First Day of Self Employment & Not Letting Fear Control You
Y'all. I am SO full of SO many emotions today! I am so incredibly happy to announce as of today, I am officially a self employed business owner...fulllll time!!
My dietitian soul sista and business partner, Meg, has been full time since beginning of June and I have been dying to join her. After lots of discussion, manifesting, planning and kinda-sorta-not-planning-because-sometimes-you-just-gotta-go-for-it I put in my resignation and six weeks later, here we are!
I spent the morning (well after getting back from the gym!) sipping on my Jacked Up Java and reflecting on the past five years since Nick and I moved to Florida.
It's funny because five years ago, I had JUST received my RD and Nick graduated from Clemson (we are both Clemson alum, Go Tigers!) and at the time I had to make [what seemed like at the time] one of the scariest decisions of my life. I had received a job back in my hometown of Salisbury, NC...and I decided to decline the job offer and move to Florida with Nick where he had gotten a job in Tampa. I had to turn down a well paying job to move somewhere I had never been and face the potential of being jobless. But I knew deep down in my heart it was the right decision to make even though it was SO incredibly scary. I mean, who turns down a job right out of college?!
Literally the day we moved to Florida I received a call from the health department to come in for an interview and at day one of moving to Florida and the unknown, I got a job. That was just a little over five years ago.
It's amazing how when you take a leap of faith and believe in yourself- how much your life can change. That same job, originally a job in WIC, became a job in the primary care setting where I got to lead support group and cooking demos, and then eventually lead to a supervisor position and being head of the weight management clinic. Throughout those years, Nick and I got engaged and then married, got a crazy puppy (and still crazy two years later), bought a house and decided to make St Pete our home. And yesterday, I had my last day at that same health department that gave me a job when we first moved here.
On the side, I had discovered blogging and shortly after getting married decided I would start a blog as well. Blogging eventually led to me meeting my business partner, and since the day we met we have been planning what would become Nourishing Minds Nutrition.
I have known since I was 16 years old I wanted to be a dietitian. I always had really big dreams for my career. And at the age of 28, I feel like I can finally focus, full time, on those big dreams of mine.
I am not sure what inspired me to share part of my life story with you today...but I think what I am trying to articulate to you is that it's okay to jump. To not know your next step. To not let fear control your life. Had I let fear of the unknown control me, I would have never moved to Florida with my now husband, moved to a city I love so much, met so many amazing new friends, grown so much as a person and who knows if I would have ever mustered the courage to start a blog, a private practice, to pursue these crazy dreams of mine.
I encourage you today to do something that scares the crap out of you. That challenges you. That forces you to face fear in the face and to overcome fear itself.
As my mom has always told me, you can do anything you set your mind to...thanks Momma for those encouraging words, because every moment I got scared I reminded myself of that fact.
Here's to you and I following our dreams!
XOXO,
Victoria
