Oh yeah, and I’m also a reformed, people-pleasing perfectionist! Raised by parents who grew up poor but created first-generation wealth through sheer hard work, I’ve always put immense pressure on myself to make something of myself. So, when I finished studying journalism at university, I hustled my butt off to land a job in the competitive world of magazine publishing.
It was only once I got everything I had always wanted that I realised that actually, it wasn’t what I wanted at all. I grew tired of being shackled to a desk in a dark office from 9-5 and writing the same type of content day in and day out. Despite the well-intentioned advice of everyone around me, I followed my gut and took a huge pay cut to work at a lifestyle blog. It was while there that I launched my first copywriting business as a side hustle to diversity my income. I also learned the ropes of blogging and saw a gap in the market for more relatable and aspirational content — so in 2018 I started my own blog, A Girl In Progress.
My life now is beyond what I had ever envisioned for myself. I work from home in my beautiful beachside apartment in my trackies, doing a mix of content and coaching work that truly lights me up inside.
But, if there’s one thing I’ve learned along the way is, creating an extraordinary life required doing things a little differently, It meant letting go of the idea of what I thought I needed to be or do in order to be ‘perfect’ and following my own intuition, instead. It meant ditching what I believed productivity should look like (after a bout of burnout!) and creating it on my own terms.
And hey, it’s not like you hate your life. There’s nothing wrong with it, per se. You’ve worked really dang hard to get to where you are now. You’ve got a job that looks great on paper, and a nice, comfy life. But, you still just feel like something is missing. There’s a gap between the life you see when you close your eyes and the one unfolding in your reality. You just know you’re destined for more. And yet, you just can't get out of your own way to take action.
Only to find yourself so exhausted, drained and distracted all I ended up doing was mindlessly scrolling Instagram or binge-watching Netflix. Cue the frustrated tears a few hours later!
But, I also know the incredible results and satisfaction that can come from powering through the discomfort and putting imperfect work out into the world.
....Like, the free eBook I wrote in an hour and threw up on my website...which was found by a NYC publishing house who offered me an international publishing house!
I know what it's like to thank your lucky stars that you started when you did.