Hey, welcome to Lessons From a Quitter where we believe that it is never too late to start over. No matter how much time or energy you spent getting to where you are, if ultimately you are unfulfilled, then it is time to get out. Join me each week for both inspiration and actionable tips so that we can get you on the road to your dreams.

Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode. I am so excited you are here. Excuse my uh especially nasally voice, I don't know what's happening. I've had like allergies for what seems like an eternity. It's been about a week and it's not going away. So I tried holding off on recording the podcast and this is what we got folks. My voice is typically nasally and we're just gonna increase the volume on that today. So bear with me. I appreciate you. Welcome, I'm so excited you're here. Okay. I wanna let you know before we jump in that doors are opening to Pave Your Path on June 13th. That's a couple weeks away. I want you to be prepared. I always get people that tell me oh, I didn't know it was coming. I didn't know what happened which I don't understand. So I'm gonna try to prepare you so you know, so you get everything in order to get your ducks in a row and get in this group.

Here's the thing: I watch so many people just flounder, same thing like groundhogs day, just year after year. And then they keep convincing themselves they they don't have the time or they're not ready yet. And I want you to know that that's a thought that doesn't serve you and it's not true. You don't have to be ready. There's nothing that requires you to be ready. There's never gonna be a time where you have like all this spacious amounts of luxurious time that you're gonna get up and work on yourself. Like life is happening, kids are happening, work is happening. It's not going anywhere. That's why I want you to join me because we're gonna figure out your career in six months. We're gonna stop all this back and forth. We're gonna stop this insanity in your brain about should I stay or should I leave? What else is out there? What else could I do? I'm not good at anything. All that other BS. Like imagine the energy that you will have to do other things when you don't have to waste it constantly ruminating on the same thought loop. That's what I'm offering folks. Let's get together and do this work for six months and figure it out. Decide, get you the clarity that you want. Like do I wanna stay? Do I wanna leave? What do I want to do? What is the thing that I deeply desire that I won't even admit to myself? How can I uncover that? And then how can I have the confidence to go after it? How can I build up this belief of like listen, there's something more for me. I know it. And this this is why I say this, this is why I'm gonna beat this drum. You already know there's a voice inside of you. You don't know what it's called. You can call it your gut, your intuition, universe. I don't care. But there's just something for in you saying like this can't be it. This is not it. I don't know what it is but this isn't it. So I gotta figure it out. And that's what I want you to join me to do. Let's figure it out together. So that's my long-winded way of saying go to lessonsfromaquitter.com/paveyourpath and get on the wait list so that you are the first notified, so that you can get into the group before it fills up, so that you can join me for the next six months. It's gonna be fantastic. And it actually ties very nicely into the topic today. I wanted to do this topic. I wanna talk about why you should go after these big, scary goals, why you should dream big, why you should, I've talked about impossible goals before, if you haven't listened, I have an episode on that, but this has been coming up a lot lately in my coaching calls and in even on like TikTok or Instagram, when I post a story, people have been commenting these things that I realize oh, I don't think people understand why it is we should be going after goals. I don't think we understand why it is we should make certain decisions, even in decision-making. I did an episode on how to make better decisions and part of what I talk about is like understand the reasons why you're doing it. And that's sort of what I wanna focus on today is why are we going after the things we are going after? Why are we going after that big scary goal? Why are we making the decision to quit our career? Why are we picking another career to try, right? Like what is the driving force behind that? That's what we wanna really get clear on because that'll give us all the information about ourselves, right? Are we doing it out of a place of fear? Are we doing it from a place of like desperation, from victim mentality of like I just gotta run away. I can't handle these other people. I can never control everybody else. So I'm gonna jump from thing to thing or are we choosing it for very deliberate reasons? I wanna dive into what those reasons, not should be, but really how you start thinking about the goals you're going after and the decisions you're making. Okay. So we've already talked about destination addiction. If you haven't listened to that, go back and listen to that episode. It is something that we continuously will get caught in. We're just either programmed to believe this way or, you know, even if it's kind of part of our brain structure or the way our brain is is set up, we consistently keep learning this lesson and then falling for it again. Right. This idea that once I get there, it'll be so much better. Once I have the job, once I lose the weight, once I get married, once I have the kids, whatever. Like over there is so much better than over here and I just have to get there. So then we're in this perpetual state of always trying to get somewhere where we're not and missing our whole life. Right. And then we get there and it's good for like a hot second. And then it's normal life again. Right? We get the job and we don't all of a sudden feel mature and empowered and like a boss babe or whatever it is people wanna call it. Right? Like then we're riddled with anxiety and stress. We have imposter syndrome and it's like I don't even know what I'm doing. Right. It's like if you just get to the next thing and it's a new set of fears unlocked, which is wonderful for us. And so I've talked a lot about how I want you to start thinking about your goals instead of destination goals. Like once I get to that destination, I'll be happy and I'm gonna make myself miserable the entire way until I get there. Right. I have to suffer through this goal of losing weight until I get to this place where I have this body. And I all of a sudden can love myself, which never works. I want you to start thinking about journey goals, right? Like what is this journey I wanna go on? What do I wanna learn about myself? What do I want to incorporate in my lifestyle that's gonna be fun and amazing, right? Maybe I wanna just get into eating healthier or exercising or, you know, learning this new skill and going after this job because I'm gonna learn so much more about this area I'm interested in, not because I'm gonna get this title that's gonna maybe make me feel better about myself. Right? So that in a nutshell is like destination versus journey goals. But even in decision making, right, even if we're not talking about goals, it's looking at like am I making this decision because I wanna get somewhere because I think that doing this thing might somehow make me feel better. I wanna prove that I'm good enough. Right? I think this is just easier. Like those may not be the reasons you wanna do something. I want you to focus more on like what's the journey of this decision I'm making? Why am I making this? Is what am I gonna gain by just going through this process of this decision? That's the reason, okay. The reason to do anything anything is the person that you're gonna become in the process of doing that thing. Not the result. I'm gonna say that again. The reason to do anything is the person you are going to become in the process of doing that thing. It is not in order to get to that result. If you're only going after the result, you will continuously be disappointed cuz you will get to that result and you'll be the same human with the same brain. And it'll be great for a second. And then the other 50% of your emotions will catch up. And so I recently did a TikTok, and I talked about this in the episode on money, and I talked about how my husband was noticing that women weren't asking for raises and the TikTok was basically encouraging women to ask for raises. And I got a lot of people commenting on that TikTok saying well if we ask, they're just gonna say no, like I've already asked and they say no. Or, you know, like I know they're already gonna tell me no. And it got me under really like realizing that people don't understand. The point of asking for a raise is not to just get a raise. I know that seems like maybe mind-blowing to some of you. Like what? That's the only reason I would ask. But what I want you to start developing is this skill of understanding what is everything else I'm going to gain in the process of asking for a raise that has nothing to do with what that outcome is, that has nothing to do with something that I don't control, right? We don't control whether our boss gives us a raise. We can ask but we can't determine what they're gonna say. And yet, it is still maybe the best thing you can do. So I want you to ask yourself that question when you're trying to make a decision, why is asking for a raise the best thing I can do for myself? Okay. And when you force your brain to come up with those reasons, you will be astounded at how much you'll gain through that process. For instance, in this example of asking for a raise: one, it'll force you to learn how to advocate for yourself. Two, it'll bring to your boss's attention how you feel about your role. Three, it'll bring to your boss's attention all of the things that you've accomplished so far, right? You have to go in talking about everything that you've done in the last year. And now your boss knows. Maybe he wasn't he was kind of busy with with his own thing. He wasn't paying attention. Four, it'll require you to acknowledge everything that you've done in the last year. It'll force you to sit down and really create this case of like wow, look at everything that I've done, which so many of us are so terrible at doing. You'll start learning that skill of like yeah, why am I minimizing what I do? I do a lot at this place. Five, it'll help you learn to articulate what you want. Six, it'll help you grow into the person that asks for what they need. Seven, it'll give you practice in having uncomfortable conversations. This is one of the most important skills you can ever learn. So many of us are saying no to ourselves because we're so scared of somebody else saying no. We're just like I'm not gonna even try cause I'm so scared of having this conversation and hearing the word no. Stop saying no to yourself. Let other people do it. Put in the ball in their court. See what happens, right? Eight, it'll give you clarity on where you stand with the company. Right? So many of us are just like randomly guessing. And we have all these like ideas of that our boss hates us or whatnot. We've never had any conversations. Having these conversations helps see like do they value me? Am I appreciated? Do they see the value in the work that I'm doing? Nine, that'll help you make a decision about your next step. Do I wanna stay at a place that doesn't value me? Do I think I can make more, as I research what I want for my raise and I see the market value in other places. Do I wanna start deciding maybe something else is better for me? And 10, maybe I'll make some more money, right? That's like one small part of asking for a raise. It is the cherry on top. I might just make some more money out of it. But most of us don't ever think about any of this other stuff. We think like the only reason for me to ever ask is because I want to get to that thing. And if I don't get it, then I'm gonna just decide that this whole exercise was a waste and it was embarrassing and I'm gonna feel shame about it or whatever, however we feel. And then we lose all of the teaching. Like we lose everything we could have learned from this process, from taking this step. We lose all of the ability to be proud of ourselves for putting it out there and advocating and speaking up. And that's why we don't learn these skills. That's why we don't like build on it. That's why it doesn't become this foundation on which we start building the person we wanna become because we've just decided well, that was a failure. I asked and he said no, total waste of time. No. Who cares if they said no? Of course, they might say no. Nobody's saying you ask and you get everything that you ask for. That's not how it works but it doesn't mean you shouldn't ask. Right? When I think about my goals, like right now, I've talked often about my impossible goal of making a million dollars in my business in one year and I can look back, I've now I think this is my third year of even doing it, nowhere even close. Right? Let's say last year I was at around 200K, I could have thought like well I tried it and I it doesn't work. I can't do it. I don't have that skill. That's not for me. Right. I can make that mean that I'm not good, that I don't understand business, that no one likes me, no one likes my product, whatever, that I'm not cut out for this, that I'll never be as good as these other people, that I'll never have the business that I want. I could do that. And a lot of people do and that's why they quit their businesses and they feel an immense amount of shame. They carry that story with them through the rest of their lives, just creating more pain for no reason. Or, just hear me out, or there's just another way of looking at this goal, right? The goal doesn't change. The fact that I didn't hit it doesn't change. How I look at it changes. I can look at all of the reasons why I want that goal. It's not because I want a million dollars. I mean, a million dollars is great. I I don't not want it. I will be very happy when I have it. That'll be fun. So that maybe is number one, right? I'll make a lot of money. That'd be great. That's just one. I don't actually care that much about that. Two, I'll learn how to market and sell. Like I'm learning this very key skill that will help me in any business that I decide to run. Three, I'll learn how to reach more people. What are the million different things I can try to get people's attention? Four, I'll impact a larger number of people. Wanting to make a certain dollar amount is really just a code for like I have to then help much more people than I do right now. And that will in turn lead to an impact that I want to have. Five, I'll learn how to fail over and over again and not make it mean anything about me, which might just be the biggest skill that I could ever learn. Six, I'll get over the fear of what other people think of me. We're still working on that one, right? It doesn't just magically go away. And it doesn't go away with like the first time you post something on Instagram or in my case, like the 600th time you post something on Instagram, you still think about it. But I chip away at it each time, right? Like I'm working actively on this fear and pushing against it. Seven, I learned how to be more visible and create safety for myself. This has been a huge one for me. I didn't even realize I felt unsafe. Going through this journey is what's teaching me all of these things that were buried that I didn't understand, that I didn't know were there, that affect every aspect of my life. But I just didn't realize was like running the show in the background. And as I've pushed through this goal, it's brought up all of this uncomfortable stuff. But guess what? Like when I get to work through that now, I get to clear that out. It's out of my way for the rest of my life. It liberates me for the next 40 years. Right. I get to work on like how do I create safety for myself so I can show up on Instagram, so I can speak on stages, so I can do all these things that I'm really excited to do but have felt so scared because I felt unsafe when people see me. What if they make fun of me? What if they hate me? And that leads me to number eight. This is definitely taught me how to process a lot of uncomfortable and negative feelings, which is a fricking superpower. Nine, I've gained a ton of new skills, right? I've learned not only just the skills of like different software and different editing tools and whatever. It's just like I've learned that I can learn new skills. I can figure it out. Yes, it's overwhelming. Yes, I would, you know, rather just lay on the couch. It's not as fun and I can figure it out. I know I can now. I know any business you give me, I'll figure it out. I don't have to know anything about the industry. It'll take time but I can do it. I mean, just think about the confidence that that gives you. I truly feel like the biggest blessing of this work for me was really understanding that I'm not pigeonholed in anything. If this doesn't work, if in a year I decide you know what, I don't wanna coach anymore. Alright, on to the next one. I'll learn that too. I’ll figure that out too. I'll build that too. I didn't used to be like this. I was like a very terrified person who believed that I had no skills and no ability. I uttered those words to my husband multiple times. Like other than law, I have no other skills. And I'm so glad that I just proved myself wrong. And I proved that that thought was a b*ullsh*t thought that was holding me back. And 10, I have met the most incredible people. I have networked and grown and have this community that I adore. Right. Making a million dollars doesn't actually matter to me. I've gained far more than what a million dollars could ever buy me. It has been a hundred times, you know, worth it more than if I had just, if someone had given me a million dollars, when I first started and I had hadn't learned how to create it. I hadn't learned how to stand on my feet. I hadn't learned how to build up my own confidence. I hadn't learned how to stop people-pleasing as much and stop caring what everyone thought about me. Right? Like everything I gained is not because I won a lottery and someone ga- handed me something. That's fine too. I mean, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying all of these other things would have never been discovered. Like I would've never been able to develop 'em if the goal was like oh, I just wanna make money. I just want someone to give me money. And so when you come to me and people come and whether you join the program or even on the free coaching calls or if you just listen to the podcast and they wanna quit or they wanna start over or they wanna go after another career or whatever, they wanna make some kind of change in their career. And they will ask me these questions. And they're so mired in this fear of like what if it doesn't work? And what they mean is like what if I don't get this happily ever after result where I find the next thing and I become instantly successful at it. And it's so wonderful. And I can prove to everybody that I was right for leaving or whatever kind of fantasies we have. And I always say like I can't guarantee that you're gonna succeed right out the gate. I don't know what's gonna happen. I have no idea how this will turn out for you. And I still 100% with every fiber of my being think you should do it. And I think that's why sometimes people not get confused, but are, you know, I get questions about the coaching I do. And it's like oh, like how can you help people? Like what if they can't do it? I'm like so? Then they try again and again and again. And that's what they learn that like of course, it's not gonna be a success right out the gate. And I think for some of us, by the way just as a caveat, for so many of you who were successes outta the gate, like in school. You were just the straight A student, you were the high achiever, everything was kind of quote unquote easy. Not that it was you didn't work hard, but it was it was available to you, right? There's some people who from when they were little couldn't make it in our traditional schools in the sense that like they couldn't get the A's. They couldn't get into the colleges whatever. And so they probably had to grapple with what their identity is and you know how they're gonna feel about themselves much earlier than a lot of us who, what seemed like a blessing, you know, turned out to be it's a double edged sword. It's a blessing and a curse cuz you were a success. You got the A's, you got into the schools, you got the degree, you did what people told you. And you also got this idea that like I should just be able to succeed at everything which is like that's just not the way life works in anything. And you got the message that like failing is bad and that you should never do things that you're not good at. You should only do the things that you're like already know how to do. And then of course, you're you stay stuck because that's your identity. I have to be good at it right out of the gate. And so I see people who are like fantastic in their careers, fantastic lawyers, engineers, doctors, teachers, whatever. And they're so terrified cuz what if I leave this, this thing that I'm very successful at but also miserable in and hate and don't enjoy it, I'm not fulfilled and don't find the same growth. But what if I fail? What if I do this thing and it doesn't instantly become a success? What if that thing that isn't a success is the thing that fundamentally changes you? Is the thing that helps you break through this shell this like cage of succeeding that you've locked yourself in? What if it liberates you to experiment for the rest of your life, to allow yourself to be to get in touch with who you are? What if we stop focusing just on the result and staying stuck there, right? What if we stop trying to prove ourselves to other people or prove ourselves to ourselves that we're good enough? What if we just decide like this is the person I'm gonna become in this process? I don't know how it's gonna turn out. I have no idea but I do know I can figure things out. I do know I'll keep taking steps. I do know I'm not gonna miss all the lessons along the way. I do know I'm gonna learn from it. That's worth so much more than whatever you wanna prove with the career that you're gonna have. So here are some of the reasons I think you should quit and start over or go after the career or get the promotion or whatever it is that you deep down wanna do but you're afraid because you'll start getting reacquainted with who you actually are and what you actually want when you're not listening to everybody else. You'll have to stop seeking other people's validation. You'll have to learn to be okay with other people not understanding. You'll have to stop people-pleasing and be okay with other people being upset about your decisions which by the way, will free you up in every other aspect of your life as well. To stop needing to control everyone else's emotions around you. Stop needing everybody to understand your decisions and have your own back. You'll learn how to do uncomfortable things even when you don't want to. You'll learn to build your own self-confidence and stop needing it to be based on the achievements that you have on succeeding. You'll learn to reframe failure. You'll stop thinking about it as something going wrong and realize it's just a part of the process. You'll liberate yourself from thinking that you have to be perfect. You'll allow yourself to show up as a full human that makes mistakes and has flaws and doesn't need this armor to walk around, needing everyone else to think that they have it all together when inside they want to feel seen. You'll start seeing just how much possibility is actually out there. You'll have to separate your worth from your work. You'll have to separate your worth from your productivity. I could go on and on but you get the point. These are the reasons to do it. Not because you'll be an instant success and you can go back to the ways you've always been which is just achieving to prove that you're good enough to other people or to yourself. I always say like quitting was the hardest thing that I have ever done in my life but it was hands down the best decision. And I floundered y'all, like people see me now and it's not that anybody thinks I'm like an overnight success cause I talk about it a lot but I want you to know those from 2014 to 2019, there was a lot of floundering. I was stumbling. I did the photo booth business and, you know, it's not that I would say that it's it was a failure or success. It was neither but it was a huge learning experience. But it wasn't what I wanted to do. But I always say like yes, it was the hardest thing I did was quitting but it was hands down the best thing because it forced me to do all of the hard work to liberate myself. And now I have the rest of my life to experiment. So before you pick a goal or you make a decision, I want you to take the time to sit down and write all of the reasons of why you're doing it, of what you're gonna gain in the process of taking that step, of working towards that result. I want you to force your brain to do this work. Don't accept I don't know as a response from your brain. Decide that you're gonna like come up with as many reasons as you possibly can because when things get hard, right, when you're in the failure, when you're looking at like this isn't working and everyone's judging me or whatnot, I want you to have this list to come back to to remind yourself why am I doing this. Because it's not gonna be rainbows and butterflies. It's not gonna be sunny and wonderful all the time. It's gonna be hard. Why did I sign up for this kind of hard? Because I wanna meet that future version version of myself and I wanna see what's possible for me to become. And that future version of yourself is the reason to do anything. It's deciding like does this decision take me in the direction of the person I want to be and will this process help me get there? So I want you to take time to think about all of the things you're gonna gain by doing the hard, scary thing that you have no idea whether it'll lead to the result you want or not. And if you want help with that, I want you to join me in Pave Your Path because this is what I help you with. Figuring out why why are you doing this? What is it that you want? What are all the reasons? What are you gonna gain? So we can become really clear on what we want outta this life and why we're going after it. This is the most important work you can do. It will impact every aspect of your life. It will impact your relationships. It'll impact how you show up. It'll impact these sort of cages that we've built for ourselves with perfectionism and people-pleasing and the need for achievement. It allow you to show up as a human and there's no better gift. So if you're ready to do this work, go to lessonsfromaquitter.com/paveyourpath and let's get on with it. Alright my friends, I hope this was helpful and I will see you next week.

Thank you so much for listening. If you liked this episode, share it with someone else. I promise you know somebody who also hates their job and wants to quit, so why not share the love? And if you want to come follow along for more, come join me on Instagram at LessonsFromAQuitter and make sure you say hi. I'll see you next week for another episode.