Go your own way

As you can imagine when we made the decision to pack away our passports and stick around in Melbourne it was a very big one for us. But we’d satisfied our urge to see the world for now and were craving the benefits of being stay-putters (a home, real life friends, more than one pair of shoes…)

So here we are four months in already and while we certainly have more routines to stick to and responsibilities to juggle that sense of freedom has firmly remained. We may have traded long, lazy days at the beach for a more hectic pace of urban life but so far we’ve stuck to living life on our terms and choosing how we spend our days.

We’ve discovered that freedom doesn’t have to mean a backpack and a one-way ticket to somewhere exotic. Freedom can be working on what you love, when you want and where you want. Freedom can be as simple as having the time to spend with your family, friends and loved ones when you choose to.

In our former London life, we both climbed the corporate ladder and held full-on jobs, with big teams and senior positions. After almost two decades (gulp) we choose to cut our careers off in their prime and trade it in all in for a simpler life. Sure, we could have stayed, we could’ve climbed higher, earned more money and chased bigger fish.

But, it was all consuming. Juggling the 9-5 (more like the 8-8), looming deadlines, stress, and the constant guilt of running to the nursery to pick up the last child there. We just couldn’t sit at our desks any longer missing out on the important stuff and paying somebody else to bring up our children.

As well as this, there has always been a constant niggling voice telling us to start our own business. For years, we’ve dreamt of working for ourselves. We just some time out to come up with ‘the idea’; the unique thing that would blend our backgrounds and bring out the best of us both.

So now we are doing it. Steve and I at smithfielddigital.com.au one website, one Facebook post at a time.

Right now it’s working for us. We can manage our own time. Right now it’s good, and we’re feeling happy, fulfilled, inspired and hopeful. Of course, we have our off days, the days when one of us can be heard huffing and puffing and muttering about going off and finding a proper job. But then we remind ourselves if we spend the next ten years working for someone else, one day we’ll wake up at the ripe old age of (insert unthinkable number here) and be jealous of all the people that got off their backsides and did it.

This new road is about two things. It is about us. Building a family life here in Melbourne on our terms, a life that makes us happy. It’s also about having the courage and willpower to back ourselves. Rising above the inevitable concerns and knock backs and staying true to doing what you want to do.

We’d massively appreciate your support getting off the ground so please help us by spreading the word, giving us a “like” or having a poke around on the site – we’d welcome your feedback.

We’re ready to go and can support businesses around the corner or across the globe! Here’s to Smithfield Digital, ditching the 9-5 and building our future together here in Melbourne.