People see me as Brave.
My mother has told me multiple times since I left my professional path in marine science,
“I don’t understand what you are doing. But I’m proud of you for being so brave.”
It’s funny people see me as brave for leaving a career, a passion, a life behind because it was no longer suiting me. In all honesty I don’t see the actions I took as being brave, I saw them at a necessity. Everyone thought I made a choice, but in reality, there wasn’t a choice. I had already chosen so many times to stay. I simply stopped making that decision.
At the time of leaving, I had watched life aligning for others effortlessly. They started a job search and within 2 months had a perfect new position. They got into graduate school with the first email they wrote to their top professor. I observed that for years occurring. Always thinking I could’ve been doing something different, something better. All while staying at a job where I enjoyed the interaction with fishermen, but disliked upper management within my company and the lifestyle was wearing on me.
I stayed in a master’s program when it seemed every other second, I was making a mistake. Never being recognized for sacrificing my entire life to obtain a degree. Or being questioned for how serious I really was about the profession. They all knew, all my male advisors, the day would come where I would have to choose between a career and a child. They wanted to make sure they weren’t wasting their time on someone who’d choose a child. This wasn’t an “issue” they had with my male counter parts, whom they had already given a leg up by allowing them to collaborate on papers while the females in the lab begged for the breadcrumbs left over while playing the role of lab manager. Honestly, we didn’t have time for extra projects while playing this role. I’m not certain it was intentional, but it sure was shitty.
I stayed when the stress of it all turned my physical health into a parade of doctors’ visits and hospital stays. I still stayed when they found nothing. When no one could tell me anything, and I stopped trying to figure it all out. I stayed.
I stayed when my top PhD professor said he’d take me on as a student, only to change his mind a month later after the deadline was past due for any other schools I could’ve attended.
I stayed when my advisor turned my life upside down, making me rerun all my samples in the remaining 2 months I had left due to my results being inconclusive. He didn’t want to believe my results were inconclusive. Thus, he made my life a personal hell.
I stayed when the stress moved from my physical health to my mental health. When I started to really break. When all I could do was the bare minimum each day, if that. Depression is a tricky bitch that way.
I would’ve stayed. I would’ve gone on to get my PhD. Most likely I would’ve broken there.
I didn’t get the chance to stay. To move on, to the advisor that guaranteed me a spot, yet went back on his word. He took the opportunity and gave it to someone else. It was a completely logical reason on his behalf. A perfectly logical reason that truly doesn’t matter. All that matters is that was when I lost it.
I lost the little hope I had left. The little hope of everything working out just the way it should was gone. I was tired of fighting for a life, a career that never seemed to want me in the first place.
After leaving that career behind, I kept leaving. Each job, location that no longer served me, I simply left. I moved 6 times to 5 different states while holding 12 different jobs all in the matter of 5 years. People saw me as brave for this. Why? Because human nature doesn’t like change. We avoid it. We enjoy our routines, our 5-year plans. We are taught to choose a path. Stay the path, and safety, security is insured.
For some this works, for me it blew up in my face at the end of my 20’s. Thus change didn’t bother me. Staying bothered me. I had already stayed in enough situations. Leaving was where I found security.
And I kept leaving. I kept changing every year because, each job I found wasn’t the right fit for me. Some were better than others. Some had better coworkers than others. Some were in more ideal locations than others. Yet they all lacked freedom. Ever since I left behind my “professional” job, it was always freedom I craved.
I didn’t want someone else telling me where my future would go, could go. The limitations I had because of my sex. Or the advantages taken because of my good looks. I wanted to choose my people instead of being thrown into a group of coworkers.
This is what I’ve wanted for the past 6 years, but I didn’t have the idea of what it could look like until 3 years ago. During 2020, I decided I wanted to help people who had been in similar situations to me. Who wanted to do life differently, but the thought of change was keeping them paralyzed. In 2020, I decided I wanted to be a life coach, a public speaker, and an author.
Since I made that decision, I’ve ran away from every opportunity that could’ve made it a reality.
I choose jobs that got me nowhere close to this dream life. I backed off on my writing because well time. There are hours, days, weeks to write during a pandemic, but when reality comes back who has the time? I’ve battled imposter syndrome from every direction of my own mind. Telling myself…
My story doesn’t matter.
It’s not valid enough.
Life hasn’t been hard enough for me.
Who could I really help anyways?
I don’t belong here.
I’m really not that strong or special or brave…
I’m simply average.
These are the tricks your mind will play on you to keep you safe, to keep you small, to keep you on your path. Will it be easier to stay on the path? Possibly, probably. Or you could develop mystery aliments and depression…your dice to roll.
I haven’t found myself brave over the past 6 years because, I was playing it safe. Granted a very different version of safe than most people in their early 30’s, but still safe. I wasn’t going after what I truly wanted in my life.
I want to create a life I love. Where I’m in control of my day-to-day activities. Where I can help other women through tough times, they are facing by listening, sharing, and strategizing to get them to their best life possible.
Thus, I’m announcing…I’m starting my life coaching business.
After I post this blog, and adequately self-promote on social media, I’ll be starting a course on learning to be a public speaker.
This is big. This is scary.
Because for the first time in a long time, I’m going all in. I’m terrified. Why? Because I could fail. This could easily not work out for me. The last time I put my heart and soul into a career, a passion…it didn’t work out. I’m afraid to get back to that space again. I’m afraid to really try and “fail.”
But I’m tired of playing small. I’m tired of my fear of failure ruling over my life. I’ve decided to be as brave as everyone always views me.
Thus, if you or someone you know is feeling stuck or going through a major life change. Let me know those are my specialties. After all, uprooting your life 6 times in 5 years eventually has to pay off right?!? I’m here for you or them. Simply go over to my coaching page and book a free discovery call with me to see how we could best work together. I’ll be posting again soon, until then….
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