Episode 208- How to Like Your Job, Even When You Hate It & Finding Peace and Happiness on the Path to Financial Freedom

Jamila Souffrant 0:00

You're listening to the Journey to Launch podcast, How to Like Your Job, Even When You Hate It and Finding Peace and Happiness on the Path to Financial Freedom.

Intro 0:13

Welcome to the Journey to Launch podcast with your host Jamila Souffrant, as a money expert who walks her talk, she helps brave journeyers like you get out of debt, save, invest and build real wealth. Join her on the journey to launch to financial freedom

Jamila Souffrant 0:38

Hey, hey journeyers Welcome to a special episode of the Journey to Launch podcast. It is April 2. So if you're listening to this in real time, it is April 2, which means it's Financial Literacy Month. And before we hop into the amazingness of this episode, let's hear word from our sponsor, which by the way, I love our sponsors, because people that you hear companies that you hear sponsoring this show, make this show happen. They allow me to continue to produce free quality content for you. So you know, listen to what they have to say, see if it's in alignment with something you need or want. And check them out because they are sponsoring the Journey to Launch podcast, which means they are down for the cause. And of course, I don't accept just any sponsor.

And doors to the Money Launch Club are open doors at the mining loss club, my membership communities for journeyers who are just like you listening to this podcast, but want and need more help to allow them to reach their dreams to help sustain the momentum that you are picking up right all the excitement and energy that you get from listening to the podcast and even applying it, what you learn to your money to your life. Keeping that going right not just waiting for an episode to drop to get that momentum, but you have a place an online community to go to every single day at the touch of a button on your phone or logging into your computer to connect with journeyers. Just like you too have classes and content that will help pour into the quality of your journey. If you're looking for that community connection resources, a little bit more of me, we do monthly group coaching in there, then your places in the Money Launch Club doors are now open, but only for a shorter amount of time. So April 2, if you listen to this in real time, join us now before doors close on April 8, go to moneylaunchclub.com. That's moneylaunchclub calm to join us right away.

In this week's episode, it will be a solo episode because I wanted to talk about something that I know is a point of contention or just you know, grief maybe and just weighs heavily maybe on your spirit as you are starting maybe your financial independence journey or in the middle of it, maybe you're towards the end of it. But that is what happens when you are on this journey, the emotional and mental work it takes to stay committed, because this is not a sprint, this is not something that you can accomplish, you know, short in a short amount of time, unless you have a lot of money. And you are you come into money. And even even with that, you know, you still have to understand what to do with it. And if your mindset isn't there, it doesn't matter how much money you have, you will still possibly be unhappy or find negative things in your situation. And I've gotten so many questions about this, you know, a couple of people have just DM me on Instagram, which I'm on Instagram at journey to launch or just like in the money launch club, the membership community, something that comes up is just like the, the dread the feeling of being on this journey for such a long time. You know, having to wait to reap the benefits you feeling that you have to wait to reap the benefits of having a free life of having more opportunities and options and enjoying yourself. And so I wanted to shed some light on how you can do that right now. Because the biggest thing about what I want to share with financial independence and your journey to financial independence is that I don't want you to wait for 10/15, even five years, even next year, I don't want you to wait to enjoy your life because you're waiting for a certain amount of money in your investment accounts or a certain salary. Now I know that at a certain level that matters. I know that. But the purpose of Journey to Launch is to not only help you launch to financial independence, but enjoy the journey. So I'm going to just share some insight to my story a little bit especially if you're new to this podcast, but then also give you practical tips on how you can experience joy right from where you are like I don't care where you are, whether you're in tons of debt, you're just finding out about this I'm going to give you some tips in order for you to realize your life today.

The journey to launch podcast is sponsored by DCU digital federal credit union it's april which means it's one of my favorite months financial literacy month financial literacy is key to understanding how to save earn borrow invest and protect your money wisely it's also essential to developing and maintaining healthy financial habits once again dc was proud to sponsor the ever fire financial literacy be the EVERFI Financial Literacy Bee is a nationwide initiative for students that will run through april 15 2021 the ba is made up of a four part online course and an essay contest where students will have the opportunity to win up to $10,000 in college scholarships over the course of this two week challenge students will explore financial decision making on four topics the importance of savings saving for short term goals budgeting for medium term goals and investing for long term goals after completing the four lessons students are encouraged to submit a short essay to summarize what they learned and how they will apply this new information in their lives this b is open to any us or canadian student dcu member or non member ages 13 to 18 as of april 1, 2021 who completes all five challenges in the National financial aid course entries must be submitted to ever fi by april 15 2021 for more information on the EVERFI Financial Literacy Bee brought to you by DCU please visit dcu.org slash financial be that's dcu.org/f i n a n CIALBEE

If you want the episode show notes for this episode go to journeytolaunch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this episode in the show notes you'll get the transcribed version of the conversation the links that we mentioned and so much more also whether you are in oh gee journeyer are brand new to the podcast i've created a free jumpstart guide to help you on your financial freedom journey it includes the top episodes so listen to stages to go through to reach financial freedom resources and so much more you can go to journeytolaunch.com/ jumpstart to get your guide right now okay let's happen to the episode

So here's the thing when someone does find out about financial independence you realize you are far from where you want to be most likely right where you want to be is traveling the world and where you are potentially is traveling two hours a day to work and back and that's if the traffic gods are pleased by the way don't let it be a day where your commute can you know just take longer than normal which by the way happened to me a lot when i was commuting from Brooklyn to New Jersey when i was working full time where you want to be is potentially running your own business from the comfort of your home but where you are is being run ragged by maybe a manager or boss that you just don't like that annoys you where you want to be is doing work that brings you joy or feels purposeful in where you are is doing work that feels joyous most times and maybe it's purpose deficient you literally feel like a piece of your soul dies every time you walk into the door or in times where you have to hit join meeting for the zoom call that could have been an email i get it you know for a long time that two hour commute was my life one way by the way you know sitting in meetings looking out the window sometimes glancing at my coworkers like just to see if i can like catch a glimpse of a crack in the matrix like is anyone thinking like me were they also secretly thinking what are they doing here I mean can we if i they gave me eye contact let's make a run for it of course no one did that everyone's paying attention you know i'm looking around everyone's paying attention and actually like doing the work they're supposed to be doing looking to climb the corporate ladder and gain favor with the manager or gain approval from the people in the room because you know they want to prove that they were smart and deserve to be there even if they themselves didn't really enjoy it right before finding out about financial independence as a viable option and starting Journey to Launch on the side i for the most part accepted that my fate would be to work in a job that i didn't like so that i can make some money my payoff would be the vacations we could take you know i just fall in line like everyone else don't get it wrong i'd still gaze out the window i wanted more for my life even before i knew about financial independence but it just seemed like a far off dream i didn't realize that this was something that i could accomplish it just felt like a pipe dream like something you wanting to not you know work for anyone else how is that gonna happen right it didn't feel real but it was a nagging feeling in my heart and then here comes his crazy idea of financial independence.

You know the idea that you can have even through a traditional job save and invest your money over time so that you can build up enough money in your investment accounts or via passive income streams to never have to work again when i discovered this movement quote unquote when I discovered the podcast and the blogs talking about this my mind was blown your and to hear people actually doing it right so you and you if you're a longtime listener of the podcast or even if you've just started I talk about financial independence there have been people on the podcast who have actually reached it not just on the journey like I am still but have reached the promised land and so you hear this and just like i heard it and i'm like oh so this is possible and yeah if you're like me and I am the kind of person that if I see someone doing something i'm just like I can do it too i gotta figure this out or if you have an open mind and heart about things you start wondering can that be me too so you start looking into it may be you listen to the podcast you make some calculations and you're thinking how can i do this what changes do i have to make in the way i spend how can i plan to earn more money to figure out how to reach financial independence it's exciting i was so excited when i found out about this because it was my chance to reclaim back my life so if you're like me or maybe this is something you're going to do right as you listen to this or get more information you figure out like a timeline you figure out how you can get to where you want to be.

So when i first found out about financial independence and i got just all the data i needed you know the amount that i wanted to have in my account all these things did the calculations we had decided it would take seven years my husband and i from the time we officially started the journey to reach financial independence so to date myself a little bit that was we were about 33 when that happened and i said by 40 years old would have a certain amount of financial independence and i'll explain what that is so for yourself if you're doing your own calculations you may say wow like you have to get out of debt i have to do all these things it can take me 15/20 years based on the kind of life you want to live and i talked about the levels of financial independence in episode 199 so i talked about like the different levels the base expenses no frills like you're really living a budget life and a frugal life level two base expenses plus occasional frills level three base expenses plus frills and guacamole level four base expenses plus frills plus gwoc plus first class flights and level five base expenses plus frills plus guacamole and a private jet so level five is like the ultimate you are living that life right and so depending on if you want to and if you want to hear the details behind each level listen to episode 199 of the podcast. Based on what you want right you're gonna have to figure out like how much money is tied to the lifestyle you want to live so you may decide okay maybe it will take me 15 years to reach a goal of base expenses and occasional frills with some guac here and there cuacamole meaning you know you go to a restaurant you can order guacamole instead of looking at the $15 price next to it and saying i'm not doing that right you just order it when you want and so you say to yourself okay so it could take 15 years and if i make these changes like i'm good to go and you feel empowered because now you have a time line in front of you and you may even say to yourself you know what maybe i should go down like i could probably reach financial independence or my level of financial independence have a base level like i don't even need guacamole you may not like your current situation so much that you're just like i don't even need guacamole i will just like live on a budget forever and in that case it could take me eight years to reach financial independence or my level of financial independence you do those calculations or you start like doing the math in your head and you realize it's gonna take some time no matter where you are again unless you have like a lot of money coming to you and you know just income coming in it's going to take you a while to reach these ultimate goals for myself and my family so my husband and i when i found out about financial independence came home and told him and he's looking at me like what are you talking about i realized or we decided that we could reach a level of financial independence by age 40 and in our definition of financial independence it was more base level for the most part so here's how we like decided.

We decided you know in seven years from the time we started we would want our mortgage paid off our highest expense we'd want a certain amount in our investment accounts so that we wouldn't even have to invest in them again they can grow on autopilot so that way by the standard retirement age we'd be fine like we'd be okay but in the meantime you know i would work to find my passions and try to build up an income stream but my husband would still work and so by 40 we'd have the highest expense paid off we have enough money in our investment accounts so that we'd reach coast FI which i talked about on episode 170 of the podcast what coast FI means so literally like you don't have to invest in your account anymore and it felt like that was the life we could achieve in seven years and plus my husband is a teacher so he has a very flexible like arrangement and schedule he's off in the summers. So we thought it'd be perfect, we can still like travel with the kids. And yes, if you're new to this show, I have three kids, we have three kids, we live in New York City. So this was just a plan that we created. Because I said, we can get to this point in seven years, if we really hustle, save it and invest majority of our money, we can do this. And then the reality kicked in, like it may be kicking in for you. Because while it was exciting to first find out about this new route that we can take to live our lives, you know, that we could be free one day, I said to myself, yes, seven years is not that far. And I didn't really come to this place of being feeling kind of hopeless. But feeling like this was just going to take too long until maybe like a year in because it just felt like I have to do this for another six years, like, you know, working in this job that took a lot of time was a lot of mental and emotional energy, because it was a high powered job. Also, the commute, let's talk and talk about the commute the commute was two hours one way, so one and a half to two hours average, one way driving, do the math, that's three to four hours a day in the car. And so I said to myself, like, I have to do this for another six years, right? This is when we're kind of into it a little bit in a year. Like I don't know if I can do this.

That kind of real realization was hard, because it felt like it was too long. And so you may have those feelings, too, when you discover financial independence, because you see this vision, you have this vision for your life, you know that there should be more than just going to work, you know, for the majority of your time in the day and commuting and then only having a couple hours to yourself, right, or just a couple of hours on the weekend, especially if you have other obligations like kids, you know, you know that there's more to life than this. And so you're just like, it just doesn't feel good in a way that it has to take that long, I totally get it. So how do you not waste the moments away because you're always longing for more? How do you enjoy the journey today? Set? It's all not for anything, or not for nothing? What's how does that saying go. And so I want to share with you a couple ways that you can actually enjoy the journey. Now, no matter your starting point, no matter how long it takes to get to your ultimate goal of financial independence, and then the smaller goals in between. Because remember, if you're starting this with debt, you're starting this with no emergency fund, really in the beginning stages, then they're going to be what I call smaller milestones that are very still much important, but can take you a long time, right? For some people getting out of debt can take years. So how do you at all enjoy this journey now that you know the light now that you see the light now that you have been blessed with this information. So here are just some points that I've come up with that I've used in my journey in my life, I'm continuing to use them. And I hope that this will help you come to terms with where you are.

And the first one is literally make peace with where you are. So making peace with where you are, this is the first step I want you to do. It's a little internal move. It's a mental and mindset shift for yourself. What you resist persists, what you make at the enemy. So a person or the situation, when you make something or someone the enemy, they become the enemy, because that's all you see, that's all you want to see in it. making peace with where you are, is accepting that whatever it is that brought you to this point. So whatever mistakes you think you've made, whatever things you could have done differently, whatever regrets you've had to let that go, it's baggage, now it's only holding down your rocket. And you're gonna remember we're all about launching here, we're in our rockets, and we're launching together. So all that stuff does not help you, when you hold on to what could have been, oh, I could have or I should have invested earlier, I shouldn't have, you know, went on that trip that I'm still paying off years later, I should have done this should have done that. It's done. It's done already. You can't change it. And so sitting back learning lessons from it is very important so that you don't repeat the same behaviors. But sitting back and beating yourself up over it is not going to help all it does is drag you down. All it does is make this the rocket that you're on harder to launch because you have all this stuff in it that's unnecessary. So make peace with where you are. Forgive yourself for past mistakes for things you didn't know. You're different now. And every day, guess what? You're still make mistakes on this journey. I still make mistakes on this journey. And it's just every day it starts fresh every moment, start fresh. So that's one it's really an internal shift, making peace with where you are forgiving the things you didn't know so you can move forward.

Two diversify your happiness. So there are like maybe varying things that make you happy. Maybe you even know what makes you happy because you've just stopped for Focusing on joy, I want you to figure out what makes you happy. What are the things that you do when you do them, you lose sense of time you smile to your cheeks hurt, you forget about all the other stuff and obligations you have to do, like you literally feel joy doing these things. And I want you to diversify them in three areas, meaning pick them out, and then diversify them in ways that are different in cost, effort, and availability. So what do I mean by that? So things that can bring you joy can be as simple as listening to music, right? Listening to music, or if you're like me, like stealing your kids gummies or taking their gummy packs, and eating it like that makes me happy. Reading a book, like really simple things that don't really involve a lot of effort and or cost. Technically, they could be free, then you could think about things that maybe have a little bit more effort into it. So it's not like you know, it's just like, a flip of your phone, or going into the pantry to you know, steal that gummy. It's more about and what am I saying stealing people, grownups You know what, it's my gummy I pay for it, I'm not stealing. But the second one is going for a walk or run biking. going out with friends like these, this takes a little bit more effort, right? It's not going to your pantry. It's not like, you know, scrolling and looking at an online movie. Right or as simple as picking up a book, this may take a little bit more effort for you. And it can also be low cost. Because you know, going for a walk or run or biking if you already have a bike is a low cost activity. Going out with friends technically could be low cost if you guys are doing budget friendly things together. And in the grand scheme of things, you have to decide what is low cost and high cost for you. Because a $40 meal is high cost for someone else and low costs for the next person. So it's literally going to be what's on your spectrum. Things that may be more effort, more cost, and less availability like that you can you can't do often or things like maybe traveling, right, if you have kids, you have a schedule that you it doesn't allow you to just travel and take off when you want. And it costs maybe you're not doing it in a budget friendly way for the most part would be something that you can put on your list. If you know that traveling makes you happy. A staycation even right buying your favorite candle, you know that can be expensive or not depending on what you like. But essentially, I want you to make a list of all the things that bring you joy, nothing is too little, nothing is too big, especially if these are things you've already experienced. And then you can even things that you probably forgot you loved, write them down to really go back to your childhood, it could be coloring, you know, they have adult coloring books. And, again, biking, I used to love biking when I was younger. And so I got a bike recently. So I can do that. So I just want you to write down all the things you enjoy.

Because what we're going to do now is diversify them, I want you to categorize them based on cost, effort and availability. And so if something is low cost, you know, you're going to put them in buckets. So when you're in those moments of feeling despair, or unhappiness, depending on where you are like if you're at work, you can't just get up, potentially, and you know, go biking. But if you're looking to pick from your low effort, and high availability bucket, then it wouldn't be something like a treat that you enjoy to eat, or listening to music in your, your ear, right. Because when we're in those moments of feeling unhappy, we sometimes don't even remember the joy, because we're such in that place. So if you're ready have this list together, you all you have to do is remember to go to the list, you remember those to the list, you even see these words are the things that make you happy. And then you can choose from them. And for example, if you're you know, on the weekend and you're home and you finally get a break from you know your job, you can go to that list, if you're feeling some type of way, maybe on a Sunday for a lot of people, it's like feeling like they kind of go back to work and they feel this moment, these moments. Okay, so what from your list based on your availability, you know, how much time you have to do it? And how available it is to you based on the effort that you want to give in that moment. And cost. What can you do right now. So a list of your happiness/ joy that you're writing, but you are categorizing in these ways.

Three, practice sustained gratification. So I recently was was playing around with a concept called sustained gratification. So for the most part, you've probably heard about delayed gratification, which is pretty important. You know, I think as humans, we have to learn how to delay our gratification for the most part or we won't survive, you know, like everything can't be instant because then we will put ourselves in danger by going back to just what feels good in the moment. And this is highly, highly talked about in personal finance because a lot of things that we talked about are far off goals right like so, you know, paying off debt, depending on the amount reaching financial independence. You're looking at it as a long term goal that you have. So what do you have to give up? Now you have to delay gratification now to experience that. I think a better way to look at this is sustained gratification. So how can you, in the moment find ways to have pleasure immediately and sustainably over time, while still obtaining value in a long lasting reward in the long term, right. And so I talked about diversifying your happiness above. And so it is literally taking those things and putting it in your budget, putting it in your life, your spending plan. Now, if you're budgeting for certain things, so if you say to yourself, you know what, I have a goal of buying a house. And if I go, strict delayed gratification, I cut out all everything, maybe I can do this in two, three years. If I take a more sustained approach, meaning I'm still budgeting for going out to eat and a chip here and there, it may take me a year longer, four years, right? You decide based on how intense you want your journey to be how accelerated you want to be, because you may decide that you know what, while buying that house was important, so it was enjoying and doing these things that bring me joy, right. And so it's one of the things that you know, I did in terms of and I'm still doing, my journey to financial independence is no longer one that is accelerated based on you know, budgeting and, or I should say spending, meaning we still spend money, we still got to eat, I still budget for things that I want to do when this pandemic is over. I plan on taking trips, okay. And so yes, if we didn't do any of those things, if we live on, you know, a strict strict budget where our line items for things were very, like, miniscule, we would reach our goals of financial independence sooner. But I'm not really concerned about the pace at which we reach financial independence, I'm more concerned about the quality of our life quality, as a family, you know, for my husband, it's not just me on this journey. And my kids I want, I want them to do things, I want them to be in extracurricular activities, I want them to take trips and experience Disney World and do all these things. And I don't always want to budget and be you know, staying at the cheapest place, I want to fly first class. So these are things that I am accounting for in my budget that we are planning for, and we understand it may take longer, but that's okay. I rather the sustain gratification approach in some areas of my life versus completely cutting things out. And so you just have to decide, what are you willing to give up in order to feel good now.

And then what happens is, as you're making these decisions, you know, you are comparing the now to the then you're able to pull back. So you might say, Okay, you know what I am budgeting for going out to eat with friends, because that's important. And you may realize, oh, wow, like I do enjoy this. But I think we need to find a cheaper way to do this. Because if I do that differently, this way I can reach my goal of paying off debt, or buying that house six months earlier. And you may feel like it's worth it to cut back in that area, right? From this level from this area of understanding what works for you, what you're willing to give up, you are in such a place of power. So understanding what sustained gratification is understanding what you're willing to give up in terms of speed, so that you can make room for the things on your happiness list, even if they cost a little bit more money.

Number four, recruit some friends to join you on this journey. So hopefully, in real life, there is someone in your life you can come to with this idea. And they don't laugh at you and tell you that you're ridiculous. They look at you like, wait, what is this, I can do this with you. Let's do it. I mean, it's so amazing when there's someone in your real life that this can work with. And if you want that to happen, you don't have that yet send them the Journey to Launch podcast. If they find people sending each other the podcast and they say my friend sent it to me, and you know, I've been listening and now I kind of get it. So that's a good way, you know, sending them blogs, but also your online communities, following accounts that talk about this stuff. And you know, there are different types of personalities in the personal finance space in the financial independence space, you don't have to resonate with everyone, not everyone's gonna resonate with my style. But there are so many different people that you can connect to virtually right. I call it like one sided a little bit because if you're like just following someone and that's different than like if you were in a community where you're able to connect and talk with other people who are doing what you're doing, maybe at different levels and starting points, which by the way, is why I started the Money Launch Club, which doors are open now depending on where you're listening, I'm until April 8, because I wanted a space where people can really connect with each other. And I'll tell you this, we have members in our community like they're legit friends now like they see each other. They do accountability calls. You know, every week before the pandemic we had someone who was flying out to Japan and we had a Money Launch Club member in Japan and they were able to meet in person, like I'm telling you like, community and feeling that you're not alone is important. It's so important because this can be a lonely journey because of the length of time. And it's a very emotional one. And so when you can come and feel vulnerable, give advice, get advice for where you are on the smallest, the biggest things. I'm telling you, it's a game changer. So finding communities, having friends with you on this journey is important. Again, if you want to join us before doors closed, go to Moneylaunchclub.com

Number five, learn to like your job, even if you hate it, I'll say that again. Learn to like your job, even if you hate it. Remember, I talked about number one being make peace with where you are. It's your job right now. So your job right now maybe something you don't like doing. But if you start to hate it, it will hit you back. Because all you'll see is the negative stuff. So what do you love about it? Or what do you like about it? Let's not push it too far with love. Okay. But what do you like about it. And I had to do this, you know, before I ended up quitting my job a couple years ago, to do Journey to Launch full time, I had to really see the good and the amazingness, and what my job did for me. And so I want you to think about how has your job benefited you. In my case, I would not have been able to buy my property at 22 years old without my job, you know, I would not have been able to make the financial purchases and experiences that I've had in my early 20s. Throughout my 20s, before I quit my job, there's no way the learning experience of being in a corporate environment, I can't tell you how that's helped me as an entrepreneur, you know, I just go about and view things differently that my corporate background has allowed me and developed in me, right, these skill sets of being in meetings and communication and follow up emails, which are soft skills that you don't think are important. But I'm telling you, I know for a fact that Journey to Launch, where it is because of my corporate background. Because I know how to, you know, connect and handle things in more corporate settings with you know, even sponsors or people or brands that I'm working with, going back to the point, your job allowing you to do things or it allowed me to do a lot of things, your job is your current investor. So look at it that way. Especially if you are working on things on the side, you know, maybe you're starting a business on the side, your current paycheck, can be your investor, to the goals and dreams that you have. If you work at a job that gives you a you know, a match to a 401k that's giving you money to help grow your investment portfolio. Even if you're taking some money putting into the site to put into your business, I can't tell you as a full time entrepreneur, especially the first year where Journey to Launch was not making much, or any money at all, how, you know, I thought back to when I was receiving checks like every other week, and how good that felt. So if you're in a position now where you have a job, and you are getting consistent checks, and that is a blessing, you know, there's so many people who don't have consistent income. And so to be able to rely for the most part, I'm saying quote unquote, could we all know that being able to rely on anything in terms of someone else, and a company right now can be dodgy. But this is sustainable income for the most part that you can use to fund your dreams. That's a big deal. And even if you're not, you know, trying to be an entrepreneur, you just want to be you do want a corporate career, maybe it's not the one you want right now, or it's not the position. It's funding your light bill. It's funding you're you know, you've been able to watch your favorite shows, it is invested in you. So I want you to also write that list out of the things that you appreciate about your job of the people you'd like at your job, there has to be one person that you enjoy talking to, or is pleasant, right, focus on them, not the people who annoy you, or doing too much, really focus on what is giving you joy in those moments while you're at work. Find projects you can work on that are more challenging or exciting. And that stretch you that allow you to develop your skill sets that you can then use not only at your job, but maybe in the next position or in your side hustle. And again, just reflect and think about what your job has allowed you to do. So learn to like your job even if you hate it. Because Listen, there's so many people right now who want a job.

And the last one I'll leave you with is number six. Uncover and discover your purpose now. Uncover and discover your purpose now. I know in you know it might be something in your head that you'll like well when I when I reach financial independence that's when I focus on being happy and finding my purpose. No, no, no, no, no, we're not gonna wait. We're gonna find our purpose today. If you don't know what already if there's not something you know that you really want to do. And by the way, I do believe we can multiple purposes, it's not just one, I do believe your purpose can change over time and your priorities can change. And that's okay. But I need you to find things right now, in addition to this, like the joy that you may just do just to do but like your purpose, what can you do or that so when you talk about you want to quit your job and start your own business, what is that business? Is there a way that you can start that now and more than likely won't be to the same level, as you're working full time that you can do something on the side. But you can start something. And the good thing about it is, if you are financially secure, meaning you have most of your finances, in order, you can try different things, right. So you can say to yourself, you know what I'm going to try for a year to do this one thing, I'm going to try for a year to work on this side hustle idea. And if it doesn't work, move on. And your job can allow you to fail, because it's not that you're depending on this side hustle for your income. So doing that, I can't tell you how beneficial it is to figure out what that looks like now. So that way, by the time you get to your goals, like and you will like you will get to the goals that you're setting for yourself and financial independence. By the time you get there, you have an idea, you know, what you want to do. And so for me that happened with Journey to Launch. You know, at first I didn't know that journeys launch would be the thing that would allow me to quit my job or propelled me to quit my job. But I had this love of listening to podcasts. So again, my job even though the commute was horrible, it gave me a lot of time to listen to podcast.

So that was one of the things I loved about it. I used to wake up excited to drive sometimes because of all the podcasts that I can listen to and learn from, which by the way helped me when it came to starting Journey to Launch podcast because I knew exactly what I wanted to produce what was missing in the space, which I do believe it helps me stand out today. So you have to like I did at least what I think is important, figure out what to do on the side to help make the time not just pass because we don't we don't want the time to pass while you're on this journey just to get to the end goal, but to enjoy it so that you're prepared for the next level and step. And for me Journey to Launch was that I started Journey to Launch as a blog, you may have heard the story before it was first a blog then morphed into a podcast. Then upon having my third child, I realized, Oh, I can't do all this. I can't do the children, the job, the podcast, and be seen I have something has to go right. And so I ended up quitting my job to Journey to Launch full time. But because I leaned into something I was interested in financial independence, blogging, and then podcasting. It allowed me to find more time freedom today, because I quit my job. Now of course, it's a lot more that went into that I had to financially prepare to do this, you know it, it has not necessarily been easy, but it's allowed me to live a life that I thought I wouldn't be able to live until I was I had a million dollars of cash in the bank. And so uncovering and discovering your purpose, you don't know where that will lead. And then don't get frustrated. If you know what you thought what happened is not happening fast enough. If that side hustle or the purpose that you want to now turn into your side hustle, which by the way, you know, not everything, that is your passion or purpose should be turned into a side hustle. I do believe something should be kept separate. Because oftentimes we think oh, I'm like, I love doing this. I can make money from it. And then when you attach money as the outcome to your passion, it takes away the love for it. So it's not to say you can't merge the two because I do believe if you're able to make money from your passion, you crack the code. But don't always assume that the two have to merge. Sometimes your purpose or passion is not to make a million dollars from it. It's just to provide you that outlet to feel good and happy and fulfilled in the world.

Okay, so I hope that helped with you. If you are feeling really just uneasy or lost on the journey in terms of emotionally, of how long it's going to take you and you're trying to figure out well, how do I enjoy it. I hope these tips resonated with you. If you're following me on Instagram at journey to launch tell me if any of these tips resonated with you tell me which ones you're gonna do or think through more. I'm just gonna recap them really quickly. There were six ways in terms of enjoying the journey now. One is make peace with where you are. Two is diversify your happiness. Make a list of it by cost, effort and availability. Draw from that list when you can. Three, practice sustain gratification, so understanding the difference between delayed gratification and sustained gratification for recruit some friends, join communities that you feel supported in on this journey. Five, learn to like your job even if you hate it, and six, uncover and discover your purpose right now.

So I hope that helped. Remember, doors to the launch club are now open but only for a limited time. Remember, that's the membership community for journeyers just like you who want more from their journey, they don't want to just listen to the podcast, they want to go deeper. We have expert speakers that come in and teach different classes. We have so many classes in our vault already that you can come right in and watch and learn from things like building your credit, paying off debt, budgeting, side hustle, all the things. Also you get a community app, it's on your phone or on your desktop that you can log in, connect with other journeyers there are accountability groups, there are subgroups, we're talking about side hustles all the things I mean, it's the community where you want to be if you're serious about and you need support on this journey to financial independence. So join us now before doors close moneylaunchclub.com

Don't forget you can get the episode Show Notes for this episode by going to journeytolaunch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this and you can still grab your jumpstart guide for free to help you on your journey to financial freedom by going to journeytolaunch.com/jumpstart.

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