I’m naturally a restless person. When lockdown started I felt a sense of dread. The quiet, the routine, the well – smallness of my life hit me like a truck. I’d also recently been made redundant from a large real estate firm in early February. When I was made redundant I’d felt a sense of relief. I knew I wasn’t brave enough to jack in a well-paid, safe job but I also knew I had lost my mojo going into a corporate office every day and wasn’t feeling fulfilled. The redundancy took the decision out of my hands and I was grateful.
As most PA’s know, working as an assistant can be stressful, due to having too much to do or equally not enough to do. My last job fell into the latter category. It had made me lazy and complacent. I had begun to accept mediocrity and it was spreading to all areas of my life.
The rest of February was spent pottering about at home and visiting Portugal for a juice retreat. I had a reasonably generous redundancy package and savings in the bank. I’ll focus on getting a new role properly in March I thought to myself.
March came and well you know the rest…
Now what.
Jobs had seemingly dried up and I was drawn unwillingly into a world which consisted of webinars, supermarket visits and daytime TV. Living on my own, I paced around my flat feeling unsettled, angry and lonely.
One day I signed up for a webinar on what it was like to be a VA on Miss Jones. It intrigued and inspired me. Here was someone who had turned a situation around to their advantage and was running a successful business on their terms. They weren’t rolling rich with it but were earning a comfortable salary and more importantly thriving.
I started looking into doing something myself and taking control back of my life.
I realised that when you start looking at things differently and when you create space, opportunities arise and options appear. But it also became clear it was going to require commitment, tenacity and courage. I was going to have to dig deep.
And so Parsons Green PA was born offering luxury lifestyle management. I knew I didn’t want to do the diary planning, the filing, the expenses and so on of the traditional PA. I wanted to do the personal admin and the household tasks that I enjoyed doing in my own life and that I got a kick out of when I did them for bosses in the past. Why not focus on what I enjoyed and what I was good at. That sounded fun to me. Helping busy professional people have the lifestyle that they want rather than the one they feel they need to lead.
It is very early days but just setting it up has given me confidence and introduced me to people that I wouldn’t have met otherwise. Building a website, writing a business plan, getting flyers printed, connecting with local businesses and posting on social media has given me clarity of thought and renewed purpose.
Who knows what the future will bring but I feel excited by it.
And more importantly I am enjoying the present.
Genevieve Collett www.parsonsgreenpa.com
