June, 2016.
with pictures...
It’s June 2016 and I’m in a stark, impressive office in Paris’s Left Bank.
Sitting next to me is my boss – the editor in chief of a key UK magazine – beside him, two other members of our team. We arrived from London on the Eurostar last night and leave tomorrow evening, and, in this time, won’t see much of the city.
It’s mostly the inside of boardrooms, interspersed with the inside of the sleek, black towncar that’s ferrying us between back-to-back meetings with the advertising clients that fund our publication. These guys are important; without them we would have no magazine at all.
This is our last meeting of the day and it’s with one of the biggest luxury fashion brands in the world. The women and men sitting across from us are doing it justice – it seems “must appear intimidatingly expensive” is the first pre-requisite on any job application to work here.
I feel scruffy in comparison and am a bit jittery from too much coffee But the meeting seems to be going well – they’ve agreed to advertise with us, which is great news. After all, if we lost advertisers, I’d probably lose my job. Not because my boss is horrible (he’s actually great), but because budgets are tight and my position as Features Director – the one I’d been working towards for the best part of a decade – would be first to go if cuts were required. So, in theory, I should be feeling happy.
And yet, I don’t.
Not about the fact that they are advertising – I’m thrilled for the magazine. I just don’t seem to care so much about my own place in all this anymore.
For my entire career I’d worked towards ‘editor’ or ‘editor in chief’ of a magazine. That had been my ultimate goal. But now, as that ambition began to look attainable, it no longer felt like what I wanted.
I loved my colleagues, my boss, the work itself and the creativity of the industry, but much like the too-tight, towering heels I’d watched the French PR hobble down her winding office stairs in, my job didn’t fit me. It did once, but not anymore…
A painful breakup had brought life into sharp focus; what mattered to me now at 32 was so different from when I’d started out at 23. I’d had enough of the perpetual stress, total exhaustion, competitive busyness and constant comparison (much of it, I must note, self-inflicted).
I was done with the travel, late nights, freebies, shows, openings, parties and the like (even though most of them were as much fun as they sound). I adored culture, fashion and art (still do!) but I didn’t want to peddle it anymore. And, while I’d recovered from the eating disorders and depression that had plagued my life for fifteen years, I could increasingly see that a job in the fashion-world, which prizes thinness above all else, was not the best place for me. My priorities had changed, I’d changed, it was time for a change.
So, I did what any normal person would do – bored my closest friends to death about wanting to leave for 18 months before actually doing it!
But, in that time I did prepare my exit… I’ve practiced yoga since my early teens, and an experience at an ashram in India in 2012 had helped me finally overcome my mental health struggles (FYI: not the only thing that helped, many things led to my recovery, medication and therapy among them) so I’d known for some time that I wanted to go back there to train as a yoga teacher myself.
In late 2016, my boss (thank you Rankin!) graciously gave me time off to do so, and that’s what set me on the path for what I do today...
After that first training I doubled down on the thought-repatterning and mindset aspects of yoga that had facilitated my own recovery, seeking out courses that offered more of the same. I became interested (read: obsessed) with answering the question: how can I better navigate the unbridled chaos that is modern life? I discovered coaching – immediately connecting with its forward-thinking approach, as well as how it aligned with and built upon the mindfulness and mindset trainings I’d already done. And then, not long after that, as the pandemic hit, I became convinced that priorities was the best framework for it all.
Almost 10 years since I completely changed my life.
Almost 10 years of gathering tools and models and thoughts to write this book.
And if you’ve ever had that feeling – that the life you’ve built no longer quite fits – this is exactly why I wrote it.
Because figuring out what truly matters to us, and having the clarity to act on it, isn’t something most of us are ever taught.
That’s what this book is for.
It’s everything I wish I’d had when I was sitting in that room in Paris. And everything I‘m glad I have now when I feel stressed or overwhelmed or frazzled by the reality of being a person trying to do their best in this world.
2 days to launch.
If you’d like to be one of the first to read it, you can order it here.
Thank you, as always, for being here. I’m so grateful.
Love,
Lil x
