Taking the Leap(!!!!)

Hey guys!

I am writing this post at 10:54pm on May 9, 2017. I hope I remember this day forever, because it is the day that I put in my notice at my full-time job to pursue my nutrition private practice!

I wasn’t quite sure what direction I wanted to go when I started my business. I knew I wanted to help people with their nutrition. I knew I wanted to use my 8 years of education to generate a little bit of extra income rather than constantly giving away resources for free. I knew I wanted to be able to use my creativity and plan things in my own time on my own terms. So I rang in 2017 by launching G & G Nutrition Co.

I started out with part-time hours- evenings, weekends and virtual/telephone appointments- while I continued to work 40 hours per week in the hospital seeing sick patients. I commute 2-2.5 hours per day to and from work. I had big dreams of fulfilling counseling sessions, great blog posts, new recipes and fun projects. But what I experienced instead was not enough time in the day, the continued stress of my full-time job sandwiched between two lengthy commutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and difficulty being able to accommodate my new and growing business. It has left me pretty exhausted, and a little defeated.

As I entered my thirties in 2015, I started thinking a lot about my values, my goals and dreams, and really how to live a life that honors what is important to me. What is important to me? Helping people find balance and peace with food. Spending quality time with my friends and family. Taking care of myself physically and mentally. And of course, being happy.

They say when you start your own business that you will know when it’s time to leave your full-time job, and I have definitely been experiencing that over the past few months. I haven’t been honoring what is important to me in my life. I can feel that, and so can the people who are closest to me. I’ve also had to decline private practice opportunities on regular basis because they interfere with my full-time job. I knew I needed to think about jumping head first into my nutrition private practice when I actually started avoiding calling potential clients back because I had no idea when I would have the time or energy to see them. 

As the feelings of leaving my job started becoming stronger and stronger, there have been a ton of thoughts swirling through my mind. Will I be okay financially? What about my benefits? I have a higher salary and better benefits as an inpatient clinical dietitian than I’d ever imagined, so I think it’s only natural that I struggled at the thought of losing them. But I have recently realized that there will probably not be a time when I feel 100% comfortable giving up that security. Sooooo with a chunk of savings in the bank and a few part-time opportunities lined up to cover basic expenses, I think now is as good of time as ever to “just jump”. I gave my notice today around lunch time, and I spent the whole rest of the day in complete disbelief that I was actually quitting my job.

I’m excited. I’m scared shitless. But we only have 1 life to live and I’m happy to say that I’m following my dreams <3 Wish me luck!!