To help you create a different life, not through reckless exits, but through small, intentional steps, taken consistently, until options appear.
January has a way of stripping everything back.
The festive noise has gone quiet. The days are short. The credit card bills arrive. Motivation feels thin.
Somewhere in that stillness, a question surfaces:
“Is this it? Is this what my life is going to look like for the foreseeable future?”
That’s why people talk about Blue Monday. Not because one date has mystical power, but because it reflects something real. A collective pause where tiredness, pressure, and quiet anxiety come to the surface.
I want to start with a truth that reshaped how I see work, security and choice.
Job security is not the same as job safety, and most people discover that too late.
For a long time, I believed responsibility equalled safety.
I ran a school. I carried serious accountability. I managed a £2 million budget. The job mattered.
It mattered to children, to staff, to families and to the wider community.
Then I found myself involved in redundancy decisions.
Not because people weren’t good enough. Not because they didn’t care. Not because they hadn’t given everything.
But because decisions were being made at a level above any individual.
That’s when the illusion cracked.
You can be excellent at what you do. You can be loyal, committed and deeply invested, yet still have no control over outcomes.
That realisation is not just professional, it is emotional. Because work is not only income. It is identity. Stability. A sense of being “safe”.
Blue Monday often hurts because it exposes that fragility.
Depending on a single income is not security, it is one point of failure waiting to be triggered.
Most people think risk looks like leaving.
Often, the bigger risk is staying dependent on a single source for everything.
If budgets tighten. If leadership changes. If priorities shift. If your health changes. If life throws something unexpected at you.
You can find yourself trapped, not because you made bad choices, but because you had no alternatives.
This is not about quitting your job.
It is about creating options quietly, in the background, so you are never forced into a decision you did not choose, on a day you did not plan.
You do not need a dramatic leap. You need to keep walking.
When I climbed Kilimanjaro, the guides repeated a phrase constantly:
Pole, pole. Slowly, slowly.
That is how you reach the summit. Not by sprinting. Not by panicking. Not by trying to do everything in one burst of motivation.
One step. Then another.
That is also how you change your life.
Do not obsess over the summit. Focus on the step in front of you.
Most people do not fail because change is impossible. They fail because they stop walking.
Consistency beats motivation every time. Small steps compound quietly. One day you look up and realise you are no longer where you started.
The measure of progress is not wealth, it is whether Monday still feels like a sentence.
I am a Manchester City fan and always have been.
January Mondays used to feel heavy. Get through today. Get through the week. Repeat.
By building a side project alongside my teaching role, slowly and deliberately, something shifted.
Eventually, Monday stopped feeling like a sentence.
I could travel. Follow my team. Come back without that knot in my stomach.
That was not luck. That was optionality.
That is what small steps create.
So if Blue Monday feels heavy for you, hear this clearly: you do not need a miracle. You need a plan, and you need movement.
You will never consistently outperform the story you tell yourself, so change the story first.
Everyone wears the same kit. Not everyone climbs with the same belief.
“I’m not confident.” “I’m bad with money.” “I’m not a leader.” “I’m too old.”
Try flipping them:
Choose one identity statement for this year and repeat it until it becomes normal.
“I’m the kind of person who finishes what I start.”
Identity shapes behaviour. Behaviour shapes results.
The people around you either carry your belief or drain it, so choose your circle carefully.
On Kilimanjaro, the porters carried more than bags.
They carried belief. They watched breathing. They noticed energy dips. They encouraged us when we were cold, quiet and close to quitting.
Life works the same way.
Most people do not need more advice. They need encouragement. They need the right environment. They need the right people.
If you are exhausted right now, it might not be the climb. It might be who you are climbing with.
Momentum is fragile. Choose your circle carefully.
One year from now, you will still be on your climb. The only question is whether you will be higher up, or standing in the same place.
This is why I wrote From the Classroom to the Climb. Not to promote reckless exits, but to offer a blueprint for steady transformation.
Most people start with 30 to 60 minutes a day, in early mornings, lunch breaks or evenings. The key is consistency, not volume. Small pockets of time, used deliberately, compound faster than you might expect.
Not necessarily. Most of the first steps, clarifying your skills, identifying your audience and building an online presence, cost nothing but time. Paid tools come later, once you have validated the idea.
Then you have something most people underestimate: credibility, context and real-world experience. The people I have seen build the most authentic second income streams are those who have lived something worth sharing.
Pole, pole. Most things do not work on the first attempt. They work on the adjusted, persisted, slightly wiser second or third attempt. Stopping is the only guaranteed way to fail.
Start here: reply to this email and tell me where you are right now. That conversation has helped more people get unstuck than any guide I have written.
If this resonated on Blue Monday, reply and tell me three things:
Pole, pole. Slowly, slowly.
Small steps. Better choices. A different life.
Derek
Register for my upcoming webinar and take your first step to obtaining multiple inome streams
