Let’s continue with what I started yesterday. If you’ve not read that, then go read that short blog to explain a bit about me 😀
What triggered this?
The last 12 months for me have been a rollercoaster with more downs than ups sadly. In short, I wasn’t happy in my job for a long time and with lots of spare time on my hands with lockdown, I decided to take a huge leap and walk away from my job last year to find a career I enjoy and try and get into my passion of something related to football and something I enjoy doing.
Who are you?
I’m just a everyday Chelsea fan that’s passionate about Chelsea and learning and talking about football. I have been running my Twitter account coming up to nine years next month. In that time, I’ve gone from a fan to slowly gain people's trust and talking to some great people in the Chelsea community that I call friends. I didn’t intend to go from talking to myself to having over 100,000 followers on my account and labeled ‘a big account’ it just happened over time with being myself talking about what I find interesting to me.
Why now?
At the end of the year (2020) I wasn’t having much luck finding any type of opportunity to get my foot in the door in a career in football. Covid and lockdown meant my chances got even smaller than usual. My confidence and mental health started to take a hit from it. I made a New Years' resolution to not spiral out of control and to push myself into new challenges. I need to start to accept I will make mistakes and won’t always be perfect and just give it a go. I hate to go out of my comfort zone and let people down.
What have you done so far in 2021 to push yourself?
After years of asking Alex Goldberg messaging about going on his podcast and me saying it’s not the right time (me making excuses due to nerves), I decided to say yes and commit to a short talk with him about Chelsea first-team younger players. This is something I feel confident that I know that little more than the average first-team Chelsea fan that I could share something new for them to listen to.
We have spoken for years and I comfortable being myself around him. We had a good fun chat talking about what we might talk about in this small podcast beforehand. I was feeling fine and enjoying the chat but as soon as he started to start the intro my mouth went dry and my mind went blank. All I wanted to do was put the phone down and hide. As soon as he asked the first question the problems started The easy things I could talk about with friends or on Twitter so hard. I started to doubt I even knew anything. Luckily I knew he would support me and my nerves that we kept pushing through. Luckily he’s had a lot of practice that he could edit like a pro and cut out a lot of my mistakes and put in all the re-recorded parts. I only agreed to it late so I had no excuse to pull out and only do it cause I wanted to just be extra to someone else podcast so if it all went wrong people weren’t expecting something great from me and be disappointed. Overall I wasn’t great at it but I felt I ticked something off my box that I’m not as fearful of putting myself in such a situation again.
Why Blog?
I’ve wanted to write and gain confidence in my writing but not done it due to my nerves and low confidence in my spelling and punctuation. I enjoy writing about football but I’ve always stuck to Twitter where I can get away with short burst bits of information than putting out something that shows more mistakes.
What’s next?
I’ve spent a good few years thinking, brainstorming what I want to do with my life and it all turning into nothing and me being just as unsure as I was months before. A good few things connected to football I’ve looked into like scouting, being a football agent, player care, running a social media account for a team/player but nothing has gone much further than the usual google searching and asking people in the game for advice. I really want to learn and want to grow. I’ve recently decided to start learning about football analytics. This isn’t for me to get a job in it. First of all, I just want to just learn something new for me that I feel I have grown this year. As you can see I have a problem with getting past the thinking part due to confidence. I know deep down I have a lot to give in the right role but I then worry about not being good enough and don’t even apply for roles I could be good at just for fear of letting people down.
What do you want to do?
For 2021 I want to grow out of my shell and learn new things and hopefully be a step closer to getting my foot in the door in a football-related role. I’ve seen a good few of my friends on social media make their dream a reality. I’m so proud and happy for them but I always wish I had that confidence to do what always pulled me back. I don’t know what that something will be for me yet but I’m open to anything that means I can pay my bills and be happy that I’m doing something I enjoy and hopefully helping someone along the way.
If anyone that reads this has suggestions or advice then I’m all ears.
Thank you for taking the time out of your life to read. It’s not easy to put your insecurities online but I know I’m not the only one that goes through this. I’m strong enough to open up who I am and hopefully grow than hiding away that’s not brought me any success.
💙👊🏼
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