As with any job it would be naive to think that all days will be good days. It took me a long time to work out that the job that I was doing previously was giving me less and less satisfaction and, if I'm honest, encouraged me to spend more time than I should have in continuing, and to put less and less effort into it. I had been inspired when I started on the road to becoming an area manager in the pub trade and benefitted from working with some incredible people, many of whom I am fortunate to still call friend.
In hindsight there were numerous other reasons for this trajectory as my personal life was in perhaps even more disarray than my professional one and trust me when I say that that's saying quite a bit!
Suffice it to say that it was a risk in leaving the UK and heading to Chiang Mai to take the CELTA. It could have amounted to an intense month spent learning the disciplines of the EFL teacher but with nothing at the end of it, or even worse the discovery that teaching was as equally demoralising as working in the pub/restaurant trade.
The CELTA was as tough as I'd been led to believe but I can unequivocally confirm that it, and the following 6 years that have brought me to where I am now, have been some of the best years of my entire life. Sure there have still been good days and bad days, there always will be, but even the bad days aren't all bad, are they?
Today has been one of those mixed days but the way it started was just the warmest justification for why I chose this new path. I arrived to find this photo on my desk and signed by the students on the back. Somehow puts everything else into perspective.
I was once told that if you have a bad day, write it down and it becomes the benchmark for all future bad days. If ever a day is worse than the one that you wrote down, that replaces your previous benchmark. I can heartily recommend this to anyone struggling for perspective and who wants to enjoy each day as much as they can...
In hindsight there were numerous other reasons for this trajectory as my personal life was in perhaps even more disarray than my professional one and trust me when I say that that's saying quite a bit!
Suffice it to say that it was a risk in leaving the UK and heading to Chiang Mai to take the CELTA. It could have amounted to an intense month spent learning the disciplines of the EFL teacher but with nothing at the end of it, or even worse the discovery that teaching was as equally demoralising as working in the pub/restaurant trade.
The CELTA was as tough as I'd been led to believe but I can unequivocally confirm that it, and the following 6 years that have brought me to where I am now, have been some of the best years of my entire life. Sure there have still been good days and bad days, there always will be, but even the bad days aren't all bad, are they?
Today has been one of those mixed days but the way it started was just the warmest justification for why I chose this new path. I arrived to find this photo on my desk and signed by the students on the back. Somehow puts everything else into perspective.
I was once told that if you have a bad day, write it down and it becomes the benchmark for all future bad days. If ever a day is worse than the one that you wrote down, that replaces your previous benchmark. I can heartily recommend this to anyone struggling for perspective and who wants to enjoy each day as much as they can...
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