When Superwoman Wants To Hang Up Her Cape…or At Least Change Her Outfit

Even Superwoman needs an occasional outfit change. Today, I’m sharing some new and exciting life changes!

When Superwoman Wants To Hang Up Her Cape…or At Least Change Her Outfit

Hi Friends! Happy Friday! It’s time for another #girlboss post today!

I’ve talked this post out in my head for weeks. I wasn’t sure how to write it, or if I wanted to write it, to be honest. I toyed with different titles, but the one I picked seems most fitting, and I think you’ll agree. Here are a few contenders:

• Musings of a Type-A Overachieving Perfectionist Fitness Enthusiast
• Why Turning Down a Stellar Fitness Job Helped Me Realize I Didn’t Want to be a Full Time Fitness Coach
• Why I’m Going Back to Corporate
• Thoughts of a (Temporarily) Failed Girl Boss

FYI: this post is a bit longer, with lots of feels, but contains so cool news.

When I was in college, my senior year, I planned a 10k race (we had 600 people attend – whoop whoop?!?!), took 14 or 16 hours, completed an internship and worked 2 jobs part time, along with being involved with a couple campus organizations.

I remember at one point, one of my friends called me SUPERWOMAN. I took it as a compliment because somehow, I managed to do ALL the things and still win the Social Work Student of the Year Award. Yes, that’s a real thing!

Then, when I was living in Boston a couple years ago, after a few months, I was working at Starbucks from either 5:30pm – 1:30am or 4:00am – 1:00pm. Then I’d go to 1 of 2 other jobs, depending on my shift. I was Co-Director of the Not For Sale Chapter in Boston. Plus, I tried to make time to hang out with people and do events for NFS. Towards the tail end of my time, I got rid of one 2 of the 3 jobs and started working at a facility for troubled girls. Can you talk about being a little stressed?!

I felt like SUPERWOMAN, again. Except this time, the stress of it all took its toll. I was getting tested for every digestive condition under the sun, but every test came back ‘fine.’ Soon I was at home, on medication every 4 hours for pain. I remember the day I was doubled over in the kitchen, in so much pain I could barely breath. I decided something was going on, no matter what the tests said.

After an elimination diet and gut healing protocol (I’m re-writing my gut healing story and plan to share next month!!), I felt better than ever. I saw the power of our food choice and how it can hurt or heal our body. I decided I wanted to go back to school to be a Dietician. I wanted to help people in the same way I’d been helped.

But those student loans?! Side note: For those soon to be college students, while going to an expensive private school might seem like a good plan and as much as you think a job in [social work] will help pay back those loans, just know, it takes a while to pay them back…a long while.

After realizing it was not responsible to go back to school right away with so much debt, I opted for becoming a personal trainer and using that as my side hustle to pay off debt.

When Superwoman Wants To Hang Up Her Cape...or At Least Change Her Outfit. #selfcare #entrepreneur Click To Tweet

I enjoyed fitness. It seemed like everyone else enjoyed what I was putting out too. I became ‘The Fitness Girl’. Soon, my desire to become a Dietician took a back seat as I started training clients and teaching class. Still, in my heart, there was this tug to incorporate nutrition and do this ‘wellness business stuff’ fill time.

In February of last year, I was laid off and the opportunity to go out on my own presented itself. It was a few months of fear and uncertainty before I realized I could make it happen. I got my nutrition certification and dove in. You can read that story here.

Fast forward to January of this year.

I started the year ready to grow my business. I interviewed for a trainer position at a local gym, thinking I could work there a couple days to make a little extra cash and get in some good experience at the same time. After a week of ‘orientation’, I realized I didn’t want to be a trainer in that capacity. The thing that would make me happiest would be combining fitness with nutrition. 

I realized I wanted to be a dietician.

See, a good deal of the clients I’d been working with, ladies in particular, were dealing with metabolic issues beyond my scope of practice. In my research, I knew that one gal in particular was suffering from hormonal imbalances and needed to get things tested. I can’t order a hormone panel. I can make suggestions on nutrition and fitness, but that’s about it.

I wanted more. I want to be able to sit down with ladies and help them with metabolic and hormonal issues, through supplementation and nutritional changes. While I think fitness is incredibly important, I think more than anything, if your nutrition and digestion is off, everything else will be off, no matter how many minutes – hours you spent working out. This nagging I had to do something more with nutrition specifically, just wouldn’t go away. I knew then that if I wanted to pursue Dietetics, I needed to do it right away.

The problem again, debt. I needed full time, consistent employment. And my business needed to be scaled back a bit.

See, for the past 6+ months, I’d been: Trying to grow a blog. Trying to grow a personal training business. Figuring out if I could bring the business online. Meeting clients in person for training. Teaching 5 classes a week. Trying to understand how to market my business. Spending time growing my social following on 2 platforms, not the 100+ that are out there. Growing my email list so I could build my tribe which in turn will help me make money and sell my products. Worry about making sure I’m earning enough income to just have the basic essentials. Wondering how long it’s going to take before I can make enough to start paying off loans. Keeping the house tidy. Cooking healthy meals. Trying to convince my husband he should eat healthy meals. Attempting to get more sleep. Dreaming of reading a book for fun, while trying to read REAL books about business. Finding to time to read up on fitness and nutrition so I can stay up to date with what is going on in the industry, in order to deliver valuable information to clients. Reading some of my favorite bloggers posts. Finding time for my own workouts. Spending time with my husband. Hanging with my mom, occasionally. Geting stuff done so I can try and go to small group 1 night a week, even though something comes up at the last minute, nearly every time. Attempting to do stuff for fun and not on a schedule. Flying around like Superwoman.

Being a #girlboss is hard work. I was back to being Superwoman.

I felt like an #girlboss failure when I admitted that I needed to get a full time job. A good majority of people work on their businesses WHILE they are still working somewhere else. At that right time (for them), they make the leap and run their business full time. I did things a little different – got laid off with 1.5 days notice, had no income, only a few clients, was getting married in 4 months and decided to start growing my business. At the time, it worked.

And while I am proud of myself for doing what I have done in the past year, I know in order to move forward, we need a consistent income.

I also felt guilty about admitting to myself…I’m not passionate enough about personal training, to hustle my way to a 6 figure income.

Did you read that?! I took me a hot minute to be able to say that out loud, even. I’d become ‘The Fitness Girl.’ I met with an old friend a month or so ago and I shared that I wanted to go back for Dietetics. She was surprised because the majority of what she saw from me was fitness and it seemed like that was what I wanted to do. I explored this statement and realized, it was partly because fitness was ‘easy’ for me. I worked out, I’d post something to Instagram. It is far easier for me to create and shoot a workout than it is to create recipes and photograph them. Plus, my name is Burpees for Breakfast. I feel like people expect fitness when they hear my name.

Last weekend in Boston, a friend told me that he hadn’t been seeing much from me on Facebook in the way of workouts, lately. It’s because I haven’t really been working out, I told him.

For the most part, I’m an Obliger. I can meet external expectations like it’s my job, which is probably why I would always get bored at jobs – I always want something more to do because I meet my deadlines. But, when I made the realization that I wanted to go back for Dietetics, I had a bit of an Obliger Rebellion. Gretchen Rubin talks about this in her book. Obligers meet external expectations for so long that one day, they just freak out, in a way.

I realized I was doing a lot of ‘shoulding’ in my business. I realized I was trying to do too many things at once (did you see that list above?). I realized I was trying to follow someone else’s plan for success. I realized I wasn’t living in freedom.

I wanted to workout on my terms, not because I was a trainer or group instructor or healthy living blogger. I wanted to post to Instagram when I wanted to do it, not based on my content calendar. I wanted to make time to read an actual book – like sit down and read. I wanted have time to create new recipes. I wanted freedom to not have to hustle for just one minute.

I might sound like I’m complaining. I know every entrepreneur goes through a similar phase and maybe just gets tired of constantly hustling. I felt like I was coping out so many times. ‘Just stick with it.’ ‘Just keep hustling.’ ‘Just keep being consistent.’

I get it. I know it will be hard, but worth it.

But, there has to be a priority check at some point.

When your vision shifts, you have to shift your strategy. I am burnt out on teaching and creating workouts. I am also a perfectionist and I like to give people the best of myself. I can’t do that when I’m burnt out. I want to be excited to teach and create a workout. Excited to motivate clients to meet their goals. I’m tired of ‘faking it’ half the time.

When your vision shifts, you have to shift your strategy. #priorities #girlboss Click To Tweet

It’s also somewhat shifted from doing this because I love it, to doing to because we need to have money. And it’s not to say that we are strapped for money or struggling by any means. We pay all our bills every month, enjoy our life and even get to take trips to Boston, on occasion. BUT, when I think about the future and how I want to help people, I know that I need more education (and a license, hello). And while I could just hustle my arse off to make money with my current business, it’s going to take a bit longer. I’d much rather get a full time job for a bit to pay off some of that student loan debt, to be able to go back to school and do something that makes my heart sing. Because right now, it’s not doing fitness full time.

I think at my core, I have an entrepreneurial spirit. I also believe now, more than ever, that there is a time and place and specific passion associated with being entrepreneur, at least for me. I still want to work for myself, but not rely on that as my only source of income. Right now, there are other priorities.

And in all honestly, I need to do what works for me, not do something just because other people expect it from me. If I truly feel it’s time to put certain things on hold to pursue other dreams, then I’m going to do that.

There have been so many talks, prayers, ramblings in my head over the past few weeks that I feel pretty at peace (so cliché, right) with this decision. Sure, I’m nervous and unsure of exactly how the future will go, but I’m excited to see what’s to come.

So, what does this mean for you, the business and the blog? Why did I write this short novel, you might ask?

For the business, I’m going to back off teaching classes at the end of the month. And for now, I’m cutting back on personal training and online bootcamps. My last bootcamp was super successful for the participants, so I’ll likely run that again, but I just want a smidgen of time to breathe and figure out if I can handle it. If you haven’t guessed, I tend overload myself and put on lots of hats. I want to invest a little more into a few things, instead of spreading myself too thin.

For the blog, I’ll be focusing more of my attention on growing it, delivering quality workouts, recipes and information. The .com will go back to being a blog landing page, so less clicking for you!

This blog originally started as a way for me to get my thoughts out and share my life. I’ve been talking this #girlboss talk for a few months now and I want to be able to share the struggles and tough things, along with the fun stiff.

Plus, I want to inspire you to explore what you really want to be doing. Explore what will make your heart sing and make you ready to wake up in the morning. Where are your priorities? Are you spreading yourself too thin? Are you shoulding? Do you need to take a step back? Do you need to give yourself permission? Are you living in freedom?

This Superwoman wants to come back with an outfit change. It’s in my nature as a Type-A-Overachieving-Obliger-Perfectionist to enjoy doing lots of work and to get excited about things and occasionally take on more than I should. So, to say that I want to hang up my cape wouldn’t be right.

What I noticed about myself since my Boston stress was that I’ve become way better at identifying areas of stress in my life and become much more self aware. It’s like with every big crazy stress blow up, I come back having learned so many new things about myself and how to deal with stress. I’m excited to continue figuring out how to live my most awesome life.

So, I’ll keep a variation of the cape, but switch up my outfit for next time.

…

I’ll keep you updated on the quest for my RD creds. I am researching 3 schools here in Indiana. I’ll need to take all my pre-req’s, so it’s unlikely I’ll start before next fall. The quest for a full time gig has begun. I’m searching and applying.

To lighten up the mood a bit, I get to see one of my besties and her hubs mid-morning for brunch at one of my FAVORITE places. Then I’m helping my momma with some of her business stuff! Today we are learning Instagram and working on her logo! PS, she does custom orders, ya’ll.

As for weekend plans, nothing big yet! Can’t wait to relax!

So, tell me:
What are you weekend plans?
Are you living in freedom? Shoulding? Need to give yourself permission?

XOXO,
Jen

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