My Leap of Faith for 2018 – I quit my day job and focused on Wealthy Affiliate

Sharing is caring!

A leap of faith is defined as being:

“an act of believing in or attempting something whose existence or outcome cannot be proved or known.”

It can be applied to many situations: leaping out of an aeroplane with (or without!) a parachute; hurling yourself down white water rapids on a raft, or in my case, quitting my day job to focus on the things that make me truly happy, and that I feel I have been led to by my higher self.

That, for me, was to stop teaching in a secondary school and to focus on teaching a wider audience through my blogging and online businesses.

I’ll get to how that is working out for me as we progress down the blog, but for now I have a question for you?

Do you have a leap of faith you are looking to take?

And more importantly – what is stopping you from taking it?

A lot of people dream of things they would like to do and achieve in their life. It could be:

• Making a lot of money
• Helping protect the environment in some way
• Helping to feed the hungry and clothe the poor
• Creating a great work of art/music/fiction
• Having a lifelong relationship with one special person and raising a family

Whatever we dream of, we usually do it in the privacy of our heads. We often shy away from publicly declaring our innermost thoughts for feat that they will be ridiculed or sneered at by our peers. And not just our peers, but sometimes by our family and friends too.

Most of us keep our real goals and dreams very close to our hearts because they are so precious to us, and exposure to the ‘big, bad, world outside’ could leave them hurt, crumpled and abandoned.

We nurture them in quiet moments in our mind; before we go to bed, whilst travelling on the bus, whilst daydreaming out of the window – but boy do they flourish if we let them.

They can sometimes become so outrageously flamboyant that we even allow ourselves a secret smile as we soar with the eagles of our desires and experience the bliss of believing in them, for however short a time.

For many of us, that is where our dreams stay; beautiful, unresolved glimpses of a life we would most certainly enjoy if we could only have more faith in the universe and let ourselves be guided to them by our higher selves.

In the meantime, we return to focusing on getting through our daily routine and settle for where we are now, for that is known, safe and most definitely within our comfort zone.

The trouble with that is that, as most of us know even if we don’t always live by it: Life begins at the edge of our comfort zone, and at some point, we are going to need to step out of our comfort zone in order to be able to spread our wings and fly.

Comfort zones are great – they stop you walking off the edge of a building at a great height, then can keep to alive and can protect you from ‘the real world’. But they can also become a prison, trapping the person inside indefinitely; and that is not such a good thing.

Wealthy Affiliate and Me

To me, my comfort zone was my teaching. I have been a teacher for over 30 years and have taught in a variety of situations including in my own school, for other companies and workshop groups, and finally as a teacher in secondary school – the ultimate ‘proper job!’

I like my job and I enjoy teaching the students but it is not what really ‘floats my boat’ as they say. Or it has been, but what I’ve found recently is, that the goalposts have shifted . What used to excite me, no longer does and my dreams are now filled with different images; or working from home, or speaking and helping millions and of more freedom to spend with my loved ones.

I believe that these impulses are now leading me to change direction. After all, 30 years in the same thing is quite a long time and I know the world is changing and our expectations have changed with it, as they should. We are no longer happy getting a job on the bottom rung of the ladder and working our way up to the top after 40 years’ work and waiting in ‘dead man’s shoes’.

So for me, finding Wealthy Affiliate at the tail end of September 2017 was the culmination of a long search to find my true calling, at least for this stage of my life. I knew it was time for a change but I was struggling a little to know where to look and what to do. I have always been interested in many things and I have always enjoyed exploring them and learning new things. But when those things start to lose their appeal, I know that it is necessary to take action and change them.

That is where I started to trust my higher self, to ask the right questions, and most importantly, listen for the responses.

So I meditated, listened to my gut instincts and found time to quiet my mind and allow inspiration to flow to me, and through me.

Interestingly I wasn’t looking out for a ‘road to Damascus’ experience, a burning bush or a sign emblazoned on a billboard. I just listened inwardly and the answers came: in my dreams, in my emotional guidance system and with my new-found inspirations: the way forward lit up like the lights on an airport runway.

So what it my new dream?

In my teens I knew that I wanted to help people – that has always been on my agenda, but over recent years, my desires have leaned more and more into becoming a writer and a spiritual person who would help others in their search for their own truth.

I did spend sometime over the last 20 years a professional writer creating medical and commercial content for websites and training programs which I enjoyed, and I have written plays and pantomimes for my performing arts school as well. Strangely enough though, I never really considered myself a ‘writer‘ even then. I think that was because I was usually writing to someone else’s brief which needed me to write in a particular style or about a particular topic and I never really got to write about what interested me most, or in my own way.

Until now…

I don’t even remember now how I found Wealthy Affiliate or why I took the plunge and joined. But I do believe I was led to it by my higher self, in the knowledge that it would be the next step on my journey of self-creation and self-evolution. A search phrase, a few clicks on a computer and wow, I landed on the WA homepage and have never looked back.

I believe I have now found my true vocation at least for the next few years, (never say never after all)…..and I absolutely love it.

Instead of having to force myself out of bed in the mornings now, I can’t wait to sit in front of my computer and start typing. I love the time I now have to write well into the wee small hours or to communicate with individuals across the globe.

It makes me feel alive in a way I haven’t for quite a while. I have created this niche site, which I’m passionate about and what I find now is that there are just not enough hours in the day to see all my ideas through. But no matter – there is always tomorrow and tomorrow looks really exciting.

A sense of calm and relief

When I handed in my notice at the secondary school, a great sense of relief and calm came over me. I knew it was the right thing to do, my inner guidance system told me and I trusted it. I took my leap of faith into the future knowing that all would be well, the universe would have my back and things will all work out in their own time and their own way.

I do not need to worry.

I do not need to panic.

I do not need to know every little minute detail along the way. I cannot control most of these things anyway.

And so I don’t.

You see that in order to stay authentic to myself, I had to take action to change things, and I did.

I have already discovered that there are new and amazing opportunities all around me that I could not see before. New people, new situations, new teaching opportunities, new doors opening and new ways to reach millions, not just hundreds of people.

I know too, that this new approach will make me happy – it already does because I can feel myself creating my new life in the way I know I can, using all my knowledge, skills, trust and belief.

Will there be hiccups on the way?

Of course, there will be. There will be doubters and naysayers; some of my closest family will look at my decision with derision, based on their own values and belief systems. But I know that they cannot affect my reality unless I let them, and at the moment, I am choosing not too.

So what are you choosing to do, or not do with your life?

If you have a dream then I urge you to go out and live it.

If you don’t know how, then have some faith in yourself and your higher self, and follow these few simple steps to get yourself back on track.

1. Allow yourself time to day-dream, however wild or unrealistic those dreams are, remember they are yours.
2. Listen to your emotional guidance system – what is it telling you about the things you want to be doing and the things you don’t?
3. Take the time to quiet your mind, meditate or just relax and listen to your inner thoughts.
4. Allow your inspirations to come through. Don’t force them, just watch them and observe how they make you feel – and go with the ones that make you feel good.
5. Take actions to bring those dreams into reality but don’t force it. The path to your true happiness lies in trusting in the universe – trust that it:
   1. knows what is best for you and what you want
   2. has the ability to deliver those things to you though ways that you could not even imagine – through cooperative co-creation with others.
6. Get out of your own way and allow things to unfold naturally.

Once you do these things, sit back and watch your life (your dreams and goals) manifest in front of you, with far less effort than you have imagined.

To me, life is for living, not just for existing and I for one, intend to live by that mantra and reach out and grab it!

Watch this space……and over to you!

RELATED POSTS

Live in the moment: live in the now

Spread your wings and fly

The best spiritual and motivational people

Happiness and your emotions