Tips for Transitioning from a Job to Doing Your Calling
From my experience and witnessing hundreds of others launching their holistic practices, shifting from working for “the man” to doing your own practice is a rewarding yet challenging balancing act. It’s easy to go out of balance into one of two extremes that have caused many to “throw in the towel.”
One extreme is to quit all other work and jump into your practice full force. If you have lots of capital to pay your living expenses for more than a year, this can work. But, more often than not, it doesn’t. I have even seen those who had enough capital for a year still give up. I am not saying you’ll fail if you go this route – as many definitely do succeed. But it appears to me most people can’t handle the pressure of taking such a risk.
According to Small Business Administration statistics, 50% of all small businesses fail in the first 4 years, and the number one cause of failure is incompetence. Why incompetence?… Humans are certainly intelligent and capable. Because they are trying to grow too fast without having accumulated enough knowledge, experience, and wisdom each step of the way. I believe…
The number one cause of business failure is taking too big of risk at any given time.
There is more to starting a business than you think. I am not saying this to discourage you but to support your success. I recommend you break down your business transition into simple baby steps. A good business plan is crucial here. Make no assumptions. Give yourself lots of room for learning. This usually means keeping your day job longer than you might have imagined so you can ease into your new profession gracefully. Also, your day job should not be all consuming, but a kind of work that does not make you so tired, so you will have energy and time left over to do your passion.
Another reason the “sudden change path” usually doesn’t work is there could be weeks and months you have little business while you are working on getting clients. Lacking productivity and sales can feel hard on the psyche, as you watch your hard earned savings get eaten up by your living expenses. Going in debt can only make matters worse. Not feeling productive and abundant enough can even spiral one down into a depression. I feel it is best to remain productive and prosperous every step of the way through your career transition –as much as possible.
On the other side of the coin, many people are over-occupied with just paying the bills and thus never get their holistic practice started. The bills represent their past, and this karma must be faced and dealt with, but it should not take ALL your attention, or you will never be able to manifest a better life than “just paying bills.” There is little passion and energy in just meeting your obligations. This is a sure way to get depressed from meaningless work. There is little energy left-over for doing your higher calling. Many of these people work full time or over-time until they have a breakdown, which then accumulates more bills.
These people will often say, “With my obligations, I have no other choice, but to work full time, or overtime.” The idea: “You do not have a choice,” is the psychology of addiction. I believe overwork is a root addiction that leads to most other addictions. Many people just don’t know how to manage their free time, so they fill it up with work, and then get too wild when they are off work. We’ve been programmed to take orders and be productive, but lack experience with listening to our own inner guidance and acting on it. If this is you, I recommend finding a way to cut down your hours and living expenses, and brainstorm how you can schedule your free time so you can enjoy plenty of wholesome playtime, intimacy with friends and family, your inspired creativity, and have set business hours for your holistic practice, whether you have clients or not. There is always something to do to move forward.
To keep yourself on track, I highly recommend you invest in having a coach. Since you have been addicted to being told what to do, a good coach will give you feedback to what your intuition is already telling you, and hold you accountable with following through for yourself. Shifting from working for others to operating your own business is a huge shift in consciousness that requires much support for the vast majority of people.
If you have big bills, find a way to cut them down. If you will account for all the ways you spend money each month, your financial patterns will shift more in alignment with your core values. Years ago when I had debt issues, I used American Consumer Credit Service to consolidate my bills so my credit wasn’t hurt by paying considerably less each month. This allows more breathing room to work less at “a job” and put more time into developing your passion. Maybe at first, you cut your hours from 40, to 30 hours a week. Then down to 20 hours as you are getting more clients from your calling. Let the transition be gradual.
My suggested strategy is striking a balance between the two extremes of taking a wild risk and playing it too safe. For a while, you may have one foot in your new occupation and the other in old occupation. For 5 years I had a taxi business and the University in its infancy until the day came when I could sell the Taxi business and do the University only, finally knowing it would fully sustain me. The transition took longer than I originally anticipated, but I am finally making sustained progress compared to years earlier when I tried to take short cuts and fell on my face.
Most people discover there is more to starting your holistic practice than meets the eye. This can be a rude awakening at first. After discovering they have talent as a healing artist, some people carry the illusion the world will find them and success will be handed to them because they are so good at what they do. Reality check: One of the first things we learn in marketing is “no one really cares about what you do,” no matter how talented and excited you are about it. All they care about is solving their own problem. It is up to you to find out what their problem is and show them how you can solve it. Like it or not, there is no business without sales, without communicating in a way that enrolls others to receive your service. Some artists and spiritual people avoid sales at all costs and it’s no wonder they live in poverty. The idea sales is not spiritual is simply not true, Jesus was a salesman! He showed people what their problem is and how to solve it. He wasn’t afraid to speak about what he had to offer and to give people the choice to try out his product (God) or not. This is sales! Communicating to others what you believe in for them, and giving them a choice to act on it.
It’s not about you. It’s all about helping others. Being in the joy of service raises your vibration. And this can only happen if you are in a good place in yourself.
To launch your holistic practice, you need to take exquisite care of yourself. You see, in other lines of work it is expected you are to get tired. But as a holistic practitioner, you can help other’s master their energy only to the level you are mastering your own. For this reason, you need to be super aware of your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects. Your own needs must come first, otherwise you will come across as inauthentic and needy. Everyday you need to do those things that fill you up, because your calling is about being authentically generous.
But don’t use this as an excuse to procrastinate. You don’t have to “be perfect” in order to help others. Being compassionately accepting of your weaknesses helps you to be compassionate and accepting of others. Instead of trying to be perfect, it is your commitment to your own balance first that matters. When your self commitment is in tact, you can be fully present to the people you choose to serve. There are always people worse off than yourself that can use your support and wisdom.
Loving what you do, knowing how to communicate in a way that enrolls others, and a whole list of other skills –on top of taking exquisite care of yourself, all takes time and experience to learn and master. So, I recommend you find a way to start where you are and enjoy loving yourself each and every step of the way to becoming a professional holistic practitioner.
If I had known how much was involved to getting where I am today, I might have felt very overwhelmed. But life is really not about the destination as much as it is about the journey. And what a rich and rewarding journey it is becoming a holistic practitioner one step at a time!