4.5 months that will change my life forever

I was driving back this evening, and started looking forward to the end of September. It then struck me just how enormous these next 4.5 months are going to be in my life. I am never a fan of the melodramatic, but I think in this case it is fair to say that these will change my life.

I am by natural character someone who is averse to change. There are lots of things I look back and wish I could have tried such as working abroad (I even went so far as to get a NZ and Australia working visa but ended up just travelling) and even setting up my own company. However, when push comes to shove, I always rely on a catalyst to happen that forces me to change, rather than my driving it myself. If it was down to me, I would just continue to bury my head in the sand. Well, that is all going to change over the next few months, as there are a number of events taking place that I have no control over and will just have to react to. As an example, take the following:

1) Compete in a 70.3 Ironman

This is definitely doable. I have already finished a middle distance triathlon, and I am definitely in better shape now then I was then, so its a big event, but not something that scares me …

2) Compete in (TWO) Ironman distance races

Now that really is turning up the heat. The distances in the half event don’t really worry me, but doubling them up starts to make me terrified. I think any of them in isolation I could get around, but to do them all on the same day … And then to decide not just to enter one but to do two … And the second one is IM Wales which is one of the toughest races on the circuit. OK, now I am really starting to get scared

3) Change job

I started work in 1999, and although my current employer has a different name, this was due to acquisitions. In reality, for the last 16 years I have always been working in the same job. Now, that is all about to change. The current contract where I work expires in September 2015 and cannot be extended. This only leaves me with 3 options:

a) Try and TUPE across to the client

b) Contract to the client

c) Stay with my current employer and end up working anywhere in Europe

Although the first two options are worrying as it means a change of employer, it is still probably more preferable to the last one. I do genuinely enjoy my job, even if it is down to current role more than anything else, but I couldn’t cope at the moment with being sent abroad because of my work/life balance, and that is because of …

4) Have a second child

In September my wife is expecting our second child

So holy crap, that is a lot of change to shoehorn into just a few months. That doesn’t include other events that have to take place as an inevitability of one of the others. For example, having a second child means that we will have to move to larger rented accommodation.

Right, I better go and get some sleep now cos I may not be getting much in the future