OY WITH THE POODLES ALREADY

Any Gilmore Girls fans in the house?

I’ve noticed I’ve been saying saying that alot the past few days. According to Urban Dictionary, I haven’t been using it correctly. They say it’s a ‘phrase can be used to shut up a person that is talking non-stop about a certain subject.’ But I watched the Gilmore Girls episode and Loreli says that it’s just a funny catch-phrase.
I’m taking her word for it.

When my brain has gotten overwhelmed the last few days about all the things I must do now that I am unemployed, I just stop and say ‘OY WITH THE POODLES ALREADY,’ take a deep breath or two, and carry on.

It’s officially been 2 days with no job, well, two and a half, since I worked half day on Monday. It’s kind of a scary thing, you know. Especially since it was unexpected.

Oy with the poodles…

The thing is that I’m finding that I am more excited that scared, and more ready to start a new adventure than find another similar job quickly. Want to know why? I’m sure you do. If I were reading this post, I’d be super nosey and want to know that I’m doing next!

Here is a bit of background:

I became a personal trainer back in April of 2014. My passion for health and fitness came as a result of my crazy stomach issues. When I finally got my certificate, I honestly didn’t do much with it. I found a job as a bootcamp instructor a couple months later. As I taught and trained a couple clients, my passion grew to the point that I wanted to do fitness full-time. And get a nutrition certification. And grow the blog. I wanted to be my own boss. I wanted to start and grow a business. A business that I never thought in a million years I would want.

See, in college, I majored in Social Work. I wanted to fight injustice, specifically human trafficking. I wanted to do policy and affect change on a national level. I as determined, focused, a strong leader, a go-getter, an introverted, highly type-A person.

And then I did too much. When I came home from living in Boston, I was taking so much medication for my stomach, it was insane. We finally figured out what was wrong and I went on this journey of healing. I cut out things. I stopped being such an overachiever, scared that if I did too much again, I’d continue causing my body to fail.

So for a good year and a half, I stopped. I only took on things I knew I could handle. I’d get angry (seriously) when I tried to take on more things and my body could handle it. When I couldn’t be that SuperWoman girl I was in college. That girl everyone knew me to be.

Back to personal training, for the past 6-8 months, my desire grew and grew. I tried to think of different ways to still work my full-time job, take on a couple group fitness classes (I became certified in August 2014), grow the blog, and start the beginning stages of a personal training business. To top it off, I got engaged in December. And I’m getting married in June!

Oy with the poodles already…

After I went back to work in January, the first week was slow. The second week, something flipped in my brain. I started listening to more podcasts, specifically on how to grow a business, how to network. I started making lists, picking books to check out from the library, talking to my dad about networking opportunities in the area.

For two weeks or so, I was ready to get on the entrepreneur train. And in all this, one thing I realized, I’d been letting FEAR get in the way of me pursuing my passions for months. I’d let my introvertedness take over to the point that I did not want to step out of my comfort zone. At all.

Somehow, that go-getter that I used to be in college was barely there.
…

Now, let’s rewind to last Wednesday night. A few oh-how-funny-to-see-how-the-Lord-works moments:

1. I had a call with my boss that afternoon. After that call, I wrote on a post-it note ‘ I want to do fitness and health full time. What do I need to do to get there?!’

2. That night, I was talking with The Workout Bud, telling him how I just wasn’t sure if I could grow with my company. That I’d been there going on 3 years now and I wasn’t sure where else I could really go. 

3. I also told him I told him more about how I really wanted to do health/fitness full time, how I wanted to get my nutrition cert after the wedding if we could swing it. I talked about how recently, I felt like I’ve let my introvertedness take over and how I was trying to actively make goals to myself out there more…but that sometimes fear took over.

4. We have been talking about how all my extra income from paying rent, etc, would go towards paying off bills, so that we could get out of debt sooner. I make made pretty good money. So with living rent free after the wedding, we would have saved ALOT. I started thinking Wednesday night, ‘ What happens if we have an emergency or something and we can’t pay stuff off as quick as we want too.’…

…

Thursday morning came along and my boss broke the bad news to me. I started shaking a bit, my no tears. I absolutely hate crying, in front of anyone, including The Boy. I called him and my mom after it happened and told them that somehow I wasn’t too scared.

I’d been wishing for like a week of work to get some business stuff figured out…and now I have all the time in the world, right?!

That day I went through every emotion. I don’t think it actually sunk in until I turned in my laptop of Monday afternoon. And when I sat watching The Today Show, sipping my lemon water on Tuesday morning.

Oy with the poodles already…
…

Honestly, I think this is going to be one of those moments that I look back and say ‘Getting laid off was the best thing that could have happened to me.’

Like I said, overall, I’m excited for a new beginning. I’m going to take the next month to start figuring out if I can do fitness full-time –> reach out to other fitness professionals in my area, talk to other bloggers that already do it, start working on a business plan, find some classes to teach, finally read all those things I have pinned about how to grow your blog.

It’s funny how the Lord works. How he forces us out of our comfort zone, into places that all we can do is trust that He is going to work it out. There have been many moments like this in my life, where I’ve been scared and nervous and nothing made sense at all…but in the end, the Lord worked it out. And it was all for the best.

This is another one of those situations. And for the first time, I am starting out say ‘Jesus, maybe you should just take it.’, rather than trying to do it all on my own to start, like I had in the past.
…

Will there be hard times?  YES.
Will I want to quit at times? YES.
Will it be hard to step out of that introverted comfort zone and figure out how to blend that with my go-getterness (not a word, I know)? YES.
Is there a possibility that things won’t go as I hope? That it’s just not the time to do fitness full-time? YES.
Am I just giving it all to the Lord and having Him work it out how it’s supposed to work out? YES…multiple times a day, actually.
…

So, here’s to a new beginning. I’m so thankful for this blog where I can share recipes (I’ve got quite a few coming at you), workouts, and some life ramblings. I’ll be sure to keep you updated on my progress and share how things are going. If you have any tips or ideas or suggestions for me, please please please let me a comment or shoot me an email (jena@burpeesforbreakfast.com).

Have you had a seemingly bad situation turn out for the best? How did you handle it?

– Jen.

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