In the spring of 2020, I was let go from one of the best jobs I’ve ever held. I was happy, thriving, challenged, and was making a good income. When that day came, I was blindsided, along with a number of other employees. In that instant, I knew a lot of very important decisions had to be made. My husband had just recently started working for a major car company and was getting paid more than he’d ever made before. I was offered a generous severance from my company, so together, we made the decision for me to stay at home with my daughter. It’s something I had always hoped I’d be able to do so I was elated.
Fast forward two years – we’ve since enrolled my daughter in a private school and tuition isn’t cheap. I knew I needed to get back to work to ensure we could continue sending her to this wonderful school. I interviewed with what seemed like a thousand companies and received rejection after rejection. I was tired and burned out. My brother had recently started his own cleaning business after working retail for many years. He, too, was burned out and knew he needed to make a change. His advice to me was not to work for anyone but myself. He sent me a video link of a guy who started a successful bird watching blog and I was convinced that was what I needed to do.
Here I am today working diligently on my birding blog, struggling, crying, feeling clueless and completely overwhelmed – and yet I’m so full of joy and peace knowing that if I keep plugging away, if I keep learning, trying new things, that I, too, CAN have a successful blog of my own.
Successful is a subjective term – it can mean a thousand different things to a thousand different people. For me, it’s not about making a six-figure income or about gaining thousands of followers. Success to me means being proud of all the accomplishments I’ve made; being awakened by all the new knowledge I’ve discovered, and being able to say I overcame all the obstacles and still pushed forward. It’s never giving up; challenging yourself to keep trying even after failing time and time again. And it’s looking the impossible in the eye and being able to say, “I DID IT!”