Let's talk about the rocky road of self-worth when your job feels like it defines you. I'm sharing my personal story on how I've navigated my career so far in my 20s. This episode is all about reshaping success in a way that feels right for you and getting clear on separating your worth from what you do for work.
And we're wrapping it up with a look at the guts it takes to step away from the usual career route. I'll spill the beans on the mix of excitement and nerves when I left a safe marketing job to craft a life that's totally me—launching a marketing agency and a clothing brand. This chat is for everyone who's dreamed of a career that's fulfilling and aligns with their passions. It's all about encouraging those who want a more balanced and flexible work life. Join me for a talk that's about growth, being true to yourself, and creating a career that just fits.
* * * * * * * * *
Shop our apparel! --> Love Your Body Now
Use Code: LYBNlistener at checkout for a special discount!
Follow us on Insta: @loveyourbodynow.podcast
Let's talk about the rocky road of self-worth when your job feels like it defines you. I'm sharing my personal story on how I've navigated my career so far in my 20s. This episode is all about reshaping success in a way that feels right for you and getting clear on separating your worth from what you do for work.
And we're wrapping it up with a look at the guts it takes to step away from the usual career route. I'll spill the beans on the mix of excitement and nerves when I left a safe marketing job to craft a life that's totally me—launching a marketing agency and a clothing brand. This chat is for everyone who's dreamed of a career that's fulfilling and aligns with their passions. It's all about encouraging those who want a more balanced and flexible work life. Join me for a talk that's about growth, being true to yourself, and creating a career that just fits.
* * * * * * * * *
Shop our apparel! --> Love Your Body Now
Use Code: LYBNlistener at checkout for a special discount!
Follow us on Insta: @loveyourbodynow.podcast
If you are someone who is on a journey towards self-love or you are passionate about the mission behind finding confidence in the body that you have now and building acceptance around it and really focusing on having body neutrality, then I need you to go and check out the Love your Body Now apparel. We come out with new designs very often and they are all about the mission of practicing loving your body, having a healthy relationship with yourself and also prioritizing your mental health and well-being. If that is something that you are passionate about and you want to represent this mission, then I encourage you to go and check out our apparel. We also have stickers. Because you are a listener of the podcast, I am including a discount for just the listeners of this podcast. There's nowhere else that you can get this discount. Be sure to head over to the link in our show notes and use the code LYBNLISTENER. I will also include that in the show notes as well, so that you can just easily copy and paste that check out Without further ado. Let's get into today's episode. Welcome to the Love your Body Now podcast, the podcast for women who are ready to feel confident in their body right now and redefine what health looks like for them. I'm Savannah, your host, and together we'll be having conversations about what it means to accept and love our bodies now, while simultaneously prioritizing our health journey. We'll be debunking beliefs that do not serve us and diving into misconceptions and unhealthy narratives in the fitness world, so that we can rebuild our foundation from a place of self-love. Hello, welcome back to the Love your Body Now podcast. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode.
Speaker 1:I felt very called to do an update on my life because I feel I don't remember if it was probably right. When I started this podcast, which was in 2023, I believe in March, I shared somewhat of a life update and the things that have been going on in my life. I talked about it a little bit in a previous episode, the things that I'm focused on in 2024, and I mentioned the fact that I am starting a new job in 2024 where I will be working from home, which I'm super excited about. But I wanted to kind of share how I've gotten to this point, because I worked two different jobs last year in 2023. And as someone who has been navigating her career and really trying to figure out what I want to do with my life for a few years now. It kind of was like really, it made me feel very shameful to have pursued two different jobs and leave both of them. But I want to talk about it because I'm sure that there are other 20, 30-some year old individuals and even if you're not in that age group, but you are maybe making a shift in your career or you've realized that what you're doing is no longer what you want to be doing, I think we need to have a conversation around this narrative that we need to stay at a company for X amount of years or we need to climb the corporate ladder and receive all of these career titles, blah, blah, blah, because I feel like it can really fuck with your mind and really get in the way of being super truthful with yourself and recognizing what we actually want in our life and what will actually make us feel fulfilled.
Speaker 1:So, bringing it back a little bit, for me personally, when I graduated school like college in 2020, I had actually decided to no longer pursue the thing that I was planning on pursuing for my career, which was physical therapy, and so I finished out my degree in exercise science, not really knowing what I was going to do with my life. But I knew that I was going to be moving across country to start my life with my now husband and I just kind of like gave myself permission to not know what I was, what I wanted to do, and just give myself permission to figure it out. And now that I'm 26, so that was what, like three, four years ago, I I thought that by now I would have had things kind of figured out. And I feel like these past few years have been so much experimental for me that I've just now feel like I've gained a little bit more clarity on what it is I'm trying to do. But then still, at the same time, I'm like I don't know. I just don't have the answers.
Speaker 1:And it has been something that I've really struggled with, though, navigating these past few years, because, as someone who got her bachelor's degree and then kind of like figured out that what I was originally pursuing wasn't something I wanted to do, it really made me feel kind of worthless and made me feel stupid and you know, like I had made all of the wrong decisions and blah, blah, blah. And I had a really hard time also comparing myself to others. I compared myself to my husband a lot and his career ventures and just like really struggled with not knowing what it is I wanted to spend my time doing and also just struggling with this idea that my worth was directly tied to my career and my income. Honestly, because I knew what my husband was making and I know what he's doing for himself. And it's hard not to compare yourself even if, like you, and your partner or maybe friends or whoever else you're comparing yourself to, are on completely different paths. It's still a challenge not to feel that comparison and that is something that I feel like has been it honestly has probably held me back in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1:Just comparing myself so much to other people and their quote unquote successes and what they're doing with their careers. It's been something that I've really internally struggled with for a very long time and I try not to talk about it a whole lot, or at least I had it in the past because I didn't want people to think that I was struggling with it. I wanted people to believe that I was successful and that what I was doing fulfilled me, and I just wanted people to believe that I was successful because I feel like, internally, I felt like I wasn't and I felt like I was failing. And now that I am entering 2024 and I have a new job again and I'm pursuing some other ventures, I feel like I've gained a lot of clarity. And I want to talk about it because when Victor, my husband and I left San Diego to follow his career to Texas that is why we relocated was because he got a job opportunity here in Texas and I had already, you know, we had kind of came to the decision that I was like I'm okay with you pursuing what you want to pursue for your career. I just I need time to figure out what I want to do and I really do feel like I was given the space to do that.
Speaker 1:When we moved to San Antonio, I was kind of on the fence of like pursuing a couple of different things and trying out entrepreneurship, like full-blown entrepreneurship. I was kind of doing a form of entrepreneurship for the longest time and I really wanted to like pivot in what I was doing it no longer. It just did not feel right for me, but I also didn't know what I wanted to do and I still feel like I had a lot to learn, but at the time I just didn't know Like I just I felt kind of at a loss and I didn't want to spend my time doing something that didn't feel right either, just just to do it. So for a long time I really struggled with that mentally, just like not feeling like I had much purpose and like not knowing and also not wanting to take the wrong step, and it led I eventually led me to pursuing like health coaching full-blown and like trying to create my own program and services. That way and I feel like it was I learned a lot. I learned a lot about myself.
Speaker 1:I learned a lot about entrepreneurship that I had not known about, and it eventually led to me feeling like what I was doing was I wanted to do it, but at the same time, I was struggling to find clients and I didn't like feeling like I was working from a place of scarcity because that was like my only source of income, and again, I had this belief that my income had a lot to do with my worth, and so what I ended up doing was deciding that I feel like I had gotten clarity from that experience of, okay, I've realized what entrepreneurship can look like, but I've also realized there are things there are so many more things that I need to learn if I did want to actually pursue entrepreneurship. And so that is what led me to wanting to find an actual like W2 job in marketing, because I really found I really found that I enjoyed marketing when I was doing like marketing for myself and my health coaching business and I wanted to learn from other people because I hadn't gotten a degree in marketing, so all of the learning that I had done I, you know, was listening to podcasts, was going on YouTube, I was taking courses and I just had. Finally, I felt like I had kind of hit a wall and I just needed more perspective and to learn more in different ways and I didn't want to be working from a place of like feeling super like the scarcity mindset of I need to make money. And I feel like when you are in that mindset of like I need to make money with a business, then you're no longer as authentic in your business and you you just are not in a place to attract, and I recognize that. So that's when I really decided to kind of put things on pause and get back into working a w2 job where I could just like learn more. I also didn't really know a lot of people in the area, since we were new here. So I just I wanted to kind of try something different and learn different things that I I feel like again I had kind of plateaued and my experience and my knowledge and so I wanted to get back out there and connect with new people, learn from them and learn from a different job that I was doing.
Speaker 1:So it did take me a while to actually find a job that felt right and I ended up pursuing this position because I thought it would eventually lead to a marketing role. So it was not actually a marketing role. I accepted as an assistant manager role for a gym and I won't get too much into what it all played out because I think I've actually talked about it before on the podcast. But it ended up not looking how I wanted it to and it the path that I thought that I would have with it just really didn't seem like it was realistic for me anymore. So that is when I decided to pursue a different company and it was actually like an event marketing role for a construction company and I've talked about it on the podcast, I've talked about on social media and the only thing with that was.
Speaker 1:I accepted the position when we were still living in our other home and it was a really far commute for me, but I was. I knew that my husband and I had planned on moving down the road because we wanted to become landlords and turn our first home into a rental. So I knew that it was going to be temporary and I just really wanted the opportunity to be in a marketing role and see how I liked it. So I ended up accepting the position and then I think it was a couple months into the role that we actually bought a new home and unfortunately the home was further than the first home, so my commute got even longer and what ended up happening was I just really felt mentally drained from my commute. I felt like I no longer had time for things outside of my job. That actually lit me up.
Speaker 1:The role itself wasn't really the kind of marketing that I was interested in. I mean, I was interested in it to an extent, but it really kind of just felt like it. I was starting to go through the motions of my job and not just again just not feeling super lit up by what I was doing and ultimately it led me to leaving the position at the end of this year and I had actually been looking for a role for probably two months before I left the job and I really had not had much luck. I was trying to find marketing roles that were more the type of marketing that I wanted to be in and just like was not having much luck with it. Feeling super frustrated. I feel like it led to me really just like feeling super unfulfilled in my life, feeling kind of hopeless, feeling very stressed, and I feel like I put my health and well-being on the back burner during this period of time because I was so consumed by it and struggled with it so much that like it just kind of took everything out of me mentally and I just no longer felt motivated to do things in my life that actually lit me up, because I felt like I was just in a role that like I can't, I couldn't get out of because I couldn't find anything else.
Speaker 1:And yeah, it was, um, it was a struggle and I eventually so I had wanted to pivot into a work from home job, which I know can be kind of hard to come by, and so that's why I was pursuing marketing roles and trying to work from home so that I could also still have a little bit more flexibility, and what I was doing outside of my job. I think that that has been something that I've learned so much about myself that I need time outside of my work my actual w2 job to do things that allow me to be creative and also, you know, spend time with the people that I care the most about and then also prioritize just my health and fitness. And I just was not doing that towards the end of this year and it really sucked like mentally. It just sucked. Um, I could not get myself like. I feel like I was just in survival mode at that point and I also struggled with this as well, because I felt like I was being ungrateful. I felt like I was like struggling mentally so much that I felt like it was so unnecessary of like why I was struggling mentally so much, because I felt like I should have been more grateful for the position that I was in. You know, I was making the most I had ever made in a salary and I was doing I got the job that I had really wanted back in June and it just I felt like an idiot for not wanting it anymore and really just like wanting out of it so bad.
Speaker 1:And so it was just like a whole mind struggle that I had and, um, eventually led to me leaving the job after realizing that I was going to be able to get a job that was working from home, and it was something that is more so like just allows me that flexibility in my life, and I think that 2023 is where I really really realized that I didn't want to pursue a corporate ladder. I just wanted something that allowed me to make money and not feel like that scarcity mindset again, but also like just make a steady income. That gave me flexibility to live my life in a way that like fulfills me so much. And I think that that's where I also really struggled, because you see so many people around you pursuing this corporate ladder and pursuing work and their career as like that is their main focus, like that is the only thing, like they're using that as like their driver and everything, and then kind of like building their lifestyle around their career. And when I tried to do this, it just did not work for me, like I was miserable.
Speaker 1:I I wanted out of it like immediately, and I would rather work a job, a W2 job, where it is not so demanding on me mentally, where I can just do my job and then be able to like focus on the other things in my life that light me up. So more so, building my life and building a lifestyle of like my own that has a lot more flexibility and just like having a career that is that allows me to do that, rather than what you typically see a lot of people doing, where they're very heavily focused on building their career and moving up. That way it just doesn't light me up and I've known. I've kind of known that for a while, but I feel like I got a lot of clarity on that this year and also kind of came to terms with like being okay with it. Obviously it's still like a mindset shift that I have to work on for this year, but I no longer feel super tied to like my worth, being tied to the amount of money that I make, because I've realized that even when I'm in a situation where I'm making more money for a W2 job, I know what it leads to for my mental health when it's not something that allows me to show up as myself authentically and do the things that really make me happy and feel fulfilled.
Speaker 1:So I think that that can be kind of hard to come to terms with as someone in your 20s or your 30s is basically kind of going against the status quo of what's normal and what's accepted and what's expected of us and what we see a lot of our friends and family do with their career. You know, they kind of either get comfortable with what they're doing and they stay somewhere for a long time because you know that's how it goes, or they really are driven and focused on climbing the corporate ladder, and there's nothing wrong with either of those things. But I think that that's why a lot of people really struggle mentally, because they're kind of just like letting their truth be hidden from them, like they're not facing their truth or what actually lights them up and makes them happy. And I understand people's circumstances are different.
Speaker 1:I've been fortunate enough to where I can really explore the things that I want to do with my career, and I Wouldn't be where I'm at now if I hadn't pursued all of these different things and tried so many things and realized like, oh, you know me trying to be my own health coach and like, do that? I kind of learned about myself how much I enjoy marketing and Like I feel like I'm able to really step into a creative flow that I haven't. I didn't realize that I had in me. So it has led to me also pursuing, like offering marketing services with a friend we're starting that in 2024 and working with clients and businesses to help them with their marketing and help them grow their business. And you know, I feel I feel really great that I can be able to Do that on the side while also working from home for another job and it's just something that I can do and enjoy and not really like stress about the expectations of it or the outcomes of it, because it's not like it's the only thing I'm depending on and you know that's kind of what, how it goes for my this podcast and like the clothing brand that I'm Starting up with it and just like not really having a huge expectation for it. Like obviously I have things I want to achieve and goals with it, but it's no longer from the scarcity mindset and I feel like I had to go through what I went through before to really understand that and to Know what is going to work best for me in in the new year.
Speaker 1:Again, it's not easy for me to talk about these things because, honestly, it's like a really vulnerable thing for me to discuss about my career and the, the thoughts, the limiting beliefs that I've had around it of feeling like a failure and feeling like I'm not successful and just like Like thinking about my income being tied to my success and again comparing myself to other people. But I Feel kind of called to talk about it a little bit and share my perspective on it, because I don't think a lot of people are talking about it as much as we think about it and struggle with it and I Don't know like I. Again I feel like I carried a lot of shame with it of Not feeling like I am where I should be by the age of 26 and again Like looking at my husband or looking at friends and family and seeing, like you know, it looks like they've got it all figured out and it looks like they're happy and it looks like they're successful and they're making so much money, blah, blah, blah. But um, yeah, I just I feel like this year, 2023, was a learning year and At first I really struggled with it because I was like I thought I was going to Feel a lot happier and I thought I was going to quote unquote achieve more things and just like I Thought that, like it was, just, I just thought it was gonna look different than it did and, Although a lot of things that I wanted actually came true, which One of them being that I Landed a marketing job like that was on my 2023 vision board, and it's crazy because it's like I got that and I walked away from it, which I had not seen myself doing, but I'm actually really, really grateful I did, because, not the minute that I did, but the day after that I left my job.
Speaker 1:It was like Everything in my body like shifted and like it felt relief, it felt abundant again, it felt open to new ideas and new Opportunities and I mean, that's Not always easy to do is walk away from something that feels secure, it feels safe, but also Feels so wrong at the same time. Like it was something I struggled with for so long and I talked about it for a little bit, but I felt like I couldn't just keep talking about it to people because I didn't want to Upset them or bring them down again. I also felt a lot of shame with it, because I felt like I should feel grateful for what I had and it was just something that I was really internally struggling with and trying to not Talk about it as much as I wanted to, but I'm excited that in 2024. It's kind of it kind of feels like a new slate again when it comes to my career, it comes to my mindset, and you know I could feel super bad about myself being 26 and not having everything figured out, but I feel like I've learned so much in the last few years and even this past year that is going to carry me very far In 2024, if I'm being completely honest, I just feel like I have such an abundant mindset going into this year and I am super excited to apply all of the things that I learned not only about marketing and social media and just things, but also about myself that I'm super excited to apply in the new year and just have so much intention behind.
Speaker 1:So, whether you're in your 20s or your 30s or your 40s or your 50s or your 60s and you're navigating what to do with your life, I think there's a lot of power and like reflecting on your past and what you've learned, rather than feeling dumb or like you've wasted your time, because it's super easy to feel like you've wasted your time or nothing came about it, or it didn't turn out how you thought it would, or you feel like a failure whatever. Rather than like spending your energy and time thinking those things, just use it as a time to reflect on what you've learned and what you've learned about yourself and what you want to do moving forward. So I hope that this episode was helpful. I know that it's just a lot of me rambling about my journey and what I'm doing, but again, I'm so excited for 2024 and I'm excited for the direction my career has headed.
Speaker 1:I have been wanting a work from home job for so long and I truly believe that this is something that I manifested into my life because I've talked about it for so long. It did not happen as fast as I wanted it to. I've been wanting a work from home job for so long. These last two months out of the year, I was heavily focused on bringing that into my life and I feel very, very grateful that it is something that I am starting 2024 that year with, and it is a job that I would have never, ever expected me to be going into and, to be honest, I could have not the best attitude about it if I chose to, because it's not something that is like a super creative job.
Speaker 1:But I'm choosing to see it as this is like an opportunity for me to learn about stuff that I would not normally learn and be able to take away things from it. I am going to be a sponge with this job and, although it is not like a creative job, where I love to be creative, I think that that's a good thing, because it is going to allow me to use the creativity that I have inside me for things that I'm very passionate about and things that are my own. I'm not pouring my creative self into a company that is not my own or that is not my own ventures. So I'll be able to pour my own creativity into my marketing business and my personal brand that I'm looking to build, and I can just show up for my job and learn from that. But it will require a different part of me that will not be taking away from the things that light me up. So that is how I choose to see it, and I think that it's super, super important to have a very intentional mindset with whatever you are doing in a way that is only going to allow you to learn and again be super abundant and open, rather than seeing the negatives.
Speaker 1:So I hope that this episode is helpful and I will continue to share my journey, whether it's on social media or this podcast, and if you have questions, feel free to reach out to me. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. You have no idea how grateful I am to have you as one of the love your body now listeners. If you are loving this podcast, it would mean the world to me. If you subscribed and left a review, this helps me get the message out to more women just like you, who are also committed to their journey. And if you love this episode, please be sure to share it with someone who you know needs to hear today's message. Together, we can help more women recognize their self-worth and build their confidence from a much deeper place, just like you're doing right now. Let's help change the world, one woman at a time. Alright, talk to you soon, friend.