Sometimes it’s harder to take big steps and make those changes that we know in our hearts will be the best for us. But to be able to take action, the first thing you need to figure out and understand is what it is that you want. Then you can learn how to ask for it, and move towards taking action to achieve that and the overall lifestyle that you desire.
Once you break things down into more sizeable and understandable, digestible chunks, it’s easier to take action. Then you can continue to learn and make progress, which really gets the ball rolling – the momentum gathers up speed the more you achieve along the way. Baby steps are better than no steps. Take action and move forward. In no time you will realize you have built a pretty decent staircase.
Quit my corporate job
I had worked at an eCommerce software company for over 6 years, starting as the 7th person there, until it grew to about 160 people with offices in Canada and Europe. I had many learning experiences during my time there, doing everything from Operations, Marketing, Hiring/HR, and Project Management, where I ended up with a loss in self-confidence towards the end for a variety of different reasons.
I knew that I was no longer happy with what I was doing, and wanted to have control of my life back and start my own adventure and company, while also being able to travel with freedom and flexibility. Since I was 13 years old, when I first started making beaded jewelry and sewing hair scrunchies to sell at local farmer’s markets in my hometown of Terrace and other nearby communities, I knew that I was always meant to be out on my own and run my own business, like the rest of the Chemko entrepreneurs that make up my family.
I could feel it in my bones.
Although I didn’t know what I wanted to do yet, I knew that I didn’t want to work for anyone else and I needed to be able to choose my own destiny. I would say that the process of leaving took me almost a solid 3 years, from when I initially had it stirring in the back of my mind, but was too afraid to make the jump and thus kept going and maintaining the status quo for so long.
Fear of uncertainty
Taking a jump into uncertainty is HARD, and it was filled with a lot of fear and questioning of my abilities, what would happen next, and how would I be able to sustain myself after being so used to a secure and fixed income for so long. I always had an excuse, but knew that I was playing the victim and needed to make a decision and then prioritize what I really wanted so I could figure out what was the next step for me.
Some of the questions that kept running through my mind during this time were:
- What would make me happy?
- I need a change, but what does that mean?
- I want more fulfilment and the ability to create my own lifestyle
- What’s next?
- How can I find more freedom and flexibility in life?
I had thought about trying to start a new business on the side while there to help tide me over until I was able to leave, but none of these options seemed bearable or feasible for me when I had so little energy left after each workday. I did manage to start a food blog to provide a creative outlet while I was traveling back and forth to a client site down in Silicon Valley – I was living out of a hotel room and didn’t have friends around to fill my small bits of leisure time, even though I didn’t know what I would do with it. The blog ended up being a great learning source and a playing ground for the start of my entire next venture, even though I was unaware that’s what it would become at the time.
At a certain point though, a month or two later, it was too obvious that I was unhappy, and I left the job at the end of 2010 (I had started in 2004).
I didn’t know what I wanted to do yet, but I knew that I couldn’t work for anyone else anymore. I needed to be able to choose my own destiny.
When looking for a job after quitting because I was worried about money (not because I actually wanted to be an employee again), I had such negative physical reactions to it – I would almost start to cry (and even did once when staring at postings and feeling what I would go through to actually even think about applying for the job). My whole body shut down and immediately wanted to do anything but apply for things that were of zero interest to me. I wanted to have freedom and my own flexibility to travel and be able to design my own lifestyle, however I wanted to shape it.
The path to something new
Instead, I traveled to 6 destination weddings in a single year, which was a great excuse to travel to many new places, and figured that I would spend that time enjoying myself and trying to sort out what was next for me. I had built up a little bit of savings and had access to a line of credit if really needed. It wasn’t the ideal situation, but it was the best I could do in the situation I was in, and I didn’t want to take on something else that wasn’t going to make me happy again.
I tried a lot of different things during that year – I continued writing on my food blog and attending events and restaurant openings in Vancouver, meeting a large network of new friends, thoroughly enjoyed the 2010 Olympics since I didn’t have to work while it was happening, and also tried to sort out an ecommerce product line that I could start a company around, but didn’t ever find anything that I really wanted to move forward on. I researched everything from an online store for bamboo baby products to LED ice buckets (which I ran for a few months on Shopify – it makes me laugh now as it so wasn’t me), to selling lemongrass scented spa products and kitchen supplies and other goods found in countries along my travels. (Note to self, I really wish I had actually started one of those back then – if only I decided to follow my own advice and actually take an initial step).
In the meantime, I took on a couple of side contracts to help out two entrepreneurial friends who knew that I could help them with their SEO, and also do so cheaply since I was “new” to the game, to help them get going. I continued to work with their businesses almost 6 years later (even after one of the businesses ended up getting sold, after changing ownership). Basically, I kept busy doing things that I enjoyed and learning while I was at it. This is how I understood online marketing, SEO, and the digital world in general, which all ended up feeding into what I do today.
Even though I can look back now and say that this is something that everyone should do if they have the desire, this was by no means a quick and easy process, and was a time of much uncertainty. Although once I did make the jump, it was also an incredible journey and adventure! I was finally moving in the direction I wanted, even though I didn’t know where I would end up (but life will be an ongoing, ever-changing process anyway).
Stops and starts
Towards the end of 2010, my boyfriend and I at the time split up and we got rid of our apartment. We then got back together about a month later (as you sometimes do when ending a long-term relationship), and stayed at his parent’s house in Squamish (about 45 mins from Vancouver), as they were away anyway and we could then ski in Whistler and were planning to take off for more traveling in January. Again, this was yet another small step in getting rid of my things and being held to a lease on an apartment in any given place, which in turn helped me achieve my longer term lifestyle goals of being more location independent. I didn’t have a lease or anything other than a short-term furnished apartment rental in Vancouver until 5 years later, in 2015.
We went traveling to all those weddings that year, and then broke up again when we got back to Vancouver and attended a friend’s wedding – we knew we would never be in the same place as that happy couple, and needed to move on. This ended up being the breaking point – I was a month away from turning 30, didn’t have a real full-time job or stable income, had nowhere to live, had run out of available cash, and didn’t really know what to do next.
And so it began, I tried a few things, enjoyed some and not others, and continued to take whatever baby steps I could to be able to lead me to progress and sort out what my business would be all about. In the end, I had my starting point to continue to pursue a more and more location independent lifestyle, that would be funded by my next venture, which is how Umami Marketing was born.
What this has meant for me
Like all the necessary things in life (or things that are probably best for you), they always seem to be the hardest. Let’s face it, change is difficult, and some people deal with uncertainty better than others, and there can be a lot of fear that surrounds that uncertainty. The goal is to not let yourself fall into the trap of being a victim, but deciding what you want, and then prioritizing and taking the steps to move forward, one small step at a time.
The same thing happened when it came to writing this book. I wrote an outline at one point over two years before I picked it up again, as it inspired me at the time. A couple years had to pass by before I was ready and no longer scared of writing it, and decided to pick it up and try again. But it was already there – an outline all ready to go, and waiting for me to fill out the rest. And as you may know now, the book still hasn’t been completed or published over 5 years later, and so I decided to just start writing and putting this out there a different way than originally planned, in order to continue to make progress.
Without taking action, we only have ourselves to blame, and even if we’re doing one tiny step at a time, it will all help us move forward, learn and grow, in ways that we likely can’t yet imagine.
Photo Credit: Unsplash / Joel Herzog
About the Author
