so I’m going to try to get back to what led me to start this post…..
As lockdown eases, we’re all looking at how we come out the other side and return to “normal”. We’re personally looking at how to diversify our income so we’re never again so impacted by the decisions of others. Many are wondering how they’re going to cope with long commutes, with working to someone else’s timetable, with dressing to other people’s rules. How many are wondering if there’s another option?
Some people look at us and say we’re lucky to have the life we have.
WE ARE NOT LUCKY.
We are where our choices have led us. We weren’t given any money to get going. We had no great business mentor in our life we grew up watching. We have no inspirational talent that led to easy financial success. What we had at the start of all this is the same as what we have now, the same thing you have. We had choices,
YOU have choices.
I remember a conversation with my best friend a few years back where she said she wished she could have done what we’d done. I asked her why she couldn’t… was it because she had too many small children to be able to focus on building a business (no, of course not, her kids are older than mine), was it that she had no access to any form of capital (no, mortgage deliberately low so equity in house), was it that she just wasn’t smart enough? (NOOOO).
The truth was, she just didn’t believe; she wasn’t willing to take the step. She didn’t really want it.
There are often obstacles in life that stop us from achieving our goals. The biggest obstacle is simply our self-belief. The only way to achieve anything is to make the choice to do it. Once you’ve made that choice, there is no going back. You just keep going until you find a route that works. If you’re crossing the road and there’s a car parked, you don’t give up crossing, you just go round the car, or over it, or you find a different place to cross, you build a bridge, but you never ever just stop on the wrong side of the road.
So, if you’re thinking that you don’t want to return to the life you had before, that there’s a better option for you, then make the decision to find it. You don’t need to know how you’re going to make that change, you don’t need to know what you’re going to do, but you do need to 100% commit and act on that commitment. And I’m not saying you need to run out and quit your job whilst you work it out kamikaze style – if you’re crossing that road simply running into the traffic is not your best option. Just know that you are capable, that you are, and always will be, where your choices lead you.
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