I wake up at 5:30 AM. Look at my alarm clock, desperate for just a little more sleep, and zero desire to roll over and go to work. But then I remember. I do desire to go to work. I desire to go to work very much. Because, for the first time in my life, my work is my bliss. Every little piece of it.
I haven’t told you much about what’s been going on in my life lately. Mostly because this isn’t that kind of blog. You’re here to learn about healthy food, pick up a recipe or two, and be on your merry way. No need to know about my love life, my doctor’s appointment, or my cat’s latest sleeping spot (I don’t have a cat, but if I did, please kill me if I ever found that to be important enough to tell you about it).
But there are certain things that I just have to get off my chest because they're SO COOL and I’m pretty darned proud of them.
You see, in the last few months, I have made some pretty drastic changes. I mean really big, I-don’t-even-recognize-my-life changes. So we’re not here for 72 more paragraphs, I’m going to put it in a nice little nutshell for you. Here goes. In the last three months, I…
- Got married to my best friend
- Became a freelance writer
- Quit my stable, fulltime job as an advertising copywriter
- Met an incredibly impressive entrepreneur who has my dream job…
- then started working under her as her Wellness Chef Apprentice
- Got hired as a Class Assistant at one of the busiest cooking schools in the country (the Chopping Block!)
- Graduated from the Institute for Transformational Nutrition and became a CTNC (this one just happened yesterday – cue Vitamin C's Graduation Song here)
Whew! I know, right?
I still have to pinch myself. It doesn’t seem real.
When I tell this to my friends and family (or curious bystanders), they are sometimes shocked, but mostly proud of this ballsy endeavor. As if they, too, have plans to do the same someday. But then they ask the question, “What exactly do you plan to do?"
This is the part where I get a little squirmy. I've never been great with elevator pitches, but this new "job" of mine is particularly hard to describe because it's not one answer. It's more like 11 pursuits, plus a few side jobs to pay the bills.
A freelance content creator, a food writer, a cookbook author, a recipe creator, a food photographer, a health coach, a holistic nutritionist, a private paleo chef, a cooking class instructor, a professional dinner party host, and the Food Network’s first holistic chef star. And somewhere in between all that, a mom.
After years of dreaming these dreams and setting goals for myself to achieve them, I was doing myself a disservice by continuing to stay on my old career path. If I wanted to get closer, I needed to jump into the fire. The healthy, holistic, foodie fire.
Once I quit my day job, I had no other choice. I had to find the opportunities, the people and the organizations that would help me get closer to my dreams. Which is exactly what I did and continue to do. And because of these actions, every day, the path that I had previously searched so desperately for, becomes more clear.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all rainbows and butterflies and unicorns. Because it’s life. And your crazy dreams never turn out as picture-perfect as you think they will.
I spend much more of my time confused and scared out of my mind. And yes, there are moments where I think – Are you CRAZY? You aren’t cut out to be an entrepreneur! You have NO IDEA what you're doing. Please. Just go back to the real world, get a respectable desk job, and hopefully nobody will notice your I-want-to-live-my-dreams hiatus.
But then I snap myself out of it. Because really, I’ve already done the hard part. The leap-out-of-a plane undertaking that everybody is so deathly afraid to do. From here, it’s just about navigating my new territory. And recognizing that my mind isn’t used to working outside of its safe Groundhog Day routine.
Get up. Go to work. Collect paycheck. Go home. Count the days left till the weekend.
Now. Every day is a new day. With HUGE opportunities to learn something new, meet somebody new or create something that I didn't know I was capable of. And at the end of that day, I’ve never felt more alive.
No. Regardless of what my inner critic says, I have no plans to get back in that plane.
Much Love,
p.s. Know somebody else who wants to follow their dreams? Share my story through this pin with all your dreamer friends–>
