I can’t believe I’m writing this, but today marks the very first day of my leave of absence from my corporate job.

I’ll be honest, it’s kind of surreal. I’ve been with the company for ten years (as of this year) and have essentially “grown up” with it. It was my first corporate job. The thing of it is though, while I was growing within the company, I was also working to grow my blog and and social media channels.

I was on two very separate pathways that consistently competed with each other when it came to prioritizing.

For a while, I was able to balance it.

I’d wake up early, stay online to work late. I’d use PTO when needed for events or if I was feeling insanely behind in blog collaboration tasks. There were days where I brought a bag of clothes and makeup to the office so I could change in the bathroom at work to then head to a media event.

It finally took it’s toll though within these past few years. I’d find myself having breakdowns, stressed out curled in a ball thinking I wasn’t excelling 110% at either path I was on. It was an enormous struggle for me emotionally and mentally because I didn’t feel like I could keep up in anything I was doing. The irony, right?

Everything finally reached its breaking point this year and that’s when it was decided that something NEEDED to change. I couldn’t continue on this way – it wasn’t healthy for me or my mental state.

I made the decision to take a leave of absence from my corporate job. It’s time to take a chance and see what I can do with my blog as my sole focus.

I’ll be sans corporate world for the next 12 weeks.

I haven’t really known one without the other – my corporate job and my side hustle. I consistently wonder what it’d be like had my blog been successful before I even considered joining the corporate world. Or alternately, what I would be able to accomplish on my corporate path without my blog being my real passion. It’s finally time to see what it’s like to only focus on one.

[WATCH MY INSTAGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT HERE]

Today is a mix of emotions really. I feel overwhelm, excitement, fright, curiousity. Out of the range of emotions I feel, the one that’s most prevalent is that I’m doing the right thing. This journey feels like it was meant to be the first step in the next chapter of my life.

I may not know exactly what these next three months will hold, but one thing’s for sure: I’m ready to embrace it.