3 Things I Wish I'd Know Earlier

Making the decisions to quit a job I loved, sell my home and travel the world with my young family was not an easy one. In fact, we had the vision 7 years prior to actually bringing it to life.

Here are 3 things I wish I’d known earlier on that would have made it a possibility sooner:

1. Courage comes before confidence

Confidence begins when you start taking action. It cannot come first! Courage requires trust and faith - in yourself, in others, and in the universe - to take a risk; to take a leap that will transform your life.

Brene Brown says that “true courage comes when we decide to take a risk without knowing the outcome. That’s vulnerability. And vulnerability is the pathway to courage. Vulnerability is hard, it’s scary, and it feels dangerous. But it’s not as hard, scary or dangerous as getting to the end of our lives and having to ask ourselves, “What if I would have shown up?””  What if I had taken that risk? What if I had chosen courage before confidence? 

In Mel Robbin’s recent podcast, she defines confidence, not as a feeling, but as an ACTION and define confidence as the willingness to try. And transformation requires action.

When we pulled out of our driveway to embark on this journey, you think I was filled entirely with confidence? Hell no! I had so many doubts, so many limiting voices, so many fears. But I was courageous enough to take the leap in spite of those things and lean into trust in myself, my community, and the universe to embrace that uncertainty. And guess what? Nothing broke. It worked out. It’s still working out. And what I have now, is more CONFIDENCE for the next transformation - big or small. 

2. Nothing is permanent

What held me back for the better part of a decade from taking a leap to transform my life in a way that more authentically aligns with my values was this lack of knowing if it was the RIGHT thing to do. The burden of permanence created too much pressure in the decision.  Then in 2020 my friend Mishelle gave me this beautiful declaration, “I trust that I know what is the correct thing to do AND that I will know how to respond if it isn’t.” And that created a permission slip for me to lean into trust and intuition to change my mind or course correct at any point. 

Yes, I’ve transformed my life radically in the past year AND I already see how I will transform again in the near future. Nothing is permanent. You can change your mind at any point. You can make a new choice rooted in your new learnings.  My teacher Susanne Conrad likes to say, “You’re never going BACK somewhere, you are going there AGAIN” with new learnings, with evolved perspectives and experiences. That language shift for me also allowed me to release the voice in my head that says “going back” means failure.  

Nothing is permanent. Everything changes. We all change & we get to change our minds at any point. 

3. You are never starting from zero

When I left my corporate job as a tenured, respected, successful people and operations manager to shift my career into life + leadership coach, for some reason, I left all the confidence, skills, and badassery from my old job as I stepped into a new career. My fellow coach Jenna reminded me that I’m not starting OVER or from ground zero as a life and leadership coach and reminded me that all my career and life experiences and skills are carried into my new career.

That fear of starting over is what holds people back from making big changes and transforming their lives - in careers, in relationships, anywhere! This pressure we put on ourselves when we think we have to go all the way back and START FROM ZERO is too dang much! It’s a limiting voice & I want you to silence that if you’re experience it and instead shift into faith and trust that you have all the experience, tools, and skills for your next transformation!