It has been three whole years since I took my big ol' leap of faith into the unknown and I thought it was probably about time that I stop for a moment to look around at where I am versus where I thought I would be.
Three years ago I had a spectacular 2am meltdown which saw me completely falling apart in my husbands arms, sobbing about how I wasn't living the life I really wanted to be living.
I didn't mean him... far from it.
He and the children were the only reasons I got up in the morning.
For those of you who are curious for more details or even just feel up for a trip down memory lane, you can read that post here and the follow up one here, but the long and the short of it is this;
I was a corporate girl, living my life in a corporate world. (I'm sure there is a song in there somewhere).
I didn't love my job like I used to love it, because after my accident - everything had changed.
I changed.
I hated all the travel and being away from my family and I began to realise how much it gutted me to miss out on the simple things like taking my kids to school in the morning, or being there for important events at school.
I couldn't help but feel like I was missing out on so much that was going on in my children's lives because I was always working... in a job I was really beginning to resent.
I truly believe with all my heart that when you wake up in the morning, you should look forward to your day and whatever it is you will spend it doing.
OK, so I know you can't love everything you have to do in a day, but for the best part... well it should be spent doing something that brings you joy, don't you think?
When I realised there was no joy left in what I did, I took my husband's insanely brave advice and I quit.
Yep just like that I quit.
Please believe me when I tell you, it wasn't an easy thing to do.
I'm the kind of girl who needs security and routine and so to quit something I had spent the last 20 years doing, with no idea of what I would do instead - well that was SUCH an out of character wild and reckless thing for me to do.
It was also the best thing I have ever done.
After recovering from the shock of quitting my job I set about figuring out how the hell I was going to make a living. We were a two income family who completely relied on the money both my hubby and I earned.
I started by making a list of all the things I love to do - writing, creating and crafting, helping other people achieve their goals, lunching and socialising... no seriously, I included everything.
I then sat down and thought of all the possible ways I could make money out of those things.
I decided to focus on a few of the things on my list - kind of like trial and error I guess and I set about creating my own social media and branding business, website building for small business, writing my blog and writing a book.
After a few months, those focuses began to change and they continued to change, and they will probably change again and again during my working life. And the biggest lesson I have learnt from it all is that it is OK to change.
We are not the person we were ten years ago, or the ten years before that etc.
We will constantly change our minds throughout our life, our tastes in food, books, music, fashion and decorating will all change over time because we change.
Why the hell should we expect that a career that fitted us all the way back then, will still fit us all the way in the future?
I bet that if you painted your bedroom in a fuchsia pink or bright red that you loved years ago, you wouldn't have expected that you would have to live with it for the rest of your life... would you?
I mean, I guess maybe you could, but I think that most of us would be knocking the lid of the paint tin after a while to update the walls to suit our changing tastes.
And so three years on my tastes have changed.
I am still doing some of the things I put on that original list. Some have been and gone, some never really happened and some have been completely replaced by new things, new interests and new goals.
Owning a creative workshops business was never on my original list of things I thought I wanted to do, nor was photography... but they both are things that I'm now doing and man they turned out to be awesome additions.
The biggest change in the three years since that leap of faith - has been in me.
I'm braver.
Far braver than I ever imagined I could be, and I'm now totally open to changing direction and walking down new paths... even when I don't know where the path will lead me to.
Three years on huh... and the truth be told - and when I stop and look around, I'm pleasantly surprised by where I find myself.
I never expected the paths I would take would ever lead me to where I am today... but damn I'm so glad they did.
My advice to anyone who dares to ask "where to from here?" - go where the path leads you... inevitably it will lead you to where you are meant to be.
What about you...
Did your path lead to where you expected it would?
Are you open to exploring new paths?
Where would you like to go from here?
