Pivots & Clarity

 One of our family traditions on Thanksgiving is sharing what we are thankful for, starting with the youngest person to the wisest person at the table. When it was my turn this year, I struggled for a minute, and said that I was grateful to be following a new career path. At the time, it felt like the right thing to say, but since it's been a little over a week since I spoke that out loud, I've been thinking a lot about that decision. 

As anyone who knows me or has followed along up until this point on the blog knows, I have made some big pivots in my life, especially when it comes to career. Usually, I end up right back in the same spot for a variety of reasons. And it appears that I am about to do it once again. But this time, I have a lot more peace about that decision, and I'll tell you why. 

I've been working in human resources for almost twenty years. There are definitely pieces of this career that I really enjoy - making positive changes in a workplace, streamlining processes and procedures, working with employees and leadership and coaching them through difficult situations. But over the past few years, I've lost some of my passion for the field maybe because of the roles I've been in, or maybe because I got burnt out and needed to breathe new life into my career. 

In considering going back to school to become a teacher, I've realized a few things over the past couple of weeks. A lot of people who are in the field of teaching (either as teachers or adjacent to it) have offered insight into the pain points of being an educator in today's world. There's a lot of loopholes and headaches and challenges, not to mention the $20k in debt to go through a teaching credential program, the tests I'd need to take, the continually feeling like I'm starting over again. And I'm not excited about that at all. There are only a couple of pieces of the teaching path that truly excite me; 1) the learning process of going back to school, reading, writing, and researching, 2) the interaction with teens and being able to mentor them and make an impact on their lives, and 3) the feeling that I'm doing something that gives me purpose and I am passionate about. 

The downsides to switching careers in my 40s would be losing the flexibility of working in an HR role whether that is 100% remote or hybrid, and the ability to show up for all of my kids' activities and events at school and after school, and the capacity to work on other passion projects like this blog because I'm not spending my free time in class for a credential program. 

I've been weighing out the pros and cons of it all, and have landed in a spot where I feel at peace with my decision. I talked it through with my online sober community and received a personal message from someone telling me how at peace I seemed with where I've landed. I feel good about this pivot once again, to stay in the career I've built and to invest in myself further with funneling my desire to learn and grow into learning more about sobriety and becoming involved in the sober community online that I've been introduced to over the past few months. Taking my desire to work as a mentor with teens and applying that with a local mentorship program that I've done for the last year, and maybe taking it a step further if the opportunity presents itself for more mentorship whether it's through youth group at church or at the high schools nearby. 

It also hit me that maybe I've always held onto this notion of living a life full of passion and purpose needing to overhaul my life and career entirely, when I'm coming to the realization that I can do that with passion projects, not a complete life and career change. I can live a life that I'm passionate about and have purpose in helping other women in their sobriety journey, and impacting teenagers 1-on-1 as the opportunity presents itself. I can immerse myself in quit lit and studying sobriety and using that to not only have an impact on others but improve myself along the way. 

Like many of you, I'm sure when you hear the word "pivot", all you think about is the episode of Friends where they are trying to move a couch up the stairwell. I feel like my life in the past several years has looked a lot like that scene. Frantically trying to fit the pieces into the puzzle I think I should be building, instead of taking a deep breath and being appreciative of the puzzle I've already built, and working from there instead of creating something brand new that I'm not excited about. If I'm going to spend $20k for a new career, it should be something I can't wait to dig into, something I'm excited about and that's just not the case. My life today looks a lot different than it did 20 years ago when I first thought about becoming a teacher. My life now has shifted my priorities so that teaching isn't the end of the road for me. But that doesn't mean I can't live a life full of passion and purpose in this current season, and I'm feeling more at peace with that realization than I have in a long time.

Sobriety, once again, has brought me so much clarity. And a willingness to dig in and figure things out before I'm in over my head and regretting my decisions. I'm able to think things through and get to these choices before I blow up my life, and I'm super grateful for that today. 

If I could have a rewind and say what I'm thankful for this year, I'd 100% say my sobriety and my health. Without a doubt. And this decision keeps those two things at the forefront of my day-to-day and I know in my heart that I am headed exactly where I should be as we finish out 2023.