365 Days Later

A lot can happen in 365 days. Exactly 365 days ago, I left my corporate job in the skincare industry. Burned out and stuck between juggling a steady income that was great on paper but exhausting and a tiny little blog that didn’t make much money but that I felt so passionately about, I chose the latter. But let me back track a second.

In 2017 I had this light bulb moment that I only wanted to stay in the corporate world for a couple more years while I grew my blog. At my last job, I led social media and branding for the US market, and I realized that I was doing and could do all of this for myself for Charmed by Camille. So that was my end game. Matt and I talked about how we would plan for this, and became more aware of spending habits “to prepare” us for 2020-ish. But at the end 2017 I basically had major burn out and had to pick a side. Some people said, “Chase your dreams!” A lot of people said, “Keep your steady, well paying job.”

I’ll spare you all the details, but I ended up taking some time to work from home at the end of 2017 and early 2018 to refresh. It was a temporary solution but as time went on, I realized how happy I was not going into the office. No 1-1.5 hour commute each way that left me emotionally drained every day and week. No office politics. No jealousy of other women (or men) trying to undermine hard work. Soon my decision became (sort of) easy for me.

365 days ago, I knew quitting my job and walking away from it all was the RIGHT decision for ME. But it was terrifying. Quitting my job for my blog came a lot sooner than Matt and I had planned. Some last minute, unexpected workplace un-kindness made a company I genuinely liked a terrible place to be by the end of my time there.

I told everyone around me, “If I don’t believe in myself, who will?” Like I mentioned above, even though I knew it was the right thing for me, it didn’t make it any less scary. And looking back, I’m not sure that I totally even believed what I told people in the beginning. But at the end of the day, my mental health and well-being was more important to me than any paycheck (it still is), and I would figure it out.

And you know what I realized in the past 365 days? The human mind can overcome anything.

Making my big decision not only improved my mental health, it improved my relationship with myself, with Matt, and with others. And while I always planned to take this blog full-time, it happened a LOT faster than I wanted or expected. So I took a deep breath, hit reboot, and 365 days later I am now an entrepreneur. A business owner. A digital marketing consultant. A Lagree fitness instructor. So many things that exactly 365 days ago, I didn’t know I had in me despite taking a leap of faith because it felt good in my gut.

I kept going back and forth on whether I wanted to write this “365 days later” post. But yesterday as I planned for my Instagram photo to go up today, I realized an hour later I was still writing my caption. And in that moment I knew I had my post.