Leaving a job to follow your passion…Courageous or Crazy?

What if you just pulled out of life as you know it, tapped into your retirement money and decided to “throw caution to the wind” and go for it ALL?  Is this courageous or crazy?  This is my journey and on any given day, at any given moment,  I can feel like a brave warrior or ready for the “white coats”.
About 6 months ago, I decided to quit my part time job and give myself some self imposed healing time to grieve, mourn and re-assess my life after separating and divorcing from my husband of 19 years. At the time my husband left, I was a stay at home mom and just beginning to embark on a new career in coaching – far different from my previous professional life in sales in the pharmaceutical industry.

In a panic and not knowing how I would support myself and my 8 year old daughter, I dropped my dream of pursuing my coaching path and went back  to my roots in sales and marketing – the bottom line – I needed money!

I am so grateful to my wonderful friend Patti who gave me a job and some much needed love and support during the most difficult year of my life.  The work she offered me allowed me to utilize both my sales and coaching skills as I mentored some talented new sales people.  This job kept my desire for coaching alive and I decided to put together a three year plan for a solo coaching practice.  During generation of the plan, it became clear that to pursue this dream I would need to take a huge leap of faith and leave the security (finanical and emotional) of this new job.  As I was pondering my options, I got struck with the Swine flu – what’s the saying “If you don’t slow down, the universe will slow you down”?  It was during my stay in bed with the swine flu that I decided I needed to leave my new job and take time to re-evalutate my life.  I believe nothing in my life happens by accident.

During my time home sick, a friend dropped off an article she had been carrying in her purse for me for months.  “I don’t even remember what it’s about, it’s been so long” she remarked.  This article was by a women named Tama Kieves and it was an excerpt from her brilliant book “This Time I Dance“.  Tama was a Harvard educated attorney who left a successful law practice to find and pursue her real passion.  This book had a profound affect on me.  It offered me gentleness, humor and a source to refer to everytime people would ask me what I was doing….oh, I am home in bed most days!  Great!!

Today, I feel fortunate to have given myself permission to take time off to feel what I needed to feel and to confirm that the coaching career path is, in fact, what I want to pursue.  Courageous or Crazy?  It is still far too early to tell….but I will tell you it is certainly not boring!