Hey there friend. I wanted to tell you about someone I connected with recently. Have you ever met someone who you felt was an angel, guiding you back into the right direction?
- She told me that my life was inspiring.
- She was inspired that it took me a decade to sell my picture book and that I overcame fear to fulfill my dream of becoming a writer.
- She said that she could tell that I was a really good coach.
Because it’s been over 14 years since I quit my job and fulfilled my dreams of becoming a writer, I’ve all but forgotten it.
When I spoke to this person, I was reminded of how scared, no terrified I was to step outside the box and do something that felt right to my soul.
I told her that many times fear prevents us from quitting our traditional jobs. But she challenged me to think that it’s not fear but privilege to believe we could quit a stable job when we have legitimate responsibilities and financial obligations especially in a postpandemic world.
I heard that loud and clear. But I remembered how terrified I was to quit my job because of those reasons, because of the impending student loans I carried from my undergraduate and graduate education, because the job I was currently in could lead to more opportunities, because I was raised to understand the value of a good paying secured job. I wasn’t privilege in anyway, but the alternative-staying in a job that made me sick to my stomach became a liability.
I was paralyzed by fear and I did it anyway.
I told her that once you make a decision to follow through on a dream, doors open.
When we’re on the precipice of change there seems to be no next step, nothing to catch us if we fall. But this is the pivotal moment. This inciting incident as a main character in your own story, is the time when everything changes.
It’s not easy. We’re vulnerable. We’re putting everything on the line. And every fear we’ve had since childhood comes up.
We are grownups and grownups are supposed to be responsible and self-sacrificing. But the truth is the real grownup thing to do is to listen to our childhood selves, remembering what we were meant to do, and be courageous in confronting our fears.
This doesn’t mean we jump in without adult awareness.
We can take tiny steps. We can build up our emergency fund. We can slowly phase out of our full-time job by going part-time. We can do the things we need to do like I did-hire a coach to support you, journal, and immerse yourself in the memoirs, biographies and stories of inspiring people who were in your shoes and did it anyway.
For me the pandemic was a wake up call that our time here on earth isn’t guaranteed. We would like to think we have a 100 years, but every moment is precious when we don’t know how long we will be here.
This is your life and with it, all the gifts that were meant for you.
You are worth it. You deserve it. And you have the ability to make it happen.
I’ll leave you with this passage from Lynne Twist’s book The Soul of Money:
Vicki Robin, in Your Money or Your Life, writes about people who, instead of making a living at their work, more accurately “make a dying,” or in some cases, make a killing. The work they’re doing is unfulfilling, perhaps even detrimental to their own or others’ well-being. Or perhaps they’re embarrassed about their work. They hate it. They wish they didn’t have to do it. They pretend that it doesn’t matter, but in truth, their spirit–or someone else’s-is being killed off. Caught up in the chase, they say they are making a living when they are really making a dying or a killing, but they don’t see it, or can’t admit it.”
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