The AHA Moments That Inspired Us To Quit Our Jobs.

Before we get in to the AHA Moments that inspired us to quit our jobs. Let’s talk pre-merrymakers. Em worked in Events and Carla worked in Communication. We had ‘good jobs’: they paid well, the people were nice and we were comfortable.

We knew how much money we’d get at the end of the fortnight and where it was coming from, then we’d spend it (usually on clothes and other things).

We lived for the weekend. Wished every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday would hurry along and scream T.G.I.F when Friday would finally roll around. Then we’d do it all over again. 

Merrymakers was and still is very organic. When we hit publish on our very first blog post never in our wildest dreams did we think we could turn this in to a fulfilling career. It wasn’t until our catalyst moment in 2013 which is AHA moment no.1 when we realised… this wellbeing and online blogging thing is what we want to do.

It was a ‘when we grow up, we want to be merrymakers’ kind of realisation.

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Since then, we’ve been working full time regular desk jobs and merrymaking full time, trying to keep up with emails, social media, creating eBooks, attending events, reviewing restaurants and sending you all the message to follow your bliss...

We set our goal to quit our regular corporate world desk jobs by the end of 2014 so we could embark on project: full time merrymakers.

We didn’t want to set it earlier than that because that was a bit risky, yeah… what if we failed? What if we couldn’t pay our mortgage? What if something bad happened? Yes! What if something bad happened?! End of 2014 would be the perfect time to quit our regular corporate desk jobs, even if they were literally sucking the souls right out of us. 

For the whole first half of 2014 we kept telling ourselves this would be the last (insert what ever date it was that day) we’ll ever be here. We told ourselves “it’s a stepping stone” and “it’s paying the bills”. 

A day spent there and not merrymaking felt wasted. We’d found our bliss… but we weren’t following it.

Why? We’d made all of these excuses as to why we couldn’t quit earlier. They were all based around fear. All based on events that actually hadn’t even happened yet.

Are you ready for AHA moment no. 2? FEAR = False. Evidence. Appearing. Real. What you’re most afraid of is made up. It’s fake. It hasn’t happened.  It’s all in your head. 

false evidence appearing real

How did we know we were going to fail? How did we know we weren’t going to be able to pay the bills? Well, we didn’t. It was this false evidence that had been planted in our heads.

This self doubt that we couldn’t achieve our dreams. We hadn’t even tried to merrymake full time and we were telling ourselves it was impossible.

“The only thing keeping me from getting what I want is the story I keep telling myself about why it can’t happen.”

That one, is thanks to Oprah’s Life Class

It was just a month ago when we sat down to watch a YouTube video by one of our favourite new wellbeing inspirations Infinite Waters.  He spoke about bliss. The thing that you love to do. The fire in your belly. The thing you know you were born to do.

And then he said 5 words that officially take the title of AHA moment no. 3:

“What you focus on grows.”

Ahhhhh-HA! What you focus on grows! Imagine if we had all day every day to merrymake. To think of new ideas. Of ways we can work with businesses. Ways we can collaborate. Ways we can spread the healthy, happy message further.

If we had more time and space in our lives to focus on merrymakers then it would grow! Flourish even! In to our super exciting full time careers! We’d be able to live our dream.

Dream-wellbeing

And that, merrymaker friends, was the AHA moment we needed to take the leap. To walk the walk… actually jump in and follow the heck out of our bliss. On 30 July 2014 at 11.55am, we both hit send on our resignation emails. Nothing ever felt so right. 

There is still the unknown and the what ifs but we’ll tackle those when they become the nows. We feel so blessed to have found our bliss and just so super excited and grateful that we’ll be waking up every morning happy, healthy and excited to do what we love (no matter what day of the week). 

We know it’s not going to be easy but we know it’s going to be worth it. We’d love to know more about your bliss, your passion. Let’s follow them together! Leave us a comment!

Always merrymaking,

Emma + Carla

merrymaker link love

photo credit: Nina Matthews Photography via photopin cc
photo credit: k bost via photopin cc

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