Four Years After A Little Insane Courage | Life Love and Hiccups: Four Years After A Little Insane Courage
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Thursday 18 May 2017

Four Years After A Little Insane Courage

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A memory popped up in my Facebook feed yesterday from 4 years ago...

It was a reminder that it is 4 years since my fabulous midlife meltdown that resulted in me doing the craziest thing I have ever done - quit my job, bringing to an end my 20 year career in order to make those dreams of mine I had... a reality.

FOUR YEARS you guys!!!

Sweet Baby Cheeses, I can remember it as clearly as if it were only last month...  maybe because it was single handedly one of the most scary and yet at the same time, most exhilarating things I have ever done in my entire life to date.

That phone call I made to my boss that day literally slammed the brakes on my life and brought everything to a stand still.

I had no idea what I was going to do with myself.

I had no idea how I was going to be able to afford such a frivolous act of spontaneity.

I had no idea where I would even begin to start with those dreams I had, let alone where I would be with them four years on.

I had no idea who this crazy person was that I had become and what possessed me to do such a thing.

What I did know was that when I arrived back from Bali only the day before, I was desperately miserable. Miserable enough that I was willing to walk away from the past twenty years of my working life, away from the security and the stability of the company I worked for and away from my career and possibly the best income I could ever hope to earn again.

I knew I didn't want a job that required travel and for me to be away from my husband and my kids so much.

I knew that I wanted to be the one to drive my kids to school and be there when they came home.

I knew in my heart that what I was doing each day.... wasn't what I was born to do.

And so I quit and vowed to at the very least pretend to be brave and chase those dreams from that moment on.

Do I regret it?

That is one of the most frequent questions I have been asked since then and that's an easy one for me to answer...

HELL NO!

NO, not for one freaking moment do I regret it!

Look, I am not going to lie to you. There have been panic inducing times in the past four years when money has been so tight that I wondered how we were going to pay the school fees or the car rego and I have no doubt there will probably be more times like that.

We have had to make some mighty big changes in our family life to afford me to not have to go back to the corporate world.

We haven't been on holidays since I quit my job, we can't afford to buy all the latest and greatest technology or toys. Rarely do we go out to fancy places for dinner or splash money around on expensive gifts or days out.

But we are happy.

Like really happy.

Like living my dream kind of happy.

Four years ago, I thought money equalled happiness. Ha... how wrong I was.

Don't get me wrong... we all know that money can buy you things or allow you to do things that can make you feel happy, but that kind of happiness doesn't generally last all that long, nor does it dull that miserable feeling in the pit of your stomach when you open your eyes in the morning to face another day of doing something that doesn't make you happy.

Do you know that feeling?

I hope you don't, but if you do then I have this to say to you...

Had I not had that one moment of insane courage that allowed me to leap without overthinking it all.... well then my dream would be nothing more than that today - still just a dream.

Apart from marrying my hubby and having our children... that one moment of insane courage was the best darn thing that has happened to me.

I'm not saying that taking a blind leap of faith is the right thing for everyone to do, but I will say this; there is always going to be a reason why it's not the 'right time' to do something big and brave and scary... our fear alone will somehow manage to FIND us a reason.

But maybe whilst we are waiting for the 'perfect time'... the 'perfect opportunity' might just sail right on past us, and what an awful shame that would be.

Don't ever discredit what a big impact just a little bit of courage can have on your life.

If you ever find yourself standing on the edge of something so scary but potentially so great but you are too afraid to move forward... my advice to you would be this; close your eyes, take a big breath and just leap because it might just take only one brief moment of insane courage to bring those dreams of yours to life too.