Almost a year ago I wrote a post titled “You Might Not Have a Job Problem, But a Life Problem.” In that post I basically shared my discovery of a wonderful book called “Take Time For Your Life” by Cheryl Richardson (not an affiliate link) I was spending some time in Magical Goodwill and had stepped into the book nook looking for (ahem) romance novels. Instead, I found a .25 cent book of wonder that still amazes me at how profoundly following the steps she recommended changed my life.
One Year After I Took Time For My Life
I am amazed at how much my life has changed. Things aren’t perfect, but they are so much better and manageable than before. For those of you who are longtime readers you know that I really struggled on a personal and financial level since the birth of this blog. In fact, this blog has been a wonderful outlet for those days when I just couldn’t keep everything that was going on in my head…in my head. I was convinced that my job (and only my job) was creating all of the problems in my life. But, it wasn’t. In fact, if you read the post from last year I am clearly feeling pretty upbeat about my job and my life in general. I was creating space in my life to meet people, working through a list of 35 energy drains that were draining my energy and my ability to focus on changing my life, and the process was a wonderful and painful process.
You’re probably wondering why didn’t you stay at your job? If things were calming down and you liked your colleagues, and were making good money-why would you leave? Well, a huge part of the the process is looking at the different sectors of your life such as: work, personal life, health,and money and recognizing which areas were imbalanced. In my case, every single sector of my life had an extreme level of imbalance. And that was part of why I wasn’t able to make deeper changes in my debt repayment process. I had wondered why I wasn’t able to focus and get my debt paid and move on. I couldn’t because I had so many things that I wasn’t managing well. In order to make substantive change in my life I had to clean my life up in order to move forward.
Ultimately, I decided that it was time to leave my job because there is a point when it is just time to go. I feel very happy about that decision and I am also very happy that I didn’t quit in the summer like I had originally intended. Because I waited I was 95% sure that I was making the right decision. Now I’m a 100% sure that I made the right decision.
Today
I am in the process of re-reading “Take Time For Your Life” and going through the assessment of where I currently stand and what I am concerned with. I think that I will go through this process every year to make sure that I stay on task and focused on making my life the best life possible for me.
Currently, the sectors of my life that concern me the most are: personal and money. That’s it. Everything else is pretty well sorted. So, what’s the plan to address those two sectors of my life?
Personal
I will say that already I’m very, very happy with how things are going personally. No, I’m not dating…yet LOL! But, the signs are promising. I’m actually getting hit on again. Who wants to date the depressed girl with heavy energy? I am very relived that I didn’t date anyone seriously in the past couple of years because they probably would have been a hot mess. Because I was a hot mess. And I believe that you attract the energy that you send out.
In fact, I am much happier with my social life and have really prioritized meeting new people, hanging out with my long-time friends, participating in fun activities, and managing my mental health. How have I done this? I have been attending Meetups, networking events, will join a running club, and will join a summer kickball league. I am focusing on participating in events that are free-$10 maximum. Kickball will be around $40 but that’s for an 8 week season. I also participate in a community garden and have been hanging out with my mom.
I’ve heard that many people are concerned about switching to freelancing because they are concerned about their social life. I can say that in my case, my social life has improved tremendously. And no, I won’t be doing online dating.
Money
I am still on my debt freedom journey. I was very concerned about quitting my job and striking out on my own because there would be some lag time between the time I traveled, started working, and got paid.
It has been messy (will talk about that at the end of the month) but overall, I am tentatively pleased with my progress so far. I’m not distracted by all of the issues I was dealing with last year and I feel very single-minded about the process of paying off my debt, earning more money as I grow my freelancing clientele and saving money. Given that I made pretty steady progress last year paying off my debt-until I got depressed-I feel confident that I will have better results with my debt repayment process for the next couple of years.
Switching to a cash only budget and freelancing has affected how I think about my finances on in a way that I didn’t expect. I truly notice my debt. Hear me out. My debt bothered me before. I was trying to pay it off. But, for 10 years I received a paycheck on the last business day of every month. I would pay my expenses and go through the process again.
But, now, I really, really notice my money in a way that I didn’t before. Even though I’m receiving checks throughout the month (different then once month)…the psychology of earning money freelancing is different. I won’t lie-I am a hell of a lot more motivated to pay things off. There is a proverbial “fire under my ass.”
Currently I working on replenishing my savings which ran out as you could imagine after not working for 5 months, traipsing across the world and starting a freelancing career from scratch. Don’t worry-I’m still eating!
Do I regret my process?
No. I Own It.
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This is awesome to hear, Michelle! Congratulations on taking control of your life. Look how far you’ve come!
Now-I just have to rock my debt! Can’t wait to get that done.
I’m so glad to hear you have sorted everything out for the most part and that book has a very interesting concept. I agree that the psychology of earning money freelancing is quite different than the stability of a regular paycheck. I currently use my freelance income to help make extra payments on my debt and since it’s never guaranteed how much I will make in a given month, I can only estimate how much I will use to pay down on my debt. It really motivates me though to use the money wisely and strategically and with my main job, sometimes I slack off with budgeting because I know a check is a regular occurrence and pretty much guaranteed.
I 100% recommend that book and I’m sure you can pick it up at the library. I believe I came across it at the time I needed it!
Congratulations on your journey!
Being more aware of your finances is so much more than the numbers. We can learn so much about ourselves by reflecting on how and why we handle our money.
Best wishes for the rest of 2015 and beyond.
Thanks Elle for your kind words-I appreciate it! I am really, really aware of finances now LOL! But, I think that’s a good thing. Sending good vibes back to you as well.
I just spent some time backreading the last few weeks — I’m really looking forward to that end of May post about freelancing, but overall, I just love how much more open and relaxed you sound. You’re happy with yourself, overall, even though everything isn’t perfect — that’s the greatest.
There are some stressful things going on but the level of stress that I was dealing with before was INSANE. All of my friends have commented on how rested and relaxed I am. Jeez. I will have to push through because this is a challenging time but thing will settle down.
It’s better to take the chance than wonder forever if you could have made it as a freelancer. You sound very happy with the life you have created for yourself.
There have been some negative financial consequences but I don’t regret making this choice. I am much happier and quite frankly my friends and family have commented on my improved demeanor.