Newcastle Photographer and Content Creator, Mandy Charlton, Always on a quest for adventure, often seen on buses, trains and planes. On a quest to be happier and healthier. Lives in Newcastle with her 3 cats, Iris, Maggie and Arthur. Loves good vibes, musicals and cakes. Full time professional wedding photographer in the north east of england alongside content creator on Tiktok, Instagram and Facebook

Friday, June 24, 2016

Why Single Equals Successful For Me

Success, Mandy Charlton, Life, Business, Work


I think in this life I've worked out that I can either be successful or I can have movie love and here's why, relationships get in the way of focus, or certainly my focus, you see I'm a passionate bohemian and I can only focus on one thing at a time so I either put my all into my work or into a relationship. Yes this was truly a problem when I was married and of course all relationships deserve 110% in the way of effort but if you look at those rare occurrences where couples achieve success and movie love what you mostly find is that one person is incredibly supportive whilst the other is building success and then the pay off is in later years when you get to enjoy the fruits of your labour.

I think it may just be my makeup in that to succeed I have to be single minded, wholly determined and totally focused and the rewards are absolutely worth it, not just for me but also for my children and don't get me wrong, no man (or woman) is an island and I'm lucky to have a group of friends who are super supportive and we all push each other to achieve successes.  There is a difference of course because you don't spend 24/7 with friends, I work about 12-17 hours some days but I still have time to go out and walk my dog, get some sunshine on my face and have dinner with friends but then because I'm single I get to go home, work for an hour or two in pyjamas and there's no one to disturb me, I love it, to me success is the healthiest drug alive.

Mandy Charlton, Snap Chat Photo, Looking like a sparkly angel


I wonder though if it would have been different if I was single all my life and still childless, would I be more ready to sacrifice success.  I guess I'm lucky, I was married for 15 years and for 10 of them I had movie love.  I have 3 beautiful children that I adore (mostly when they're not being teenage screaming banshees as I mentioned the other day) and I have a thriving, growing business I can concentrate on (and don't forget Holly Bobbins) and grow as much as I want to, currently I have no need for anything other than the things I have and I'm happy, I go to bed and my sleep monitor asks me every day how stressed I've been during the day, it's been months since I was last stressed out during the day (random anxiety excepting).

I'm not ruling myself out of love in the future forever but I need to make sure my children and I are not just financially secure but that we can also do those extra things which make life complete, holidays, days off and time out are still essential in any successful business and although I do work a lot I also have no problem with taking time to shut the Macbook and leave my desk and get out there into life with my kids or friends or even on my own with Holly Bobbins.

Mandy Charlton, Successful, Single and Dressed for the ball

The best thing of course is the kind of varied work I do now, the ability to combine business with pleasure, my travels and collaborations provide a new challenge with every day, I've managed to combine writing and photography which has lead to the most amazing experiences and I get to sometimes share those with my children and my friends and although Looby might complain that mammy makes everything into a photo shoot what she doesn't get is that if it wasn't for the blogging, the writing or the photography then mammy and Looby might not have been given the opportunity to be there in the first place!

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