About the difficult task of navigating a complete career change and "finding your purpose"

End advice: Do not be afraid to change your mind regularly. And there is nothing wrong with navigating 2 (or more) worlds simultaneously, including temporarily relying on your old world, while you operate this transition.

Read on for the whole thing...

In this world filled with "Law of Attraction" advice everywhere, "if you can visualize it and feel it as done, if you raise your vibration, then the Universe MUST respond and it becomes real".

Right. I personally am spiritually inclined. But whether you believe or not, here's the part they don't tell you.

To truly "feel it as done" means you essentially feel invincible. It implies that you have done all the introspection and potentially healing work so that you are free enough of any limiting beliefs and external conditioning. It means being 100% clear, fearless and fully determined to walk a certain path, including accepting any and all discipline, sacrifices and failures necessary. And everyone will tell you: you WILL fail before you succeed. But you are determined to keep going no matter what. Others simply call this mindset.

The truth is that this is a work in progress for most of us, with some ahead and some behind others, as in any area of life. And I don’t think there is a one size fits all approach either. I believe each individual has a unique circuitry and correct way for them of navigating life.

But no matter what floats your boat, I don’t think finding's one purpose is some sort of "aha" moment. You'll most likely have plenty of "aha" moments thinking this time, THIS IS IT ! But the way I see it, you don't "find" your purpose in one go. You MAKE it, you SHAPE it as you become more and more aware of who you are and what you really want over the years. Through your experiences and how you respond to them AND the awareness of your own responses.

One piece of advice I received many times is to not get attached to outcome when you become energized to move in a direction. In other words, let's say a passion of yours offers you an opportunity, you are fully lit on and you think "yeeyyy, this is it". You then expend a lot of energy going in that direction. And then it doesn't work out for whatever reason so you get angry and start cursing at the whole world lol :D

This is about you and the strength of your intention getting tested. Didn't work the first time ? It rarely does. Do you really want this ? Try again.

Then, one of two things happens: you are so determined or in the zone that you do try again. Or you don't. And it's actually OK if you don't. If your body truly no longer has energy for it, then it wasn't something you really wanted that much anyway, was it ?

There is a difference between the temporary excitement behind any new opportunity which is always going to be there, and the excitement that can be sustained over prolonged periods of time because it satisfies something at a very deep level for you. The only way to be sure is to wait for the initial excitement of “something new” to be over.

But the experience did provide you with some valuable information about what naturally energizes you along the way if you are mindful of your own feelings and examine them truthfully.

You also learn about what features / characteristics you want in your activity. For example, do you want freedom, working remotely and a flexible schedule ? Or more stability but less freedom ? To each his own, and as you progress and get older this may also change.

What you think you want and what you truly want are two different things.

Getting to the bottom of things and closing in on the discrepancy is usually a process and is unique for each individual. However, each experience always brings you closer if you are willing to see the lessons along the way.

BUT... and this is where the key lies. At that point it is important to recognize that even though the destination wasn't what you thought it would be, it did make you move in a direction. You acted upon it, even if disappointment followed.

And that means you are now in a slightly new / different environment that will invariably generate new experiences and opportunities for you to navigate through. Unless you stay locked up in the house watching Netflix all day, life will always throw new things at you as you keep moving.

Now, you may or may not have the financial means to endure various trial and error phases until things take off in your new direction and you can support yourself and your family.

And so, while following your gut or heart is indeed of the utmost importance, there is nothing wrong with then using your mind to define steps that are reasonably attainable while still being challenging, hence rewarding when completed.

And sometimes, that may include going back to what you were already doing. But differently. With the wisdom that comes with age of maybe not knowing exactly what you want, but 100% clear on what you no longer want.

I’ll give you a concrete example from my current life position.

I have worked in web development pretty much my whole life as you can check on my profile here. Then, after 20 years, I eventually got tired of it and decided I would move into something more people based. Coaching, consulting, or maybe even a healing art such as massage, as I have always had very good hands and enjoy being able to help take pain away from others.

I tried coaching and consulting first, but things didn’t work out as planned and I discovered that to succeed in the future, I will need someone to help me with marketing analysis, planning and distribution. And keep me structured and on schedule with, and focused on, content production. We all need some assistance with some things lol :D

Took a salary job as a digital transformation analyst and consultant for a while, helping system integrators become ready for recurring revenue, cloud based models with Amazon AWS and Cisco. Learned a lot.

I also recently discovered I really enjoyed doing service and being physically active while I took a summer job as a beach attendant in Cannes this past August. My mind was relaxed as I enjoyed being in the moment in the middle of somewhat intense activity in some definitely very hot weather !

And so, I have decided to pursue something that would indeed be more physical and anchored in social interaction and service, and as a next step, become a licensed massage therapist. On top of being a freelance ecommerce trainer for PrestaShop with a few monthly gigs.

Training and practice will take 8-12 months before I can start practicing and earning a living with it. Except I can’t afford not to bring in cash every month for a year, and my current freelance trainer income is no longer sufficient with everything being so damn expensive.

And so, I have also decided to first go through this “NoCode” Bubble bootcamp to become a partner developer, get certified and then be offered to work on projects at very decent rates. The bootcamp and certification there is only 8-10 weeks. Bubble allows you to build beautiful, fully mobile responsive website applications using a 100% visual builder, in hours instead of days, days instead of weeks compared to conventional coding.

I just completed the first module out of 5 and must say I am quite impressed with its power, even though there is still plenty of room for improvement. I was never the best coder, and in my past business I eventually ended up hiring developers that were light-years ahead of me technically. But with my background, learning their visual system is very easy as I already understand everything behind it.

And suddenly, while working on the first module’s project, I remembered what it was that I enjoyed about building web-based applications: it was about creatively and elegantly solving problems and creating something. The technical side of “real” coding became too much for me as I became less interested in learning new and evolving programming languages.

And so, this thing is perfect for me: I enjoy building things again, I don’t have the hassle of the technicalities which had become burdensome for me, it’s flexible hours, 100% remote and good money for those who can learn and work fast.

I can then proceed with my massage school studies, while having a steady flow of income based on two activities instead of just one. At least that’s the plan for now. If circumstances change, I’ll adapt. I try to always keep an open mind.

On a side note, if you’re like me a “multi potential” or “zebra” individual, then trying to fit in only one slot will usually not work and eventually get you bored and miserable.

Until you can find that perfect hybrid model that allows you to combine many things into one activity and move closer and closer to your true self, there is nothing wrong with having several unrelated activities that will keep you alive and happy to wake up while being able to support yourself and those around you during these crazy times we live in ! :)

And you get to live at your rhythm.