How do you KNOW when to take a leap of faith?

Because how do you measure things like "right time"?

As I begin writing this I am waiting for an interview to happen 50 minutes from now. And I want to leave my current position. I urgently want to leave it. I am so distraught over my current job, I was at my desk at 8PM last night with tears running down my face while I tried not to crawl out of my skin.

It’s that bad. And not just for me. For every single person in there. It’s beyond crazy.

If I want this job I’m interviewing for, and they offer it to me, I’m going to take it. But that’s not actually the leap of faith I’m talking about. I’m talking about my copywriting business that I’m launching, and even more specifically I’m considering the wisdom of investing in a training and ongoing hand-held community that would cost a lot.

• Is this the “right time”?

• Am I sure that this is the direction I want?

• Am I sure that I can depend on myself to do well enough to pay off that training over the next few years?

Mostly I get “yes”. Doesn’t seem like there’s certainty, though - that feeling of YASSSSS!!!!!. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe a bad. The question is: What can I base my certainty on? Feelings of excitement? Or some other feeling I haven’t yet identified? Or could I base it on my thinking that since I’ve been writing since I was 10, this should be a goddamn no-brainer?

Woman jumping off the dock into water

Lori the Leaper

I’ve done a lot of leaping in my life. I’ve spent a lot of money and I’ve failed to produce a massive success. Hence the question: when is it “right” to take a leap of faith?

I have read the stories - as you have - of the everywoman who finds her wealth because she frantically tries something new in order to support her children, and that effort becomes a massively successful path which transforms her life and the lives of others who learn from her new teachings.

And we all know the story of J.K. Rowling and the writing of Harry Potter. Ms. Rowling was, however, living in England where the government gives you money to survive on. In the U.S. that’s not the story we get to tell.

So anyway, there’s me: trying things, jumping at the sharing of one or another of my many skills. That’s not even a humble brag - it’s just that when you are like me, which is to say curious+a little hyper+a constant learner+hungry for success…you are likely to make Google and YouTube your obedient servants and learn everything and anything you want to absorb.

The outcome for me has been that I am not in fact J.K. Rowling but I am in fact fucking brilliant. I happen to know a lot of shit! And I know a lot about quality and how to produce it in my writing and my art and my marketing. So, yeah…why not call myself brilliant???

The one who hasn’t really taken in that truth is - well - me. Until now. I’m taking it in right spanking now, though, because for the love of God it is more than time to do so.

Look…I’m talking about self-confidence, y’all, not about rampant egotism. You need self-confidence to succeed. That seems to be about it. I mean: Trump. Need I say more? So, brilliance in and of itself seems not to matter at all. But having confidence in my ability to do something and do it well - well, that seems to be enough. So, sign me up!

Still, do you know how many expensive things I have invested in, and then not been able to make use of in a deep enough way to actually change up my life? Of course you don’t. Well, I’ll tell you it’s a lot. So I can’t go just on a feeling of "ooh! This feels great!” and a truth of, “If you invest now, you save $2,000”.

That feeling is just. not. good enough.

That “Right” Feeling - Is It Really Right?

Ever make a choice based on a feeling of massive excitement - a feeling of “this is so right!”? Me too. Disappointingly, it hasn’t worked out that well, overall.

Maybe I should have made my choices based on more practical considerations, a more grounded outlook. That’s what I have increasingly done so over the last 8 years. But that more balanced approach isn’t always the answer either! I mean, if you never take risks, your life is boring.

The question has become how to balance the practical with the risky - a question which has been giving me double fits at this horrific job, because in the midst of feeling that I am in hell, I haven’t known what to do: feel the right answer, or think into the right answer? Or both, maybe?

An offer from the copywriter to you…

What do you need to get your brand, your name, your company out there? A blog, a newsletter, an autoresponder, an improved website, a video script? An article, a long-form ad, a procedural document? I have done ALL of those things, multiple times, and successfully. I am offering you a 50% discount on my copywriter services. Why? Because I need to make a little noise of my own, and get some updated Testimonials from new, satisfied customers! Let’s tawk! WRITE TO ME HERE: LKCopyArts@Gmail.com.

Let me lay this out for you. I was having a week - and a particularly horrific day - where I felt trapped, like a bear with its foot caught in the trap. I knew things weren’t going to get better and I was going to suffer more. I also knew that I - unlike our bear friend - have the power to just up and walk out. The feeling was uber-right for GET-ME-THE-HELL-OUT-OF-HERE! More than uber-right, it was MASSIVELY STRONG!

But I had a problem or three…problems that are ongoing until I get that next-job.

The practical considerations here are: (1) I will lose the little income I have, and (2) I will lose my benefits. SEEMINGLY OBVIOUS DECISION: I CAN’T leave.

The factual considerations are: (1) these utter morons have reduced our commission amounts at the same time as they have (2) given us leads to call that no one answers. SEEMINGLY OBVIOUS DECISION: I SHOULD leave.

The emotional considerations are that I will lose my mind for eight, long, unrelieved, insane hours, dialing and hanging up, dialing and hanging up, dialing and hanging up, dialing and hanging up - and that’s just ONE MINUTE’S WORTH OF TIME! IT’S CHINESE WATER TORTURE! SEEMINGLY OBVIOUS DECISION: I HAVE TO leave!

So Door #1: Leave and lose my income and health insurance

Door #2: Stay and lose my sanity

Pick one!

The Real Deal

What I am about to say here does not come easy for me. But here goes: There is no right answer.

GodDAMN that sucks! I hate that!!!! JEEEEzus! How the hell am I supposed to make a choice, then?

Turns out, the real deal is living in what my therapist told me in my 30’s: You gotta live in the gray, not the black-and-white. I dunno! There are times when you just jump ship on something or someone. That’s the leap of faith we like to think about: that one that looks like a Hollywood movie with a scary beginning and a “winner” ending.

But I’m going to take this “leap of faith” thing to the next level - and I’m taking you all with me…

Here’s what I wonder: Which choice would be the leap of faith? Leaving? Certainly! But isn’t staying also a leap of faith? For me, it most certainly seems to be. Would it be that way for you too, or are you clearer about the rules you follow?

By staying at my horrible job for now, I have taken that leap of faith of trusting myself in a number of unexpected ways:

• Trusting that I can find ways to survive this ridiculous, exhausting, inconsiderate “work” by finding ways to inject meaning into my days through my own means.

• Trusting that this choice is a supportive stance toward my material and psychological needs (freaking out over money is not a solid place to stand), rather than being some kind of subconscious cruelty to myself.

• Trusting that I will know when it is a safe time for me to go because my choice will not be based solely on emotion, but on the three-legged stool of emotion, facts and practicality.

• Trusting that not following my incredibly strong and knowledgeable emotions, intuition, and even my damn ethics (I don’t WANT to sell this shit to anyone anymore!) does not mean that I’m lacking in courage or faith. It means that I’m in a human body and nothing gets to be Hollywood-ending clean around here.

I am trusting those things instead of folding into depression and surrender…

Or blindly leaping out into deep waters filled with unseen sharks…

Or just giving up on myself…

Now, in order to get the much-desired right-answer-Hollywood-version of this leap of faith that I would so prefer, I need either a Director plus a script with a happy ending, or to somehow find myself in that unique place where J.K. Rowling landed: Destiny, Luck, Karma. And since I can find no one who has directions to any of these places, I’m thinking the best way to move forward is to treat my life like a story-worthy adventure.

For now.

After I leave this horror show, I will then get that Director and shoot that Hollywood version of my life with that nice clean ending that someone else will fruitlessly struggle to emulate - wondering if they have to do what I did in order to get those marvelous outcomes.

*sigh*

Let me tell that person - let me tell you - and let me tell myself, right now: There is no right answer, and maybe - just maybe - we can inch up on the truth that it is in our consciousness where the leap takes place first.

And by the way…I decided against the big financial leap with its drool-worthy mentorship and crafting of a pathway and development of new writing offers, and community…sigh. Baby steps…that’s the way forward.

One small step for woman, one giant step for Lorikind.

* * *

Love and Moxie,

Lori

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