It’s coming up on the one-year anniversary of the leap of faith that I took last fall. I am usually the “what’s next” kind of person – focused on the next big project, the next goal. It’s really quite difficult for me to look back and acknowledge my achievements and how far I’ve come. But, in spite of that challenge, I want to do just that. I think it’s important.
Last year around this time, I wrote of release and letting go. I wrote about my leap of faith, and my road ahead. On Sept 29th last year, I turned in my notice, and on Oct 13th, I worked my last day in Corporate America. I’m still in a constant learning process, and a much faster cycle of release and welcome of new ideas, and it’s so, so easy to look ahead and only see how much farther we need to climb.
Where I Was Last Year
All I knew last September was that I couldn’t conceptualize what my new career / world / life was going to look like until after I’d let go of the old one. I wasn’t going to be able to job search from within the comfort and safety of the old job. I had to let go of all of it and then let it see what it wanted to become.
My working metaphor for this was of a spider in the bathtub. The spider couldn’t see past the slick white walls of the tub. Well, I’ve been spinning my little webs outside of the typical corporate structure for almost a year now. I can see what “outside” looks like. I understand the weather and the wind, as well as the new opportunities to live and thrive and create. Outside is where this spider belongs.
I conceptualized this break from full time corporate work as a sabbatical. I intended to use some time to get my body and self-care and stress levels regulated, and to get some writing done. I wanted to “try on hats” and test out possible alternative career paths. I had action plans and checklists both to ensure I didn’t get depressed (which had happened when I’d tried this before), and to ensure that I achieved the things that were the most important to me. My plan was to get a new full time job in about 3 months.
What I Have Accomplished
I did not get a new full-time job in 3 months. I joke now that I have Three Careers in a Trench coat, but the list of what I did accomplish is really quite impressive. I’m going to take a moment to pat my own back on this one.
- Finished and Defended my Dissertation and earned my Ph.D.
- Started teaching classes at Morbid Anatomy (I’ve taught three in full, have two scheduled, and five more planned. I try to teach a class per month now)
- Attended a course on how to write plays
- Completed writing six short stories and one novella, getting 2 of those short stories into anthologies
- Got two poems published
- Finished a collection of fairy tales and began submitting that to publishers
- Wrote a book about Burnout Recovery, and have been talking with publishers about the proposal for it since then
- Created a “Minimum Viable Product” course about burnout and then applied those lessons learned to the manager course on burnout prevention and launched that.
- Completed edits on two chapters for someone else’s volumes about Mythological Equines, and then signed a contract for an edited collection of essays of my own about Unicorns.
- Attended three conferences (I have a fourth on the books in November, where I’m presenting a paper)
- Joined a Santa Fe Storycrafters group and attended monthly zooms, learning how to tell stories
- Launched my Patreon
In addition to those things that I have done and achieved, there’s also an important list of the things I decided not to do. Though I made it to the second round of interviews to teach marketing at the university near me, it didn’t feel right in my body, and I dropped out of the running.
I learned that teaching, writing, researching, and so on are my job now, and I created better boundaries around my time – ensuring that I spend “non work” time doing other stuff. I fixed my ukulele and have been singing a lot more. Baking, crafting, mending, and home maintenance are also part of that list. (I’ve painted three rooms in the last year, and I have a few more coming up in the next month or two!)
I have been using my home as a resource this whole time – whether it be through gardening, or harvesting plants for medicinal use or incense. And one of the things I have tried is sharing my space. I’ve had workawayers visiting for years (and it’s still my favorite way to get house sitting and pet sitting done), and for the past 6 months I’ve had a roommate. As that rental agreement comes to an end this week, I’m finally in a place mentally where I feel like I can wholly take up my entire space. I’m not interested in sharing my home anymore.
I’ve also traveled a good deal in the last year, and done a lot of work taking care of my health. As best I can figure it, I’ve taken about 30 vacation days or so. The stress-reduction has been very real, and tangibly different. I’m sleeping well, hiking more, doing more yoga, and eating fresh veg from the garden.
Financially, the classes that I teach offset a good percentage of my bills and expenses, and I have enough in savings to keep carrying me onward as I explore the wilderness of “outside.” I’m really only carrying student loans from grad school and mortgage debt.
What’s Next?
In the coming weeks, I’ll be doing my Q3 goal review, and planning for Q4. I’ll start the long process of setting annual goals for 2025 – and I’m hoping to get my “Mythic Midwinter” course on the books at Morbid Anatomy to guide others through some of these tools in December. So, I’m not 100% sure what that vision looks like.
So much of what I’ve done this year has been foundational work – the burnout courses are a ton of work, but I think they can and will pay off long-term. (Even if only in lessons learned.) The books and drafts that I’m working on should come to fruition in coming months. Though, often you don’t see income from those until almost a year after the fact.
I’m going to stay the course, at least that’s the plan for right now! I am enjoying this work and the people I’m meeting and connections I’m making.