Weeknotes - Leaving The Comfort Zone

What kind of utter muppet leaves their comfort zone? It's comfortable! That's the whole flipping point!

If someone said "do you want to stay on the comfy sofa or would you rather change over to a really painful chair?" - how would you reply?

The Department of Health and Social Care have stolen me away from my old job.

I loved my role at GDS. I worked with brilliant people - and after two years I nearly knew everyone's names! Now I'm thrown in the deep end and I have to keep muttering my new colleagues' names under my breath lest I forget them. I've already forgotten most of them.

I now have a BLA (Big List of Acronyms) because PIH (People In Healthcare) like to MTS (Make Things Shorter) for NDR (No Discernable Reason).

I don't know where my desk is, I have to choose a new favourite place to get lunch, my commute has changed. Everything has changed. Everything is different AND I HATE IT!

This is absolutely what is necessary for me.

I'm not going to write some LinkedIn-thought-leader bollocks about how "the only constant is change."

But...

Adapting to new situations is a fundamentally important part of being a modern human. The world isn't like it was in my childhood - and the pace of change is only going to get faster.

It wasn't that I'd gotten complacent and lazy in my old role. In fact, I think I was doing the best work of my career. But I could feel myself getting too blasé. At one point I even heard myself say "We tried that a couple of years ago and it didn't work..."

Gaining mastery over one's domain is commendable. But, for me, I know once I've solved the puzzle, I quickly lose interest. I found that I was repeating myself a little too often and falling back on clichés. I didn't want to end up resenting my job and my employers simply because I was frustrated with myself.

So, when I was offered "Cake or Death" I chose the less comfortable option. And as I spend another evening frantically reading policy papers and learning a brand new way of working, I am simultaneously kicking myself for leaving a cushty gig and patting myself on the back for taking a leap into the unknown.

Onwards!