On Choosing the Right Path

Choosing what to do with the rest of your life is a lot of pressure. I mean, it's the rest of your life, right?

The hardest part of making a choice for me was/is figuring out if what I wanted for the rest of my life was what God wanted for the rest of my life. Sometimes we get so crazy passionate about something, it fills us with so much joy and purpose, that we feel like yes, this is it! this is what I'm meant to do. But how do we know if that's what God also wants for us? When we are filled with that passion and lust for the career or that lifestyle, it feels right! But whose to say our plan is the same one God has for us?

I get that crazy, passionate feeling about creating beautiful things + being a small business owner. But the more I dwelled on it, (I've been working from home for four months now,) the more I felt this nagging thought creeping in.... Is this really what God wants me to being everyday for the rest of my life?

It felt like nagging because my honest thought was no, this isn't His plan. It was hard for me to accept because I LOVE making beautiful things and I LOVE my businesses. This is what I want to be doing for the rest of my life. But the more I think about God's plan and what He wants for me, the more I feel like this isn't it.

So how do I find my true path?

I think God means for us to better the world. I feel that He wants me (and each of us, probably) to leave it better than it was before. The easiest way to do this is by helping individual people. I knew I wasn't passionate about ABA therapy anymore (working with Autistic children,) what I was going to school for previously. I've been feeling so burnt out from spending the last 10 years of my life working with special needs children. It was something that I started coming home from work stressed out over and after 10 years, I was questioning whether I even wanted to have kids at all, because work was affecting me so negatively.

So I started looking at things I'm passionate about that can be used to better the world. It comes back to relationships, infertility, helping people and being an encouraging voice to others who are going through these tough things. But I can do this in so many more ways than just through my blog. I can do this as a career, for the rest of my life. Bingo.

So how do you figure out what God's desire is for you? (Keep in mind that this should be something you enjoy to some degree!)

This is the formula I came up with-

Make a list of the things you love/are passionate about.
Can you help somebody doing any of the things you are passionate about?
Can you make a living doing the thing you are passionate about that also help others.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Here's how my list narrowed down.

*Things I am passionate about- relationships, paper crafting, making pretty things, being a small business owner, helping others, infertility, shelter dogs

*Which of these can you use to truly, deeply help others- relationships, paper crafting, making pretty things, being a small business owner, helping others, infertility, shelter dogs

*Which of these things that you're passionate about, that also betters the world, is something you can make a living doing- relationships, paper crafting, making pretty things, being a small business owner, helping others, infertility, shelter dogs

My list at the end looked like this- relationships, helping others, infertility. So then I needed to look at career options that use these three things.

*Career options using my previous list- Helping people with IVF as an embryologist, infertility nurse or take the counseling route as a marriage + family counselor.

*Which of these things am I qualified to do? Well, I suck at science and I'm not a huge fan of bodily fluids, so the medical careers are out. I'm left with the counseling route as a marriage + family counselor.

After dwelling on this for a while, (I mean, it took me 25 years to come up with this formula to figure out what I am really meant to do with my life, I didn't want to rush the final decision,) it started to feel more and more right. I have an Associates in Social Science (psychology,) from the last time I was in school to become an ABA therapist, so I'm already 1/3 of the way there to becoming a family + marriage counselor. (More stars aligning.) And I feel that being trained professionally in this area is an invaluable skill to have to help others and my own relationships. I also think being a licensed counselor would cultivate more opportunities to help people to the best of my ability AS a small business owner.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

There is so much pressure to choose the right thing to do for the rest of your life; but here's the thing nobody tells you- it's okay if you choose wrong. You probably will choose wrong. When you figure it out, you make a change and you choose something better.

I am still 1,000% passionate about making beautiful things and being a small business owner. I will continue to pursue these things and do my best to make them successful. In the meantime though, I've decided to go back to school this fall and start working towards my Bachelors to be followed by my Masters degrees. It will be a crazy amount of work. Especially considering that I will still have to be working when I go back to school, but I feel like it's 100% worth if for the RIGHT career.

I'm planning on specializing in infertility and counseling those who are dealing with that. Degree wise, there is no option to specialize in infertility counseling, but I know that with my personal experience + knowledge combined with a need for this kind of counseling that it will be possible to work with those who need this specific kind of help. A lot of reproductive (IVF) clinics actually require their clients to do mandatory counseling in order to start IVF, which gives me an amazing opportunity to help those whose personal mindset + marriages have been affected by infertility.

Talk about finding your niche, aye?

I want to know if you struggled to find the career when it came to aligning what you would like to do with what God wants you to do! How did you decide? Did you ever choose a degree or career path and it ended up being the wrong one? (I know I did, the first time I was in school!)

xoxo,
Laura