Do you remember what your career dreams were…?

One night I sat with my friend Natalie and she shared her despair at being in a job that was literally draining her. All her dreams and goals that she had shared with me over 20 years ago were a distant memory and something that had been reserved for “one day in the future.”

I faced her head on with the question “what would you do if you could do anything at all?” She looked at me with frustration. She didn’t want to lead her imagination up a path that wouldn’t come into fruition and her dreams felt so far away that she couldn’t access them. She said “I can’t think that far ahead right now and I just can’t tell you.”

I grinned at her and decided to press a little “please just humour me and allow yourself to have one minute where you are allowed to dream!”

She smiled back and almost yelled “I would be designing and selling my own jewellery!”

“THANK YOU!” I said.

I knew this was her truth because it was the same dream she had envisioned 22 years ago when we first met.

Now we were getting somewhere. She had blurted out her dream job and it was crystal clear to the Universe. Being clear is always step number one. Now she just needed to dare to dream that it could be possible.

Just 3 weeks later something incredible happened that has set her well on the path towards her creating her dream.

There were 3 things that set the energy in motion for this to happen:

1. Clarity in her intention
2. Daring to visualise and be specific
3. A very strong desire to make it happen when she “flipped her switch 3 weeks later”.

What would you love to be doing each day to live a life filled with Hi Chi? Can you give yourself the gift of daring to dream? Where would you be? Who are you with? What are you doing?

I will hand you over to Natalie now so you can read it in her words.

Having spent 9 years in a job that not only didn’t define me, but was everything I did not align with, I finally reached a point in May  earlier this year when I felt I had to take matters into my own hands.

My job within the FMCG industry was nothing short of dull to me. I had no passion about the Convenience sector or grocery retail trade. It was a job I coasted in for much longer than I care to admit, but having two babies will do that to you. Play safe, that’s what I did.

When I sat with Karina and moaned for the millionth time about how unhappy and unfulfilled I was, she quizzed me on what type of job would make me happy, what would it take to fulfil me? It became a very serious, and completely specific discourse on what I really wanted to do, and where I saw my direction. Having never really allowing myself the time to think about it before, it felt nerve wracking to focus on myself for the first time, in a very long time.

I decided I absolutely wanted to work in the Jewellery industry. Being a creative and passionate jewellery lover all my life with a flair for detail and eye for special unique pieces, I felt I could lend my talents to really delve into something I loved. But how?

Karina and I discussed for over two hours. What type of business would it be? Small I said, so I could learn from the bottom up. Where would it be? Local of course, because  between childcare and schools, the only hours I could spare would be 9.30am-2.30pm. How much did I want to earn? I’m not going to get all silly now, I’d said. I’m not greedy, but not being able to manage on what I was being paid and being a slave to my childcare, I needed just a couple of hundred pounds more per month to make things a bit more bearable in our house. I didn’t want to take liberties, I wanted to learn.

Probably 3 weeks later, after an argument with my boss, I flipped my switch, and sat at my desk at work and angrily pulled up LinkedIn. Looking for a job? It said. Why yes, yes I am! I’d been searching lazily over the weeks on LinkedIn jobs, but hadn’t specified what I was looking for, i just wanted to see what was out there. But this time I was so specific with the search field, I wanted to make sure I really got what I wanted. I entered “part time, north west London, jewellery company, wholesale and retail business”.

ONE job came up. It was honestly the most perfect description I’d ever seen. Jewellery fashion company looking for a general brand manager. It was part time, flexible hours, in north west London (15 mins from my daughters nursery), and the role was multi dimensional. I was flying on holiday the next morning for a friends wedding but I knew that job should be mine, the chances of it meeting my extremely particular requirements was too good to be true. I called the director of the company immediately and left a message on her voicemail, I told her I knew I wanted to work for her, if she would meet me, I would explain my passion.

I went away the next day, but while I was away she called me and we strangely worked out that we had met once before! We agreed to meet as soon as I was back. Once I met her, only then did we discuss money. She offered me £200 more than I was earning per month, and I hadn’t  even asked for it. I assured her I could learn everything and anything she wanted to teach me. The job was mine. I handed my notice in the next day.

I honestly LOVE what I do.

I have taken over the full management of the retail and wholesale website of our brand. I assist in design meetings for both spring summer and autumn winter collections, manage all wholesale accounts nationwide and run the whole e-commerce platform. And most importantly, I have a say in our new seasons’ designs and help to create new styles for our Spring Summer collection. I have also helped to launch a celebrity endorsed capsule collection am loving every step of my learning curve.

I am learning something new everyday, I am managing to grow and thrive in this role, which is undoubtedly setting me up to one day start a business of my own, creating my own jewellery brand. I know that day is coming and I know this is my training for it.

This is without a doubt in direct response to fully immersing myself and aligning myself to the role I always wanted, but never dared to dream of. I feel completely in awe of how swift and immediate the change happens, when we are FULLY ready and are totally clear on what we want!