The truth of the matter is that every once in awhile, I get this massive dose of inspiration and this point of major clarity. When this happens, I sit down and this cathartic process takes place where I journal an overload of information that I feel like so many people are probably experiencing too. You might just be one of those women where you are sitting in a spot in this very season of your life where I was.

For those who have been around here for a longer while, you may be more familiar with my story. But have I ever told you why I decided to quit my 15-year career as a sign language interpreter? The career that had carried me through being a single mom, the career that literally paid for EVERYTHING when I was single, and continued to help contribute to our family in the first couple years after I got married. To decide to be a work from home mom instead.

I have a couple of secrets that I usually don’t talk about often, but for some reason, I really feel like this is the message you need to read. To help you to understand and process why I made a HUGE shift in my life, why I took a massive LEAP of faith. And just maybe you could use this to help YOU make a decision that you may or may not be sitting on yourself. So, what do you say? Lets get into the untold secrets of me starting my business after being in an amazing career for 15 years, so I could be a work from home mom.

Listen below for the entire episode on The Systemize Your Life Podcast

Today I am going to share with you secrets of me starting my business after leaving an amazing 15 year career, so that I could be a work from home mom. These 3 big, untold secrets were the underlying reasons why I decided to start my business. My business had just started out in my mind as this blog. I was just going to have a blog. And I did. I bought a course that taught me how to do it. Previously, I had started another business before and I DIY-d the whole thing. But after seven whole years I was still moving at a snail’s pace. And that’s what happens. It happens very frequently, for most people.

So this time, I was ready to invest in the process. I started out with blogging and it was innocent. At the time I started this business, I continued my full time job as a sign language interpreter, which I’d been doing for the last 15 years. I started learning sign language in high school as my foreign language credit. After high school graduation, my two main skill sets were sign language and cheerleading. And I heard that interpreters made pretty good money, so I thought “I’m going to just try that” and I did and I never looked back.

It was a decision that I am so glad that I made. It was the BEST decision I had ever made. Because I had done it all throughout high school, when I went into my college 101 class, I was already ahead of everyone else, so by that nature, I was called on more often, and it took off from that point on like wildfire. I fell in love with the community and it was what I was meant to do. I loved it, and I still love it actually. And it didn’t make sense for me to stop doing it.

It was a beautiful thing-I got to pick my own hours. I had worked really, really hard to be in a place in my career where I had the ability to pick the clients that I worked with, I didn’t have to accept every job that came my way. I was doing some really high level interpreting that I had always dreamed of doing. It was a skill set that I had worked incredibly hard at. I loved every single thing about it. So when I came to Blaine and told him that “I wanted to be a blogger,” you could imagine the questions that he had.

Where do you see yourself in….?

But, I had decided that this is what I wanted to do. For a lot of people, when making the decision to start a blog, they do so because they are looking to make a little more money, or they are wanting to do something that lights them up. But for me, I had all of that. The truth of the matter is that these untold secrets of me leaving my full time job to start my own business to be a work from home mom are the depths of my heart and why I made the decision that I made.

And that decision was a really hard decision because I already had “made it” in the career that I was in. I was not bored. My job was challenging, it was never repetitive, I was continuously excited about it, deeply challenged, had a passion for it and respected every part of my job. Every thing about it just screamed “Keep doing it!”

I remember Blaine asking me one day, “where do you see yourself in 15 years from now with your work, do you really think you are still going to be interpreting?” and my response to that question is when it hit me. When he first asked me that question my first thought was “Ew, no!” I realized in that moment that this was NOT what I wanted to do. And I realized that things had been happening up to this point that led me to get to this place of realization. And what was happening to me is the first secret I am going to share that led me to leaving my full time career to start my business and be a work from home mom.

SECRET #1

I had been really, really struggling as a mom. And it was out of that struggle where The Systemize Your Life Academy came from. That is where all the systems came from. I was really, really struggling to keep it all together. To do all the things. As much as I loved every single minute of what I was doing as an interpreter and I loved everything I was doing with my mom and our wedding business, both of which were gut-wrenching to let go of. I just knew that it was not what I wanted to spend my blood, sweat, and tears doing for the next 5, 10, or 15 years.

The first reason why was because I was quite frankly, really sick and tired of trying to figure out how to be a mom to my girls. I genuinely wanted to be with my babies, I wanted to see them off to school, and I wanted to pick them up, and I wanted to be present for them. And I could never find anyone to take care of them when I had to work because Blaine was never home. I was constantly looking for babysitters, I was constantly scraping by to figure out what jobs I could pick up that didn’t interfere with these things and I was losing my mind trying to figure out how I was going to in two places at once.

The vision…to pursue my own business and to be a work from home mom

I would call Blaine when he was at the fire station, crying that I didn’t know how to be in two places at once. That I genuinely didn’t know how to do it. And I am sure YOU have also felt that way. When the kids are in different places and you need to be there and you lack the support that you need. It was the dynamic of the old life that I had been living for quite some time really coming in and crashing in head on with this new life that I was about to live and I had NO IDEA that I was sitting in between the two. I had zero clue.

I just knew that something didn’t feel right, despite constantly trying to make things feel right as I was desperately trying to make ends meet, doing what I had already been doing for so long. All of a sudden everything was different, yet the same at the same time. For me, that was the biggest reason that I don’t often talk about, I felt like I was holding on to this old life that I was no longer supposed to live, even though my entire identity was wrapped up in it.

I just knew that I had these babies at home that I wanted to be with so deeply and so badly. Sure, I could have just quit all together and chosen to stay at home with no career, but frankly, we needed the money, and I knew there was something more. I knew that there was this vision. And this vision is my next secret that led me to leave my full time career, to pursue my business, and choose to be a work from home mom.

SECRET #2

I want you to think about these secrets and really look at why it is that you are trying to do your side hustle the way that you are, or why is it that you are doing your career the way that you are doing it. What side of this are you on? Maybe you are in the camp that I got to because you already made these decisions or maybe these secrets are your secrets too? Or maybe these secrets will lead you to your own secrets that will help you figure out if now is the time to jump and to learn the skills that you need to learn.

Truthfully, for me, I got thrown into this really quick. I had been processing these feelings that I am describing as the secrets in my shift to be a work from home mom, but these were THE underlying feelings as to why I wanted to do what I am doing now. But I had the hardest time admitting that to anyone. And I didn’t know how I was going to make that happen. But I got thrown into it because the pandemic came and all my interpreting hours went from 20-25 hours a week to basically nothing and it was like that for awhile.

Having the Vision

Then, I was scraping by maybe 3, maybe 5 hours, if I was lucky and it was ROUGH. It was this moment where I said “Alright, we’re going to improvise, we are going to adapt, we are going to overcome, we are going to have a successful mindset and flip the script and get started.” I am going to roll up my sleeves, dig in, and do the thing. I was home, my kids were home, I had no other option of where I needed to be.

This vision that I had in my mind was something I was incredibly intimidated and afraid to open up to others about. Are you afraid to open up about what it is that you really want to do? Afraid to tell your close people about the things that you are wanting to do? Are you afraid of this new thing, this new vision, that you see for yourself is going to cause ripples? Where are you seating?

You have dreams for yourself, and I had a major vision for where I knew my life could be and I would have regretted it majorly if I didn’t at least try. I completely believed that I could be successful in teaching other women how to be successful in home and business and how to create systems to be able to manage their time and take care of themselves. At the time I didn’t have that language, but I absolutely had the vision.

Systemize Your Life Facebook Group

I’d NO IDEA any of those words would be the words that I used that would catapult everything into what it is now. And you might not have those words either, but if you have the VISION, if you are sitting on this major secret that nobody else knows, it is time to start opening up about it. And you don’t have to open up to everybody, but find a safe person to talk to. But if you feel like you have no one to talk to, we have a really, really safe Facebook community where people understand what you are going through and can help support you through it. Come tell us about it over in our Facebook group, we would love to support you.

Deja vu

I decided one day that there was this vision and that I was going to believe in it, even though I didn’t believe it to be true, but I was going to believe in it. Had zero proof, didn’t know if I would be successful with it…but I knew some sort of recollection of feeling a similar way, way back in the beginning of my career as a sign language interpreter. I remember feeling extremely overwhelmed and almost quit, but one of my professors told me that I was not quitting and told me I was designed to do this, that there was a need for people like me. And here I am now, 15 years later.

So when I got to that same place again, at a place of where I know I am sitting at a place of where I really need to do something even though I have no idea. I am being asked to do what? And I know you get to these places too. Places where you discover something that you are really good at, or a place where you realize you are going to do something completely different than what you are used to, and than what you were already really good at.

There’s no harm in trying

A slight switch happens when you realize that you are supposed to be doing something completely different with the passion that you have. And you see that passion with every single thing in you. That was where I was. And I knew that if I didn’t do anything with it, that I would sorely regret it. That I would end up looking back on my life with major regret.

That has been a huge motivator for me in a lot of ways. There’s NO HARM IN TRYING. Don’t just up and quit. Ease yourself into your vision. It’s perfectly okay to just try something and get your feet wet a little bit to see what it feels like. That is absolutely okay. There doesn’t have to be this massive articulation of what you see in your brain for it to be legitimate. If there is anything that you take away from this second secret of why I decided to just leave my full time, 15-year career, to embrace a new business…to be a work from home mom, I leaned into what I saw and what I believed in completely, with my entire heart, even though there was no proof that it was real. I just believed in it. And I want you to believe in it too!

“A slight switch happens when you realize that you are supposed to be doing something completely different with the passion that you have. And you see that passion with every single thing in you.”

SECRET #3

The third and final secret, is one I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone. I always say that my mission is to change the culture of motherhood, not only the way that we care for ourselves, but in the way that we care for each other. There is a little token of me that has a deep seated passion for women to be able to contribute their whole self to their family. For some women their whole self, their career is everything they do inside their home and that is what they are passionate about. And that is their whole self. For a lot of women, there is a missing piece of them, when they don’t get to explore things outside “the home”. When they don’t get to explore things outside of taking care of the home, taking care of the kids, taking care of their husband.

Looking inward

So many women get so bogged down because they don’t have systems in place, because they were never taught how to manage things in the home-to be a work from home mom plus their pursuit of their passions, that they never even try, or when they do try, they feel like a failure, because they don’t have the systems or the skills that they need and then they give up. And I am very passionate about changing that.

There was a little bit of tenacity that really fired me up when I felt like someone pulled a seat out and said “Hey Chelsi, come sit here!” I am so incredibly grateful for you and this community for the validation of where I am. And you must look deep down inside to figure out what are your secrets. If you are wanting to look further and deeper to grow beyond where you are right now, you have to look at the feelings and the secrets that you don’t want to reveal and unveil sometimes even to yourself, let alone other people.

Digging in and opening up

You got to air it, you got to believe it. Give it the light that it needs to be able to grow. You have to allow yourself the ability to step into this thing, even when you don’t know how to make it happen. When you stumble upon a solution, eat it up.

I remember stumbling upon this blogging course and I knew then and there that I wanted to do it. I talked to Blaine about it and that’s when I revealed my three secrets. It took digging in and opening up. That is where you’re going to have to get, what you’re going to have to do. These are the choices you’re going to have to make if you really want to get out of what you’re doing right now and start really focusing on this dream that you have.

You don’t have to delay the inevitable

Maybe get yourself to a place where you are stopping a 15-year career-maybe to be a work from home mom-OR maybe get to a place where you are starting the pursuit of your passions for the first time in your life. You are going to have to open up and be really honest with yourself and the people you are going to take a long with you in this process.

All of these things do take time, but you do not have to delay the inevitable by holding secrets deep down inside because one day you will be faced with them whether you do them now, or way down in. your future. It is better to jump on it now than wait until it is too late. So, no matter how long you have been waiting to seat down and face all these secrets that you have to doing something new, I hope you can look at the secrets that I sat on and the secrets that I faced, to help me get to where I am now. And maybe what it is that you need is what we offer over at The Systemize Your Life Academy.

Frequently Asked Questions

I feel I'm in the position to make the change as well-are there any resources to help me?

Of course! Besides my Facebook group, I also have a free fundamental needs workbook to help you identity your core needs in your home and business that may help make the transition easier for you. Additionally you can check out my free time blocking workbook to help you prepare where your time will be going. You may also find my Business Systems Series beneficial if that’s the direction you’re heading! I’ve linked Day 3 since the previous days are in the process of getting transferred to our blog, but there will be links to all the other days on the blog provided!