Trust The Process

Moving to Australia is something I have spoken about for a long time. Even before my accident and seeing my dad again after 11 years, it is somewhere I wanted to take my profession and continue living the fit and healthy lifestyle I had adopted. I found out it was a long process for English physiotherapists to work in Australia and the year before last, before moving to london, I began the process. I contacted my university and found out when the first exam was.

I moved to london and became a locum physiotherapist. Originally out of necessity. For a number of reasons I had formed not a very good opinion about locums. I had applied and was interviewed for a permanent role at a private hospital in the centre of london. I got it, accepted and was so excited to move up. I was coming to the end of my notice period that I gave my rotational post down in Dorset, started sorting out my belongings and found somewhere to live. Two weeks before moving up and starting my new job, I had a phone call from the therapy department of my new workplace. A very distraught lady let me know that due to a department closing and having to move their current therapists around, they didn't have a job for me any more.

My notice period was coming to the end, I didn't have a job to go to, I had arranged accommodation in london and I had minimised all of my belongings to move it up. I didn't know what to do. I was so upset and panicked. I knew that, unfortunately, the process of applying for and being accepted at a new job in the private sector would take at least a month or so and in the NHS it takes at least three months. My boyfriend at the time, was working in london as a contractor. He suggested that I apply as a contractor, in medical terms a locum, because the process or finding, applying and start date is taken over by a recruiter and all done for you in a matter of weeks. So I got on job search engines, emailed everyone and every company I came across on LinkedIn and hoped for the best.

That same day, a recruitment company contacted me. I spoke in depth with Alice (I spoke about her in a previous blog) I explained my situation and urgency and it went from there. Before you knew it I was travelling to london to meet her and finalise the process and organise a start date.

I had her as my recruiter for the whole year I was in london and everything worked out well. I joined a fitness club that had the friendliest people as members and made some very good friends. Life in London was good. It suited my 100 mile an hour personality.

I got to the right mindset (wrote about this previously). If you weren’t happy about something or wanted something to change, then change it. Only you have the ability to make yourself happy. Nothing is permanent.

Fast forward to getting the best job (wrote about this previously) but falling off a mountain in Austria and sustaining my injury. I can't work as a clinical physiotherapist at the moment because you kind of need to be able to use both arms to do most of the work. It's coming, but at a snail's pace. I have had such a good outcome so far of researching who to see. For instance my neurological consultant, surgeon and physiotherapist Hayley. I feel like I'm not progressing at a pace that I was when I saw her twice a week.

I’ve been really thinking about everything I've gone through and learnt from, people I’ve met and the places I’ve been. This is the first time in my life that I have no plan. That is the hardest thing to admit. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I really am going with the flow. I keep thinking that I need to work to earn money and settle down etc but that is the norm. I just want to run back to the familiarity of the ‘routine’. I need to find out where I belong. Then I will feel good about myself.

You have to trust in the process. If you don’t like the way something is going, change it. Nothing is permanent.