One Day, Day One
After 24 years at Fidelity Investments, I have officially retired! I am grateful for the opportunities I had and for the amazing people I met.
Saturday morning, I woke with the initial thought of, “What have I done?!”. Let’s start with being honest. Working at Fidelity is demanding, expectations are high, and ambiguity is the only constant. On the flip side, rewards were high and many of the people I met over the years were not just colleagues but became close friends. I had a successful career, but over the past few years many times I just felt like there was something else I was meant to do. I pushed those feelings down A LOT! How could I ever leave this financial security? On Saturday, all I could think of was that I was walking away from so much. I proceeded to walk around with my Fidelity fleece on, i.e. keeping my security blanket close. Additionally, I could not even enter my office. It was like this sacred space that I should not enter or look at!
Sunday felt like a regular Sunday until I went to officially log off (6/30 was my official last day) and realized my access was already gone. Ok, this seemingly simple act was no longer on my terms. I shut down my laptop as the tears started and packed it up to mail back. Why didn’t I just rip the bandaid off end of day Friday?
Here we are Monday a.m. I get up, go for a 2 mile walk at the beach, have some breakfast and now what??? Well, for me today is Day One. I recently heard @melrobbins talk about “One Day or Day One”. “Do the thing…stop waiting for the motivation and courage...” Over the past few years I have had a coaching business that has not taken off because ???? It was too much to work full time, manage challenges in my personal life and the list goes on. Was it that? Or was it the fear telling me that I could not do it, that no one wanted to hear what I had to say, that I couldn’t do it because x,y,z was not perfect. I never gave it 110%. I had every excuse in the book.
I was able to volunteer, though, as a career coach at Fidelity and fuel that passion of inspiring and empowering people to make changes. The light inside me never dulled. I enrolled in a business coaching program with @katcynewski and as I watched my peers in the program step out of their comfort zones and shine I told myself that “one day” I am going to do this.
One Day has come and today is Day One of living my authentic life and following that dream. I have a load of work to do, but I have proven time and time again I can do hard things, I am resilient, resourceful, accomplished and have so much to offer.
I do plan on taking some time to just “be” and figure out what this new journey will look like, but here’s to the next phase of life and living it to the fullest!