Day 1

July 31st-

This is the day I chose to begin the liberation and say fuck the 9-5. This revelation was birthed from a year and half of constant frustration at my desk job and missing a piece of my soul where my authenticity resides. After feeling suppressed and like my ideas were unimportant at work in my software job, I decided to make a change. Simply making the decision to leave the 9-5 and giving myself permission that this is okay, has been one of the most joy invoking decisions I have made in the past couple of years.

I have to say thank you to my dear friend Travis, who helped me reach this conclusion. For a few months he has listened to me complain about my career situation, specifically all of the negativity that sucks the soul from my body and drains my energy. The day before, I was feeling especially down and frustrated so I wrote to him in a message that was essentially me complaining but also a desperate cry for help. It is important to note here that I have been job searching unsuccessfully for the past 9 months, reaching many 3rd round interviews but never sealing the deal. You can imagine how at wits end I feel. He responded to my message by encouraging me to let go of the validation I was so desperately seeking through posing these thought provoking questions. “Who do you need, in your life, to look at you and say Kelly, what you are doing is amazing?” In reality, I know the answer is no one, because even when I am objectively doing amazing things some people may be jealous and this will just drain my energy more. “Stop doing the job. Figure out a way to stop doing the job. What I hear you say, is you need some time. What does that look like? Go do that. You’re 25, you don’t have a house, marriage, kids, you’re not tied. If both your parents were dead and there were no expectations around what you did, what would you do? Happiness and fulfillment comes from you inside and you give it out to those things.”

This literally blew my mind. A concept so simple and I couldn’t believe I had been ignoring my intuition of how I could reach this place of bliss. I read all the self help books, articles and did the exercises but, I was afraid and continued to go against my grain. When I heard this, I realized what I was doing was all wrong for me. It was comical actually and I burst out into laughter. A desk job is not my thing. I require fluidity and autonomy. I am creative. I am driven and I am hungry. Corporate America hates these traits from their entry level staff. If you embody these traits you are seen as a threat rather than the asset that you are (at least in my experience). So doing this job search where I was applying to intensely structured companies held a lot of resistance for me and manifested in intense feelings of self doubt, confusion, anxiety and no direction. After 9 months of inner turmoil I now understand why I held all this resistance. Deep down I knew that I was living from a place that was not authentically me but I was so terrified to take the plunge and that I would receive a lack of support for doing so. Being an entrepreneur himself, Travis’ words of encouragement and support were what I needed to break down that last bit of the wall and let the dam flow. I finally surrendered to all that resistance. I realized that this vision I had was of what other people expected of me and not what I expected of me. I was living a life that I thought people wanted me to live, what I thought other people did to find their happiness. I was lying to myself about what I truly desired and craved to breathe a life of excitement, joy and adventure every day. What came from this release was an immediate well of excitement and curiosity for the unknown that exploded inside of me. It felt like a gyser, all that trapped energy that was suppressed and released in a beautiful natural flow. HOLY SHIT. I FELT ALIVE.

My next thought was about my ideal situation which I had set my heart on some time ago. I had recently fallen in love with Puerto Rico’s charm while visiting there once a month for work trips. The island and I had a raging love affair and it had an energy that made me feel at home with an intense sense of ease I have not experienced in many places. My soul sang at the thought of quitting my job and running my own brand remotely which would allow me to travel or live in Puerto Rico for an extended period of time. Simple right? LOL. That was a joke. BUT my entrepreneurial friends tell me that making this decision is the hardest part and after that everything comes more easily. Well now this is where the work begins… and I couldn’t feel more alive and more excited to begin this journey towards a life of pure bliss.

NEXT STEP: FINDING MY BLISS