“I am the luckiest person alive.”  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started my journal that way over the past 14 months.  But I didn’t always feel that way.  Not long after I took over my husband’s dental practice, I began to realize that it wasn’t the place for me. 

The career that I left gave me complete autonomy over my day; I was blessed to work with very intelligent and well-educated people, and never stayed in one place to long.  I created and implemented my own work while at the same time got to help people increase their computer skills and inspired them to become better at their jobs and often, in their lives.  In case you’re wondering, I was a proprietary software training developer.  I taught technical skills, but often had to help people get beyond their own fears and self-limiting beliefs and make them believe that they could learn.  It was challenging, fun, and rewarding.

Then, boom.  I married a dentist, whose front office staff walked out one day soon after we were married, leaving me to pick up the pieces.  Now, I do have a financial background including an accounting degree, so I wasn’t completely lost.  When I first graduated from college my first job was in bookkeeping, which I also decided wasn’t my thing.  I loved teaching and ended up with a second degree in Business Education.  It was that degree that led to computer training and consulting, which utilized my skills in business management, marketing, advertising, accounting, and finance.

Sitting in a dental office, answering the phone, dealing with the public, collecting money that no one wants to dole out, filing insurance claims, and dealing with employee issues—well, let’s just say, it was a far cry from the life I thought I would lead being married to a dentist.  I mean, dentists are doctors and doctors are rich, right?  If only!

Now don’t get me wrong; I had planned to continue to work.  However, I was going to take some time off to get computers installed in all the treatment rooms, get the employees trained, and then work for my previous company part-time.  My previous employer was very good to me and was willing to work with me.  I was also very good to them, and a rainmaker, so it was a reciprocal relationship.  But that plan never materialized.  I remained in my husband’s practice a little over 5 years.

You would think that someone who stays with a job for five years must like something about it, right?  Not me.  The only thing I liked about my dental office manager job was the fact that I worked with my husband.  And some days . . .  but that’s another blog post. 

To make a long story short, I was miserable in that job.  Not in my life in general; I was happy outside of the office, but when you spend an average of 50 hours per week in a job you hate, even if your “other” life is really good, you still feel miserable over all.  I know a lot of people who are living that way right now.  So what happened to me?  How did I get out? 

I spent the first four years of my marriage thinking, believing, that I was a victim of circumstances and that I would never have the life I truly wanted.  I also believed that it was my husband’s responsibility to make a life for us and to make me happy.  If it hadn’t been for my deep devotion to my husband and our relationship, I would have run away and believe me, there were days when I wanted to do just that.  Looking back, I believe there were two things that kept me from it. The first, I truly loved my husband and believed that we could have a great life together.  I knew the problem was with me even though I didn’t know, at that point, how to fix it.  The second, I was too stubborn to give up!   I wanted to make this life and marriage work and I had plenty of other reasons to want to make them work.

I was very lucky in that my husband remained steadfast during those times that I whined and complained; he wanted me in the practice, but he also wanted me to be happy.  Finally, one day, he asked me, “What do you want?”  I told him.  I let it all out.  I told him I wanted to be a smaller part of the practice, there for backup, but not there every day.  I wanted to go back to training of some sort, maybe dental practice management training, maybe just back to computer training.  I wanted to work in a career that made me feel like I was contributing something significant to the world and that I was fulfilling my mission here on earth, but knew my current position wasn’t it.  I said a lot and can’t remember all of it, but that was the gist.

My husband’s response?  “So, do it.”

Isn’t that just like a man!  You spend half an hour pouring your heart out, you’ve cried until there are no more tears left in your body, and he comes back with three of the simplest words in the English language.

When I poked and prodded for more insight, he finally said, “Make it happen.”  (Please, honey, could you possibly come out with more than three words at a time?)  So when prompted for more specific information, he said, “Hire someone to replace you, then go out and do whatever you want.  All I ask, is that you don’t leave me high and dry.”  (For those of you who may not be familiar with that expression, he just didn’t want me to leave the business with no one to run the front office – I was the only “employee” in that part of the practice at that time.)

Since his dental practice was my only source of income as well, I certainly was not going to do anything that would sabotage that.  So I had some serious decisions to make.  While the prospect of finding someone to replace me and getting the “heck out of Dodge” was appealing, I had already attempted to hire someone to help me in the front office and was disappointed with each hire.  Still, I knew that I could not stay in a position that was just making me more and more miserable each day.  I tried every concept I could get my hands on for learning to love your job, but nothing worked.  So I decided to try hiring someone one more time.

This time, I approached it differently.  I prayed first.  Then I started interviewing.  No one seemed suitable, and I was determined not to hire someone just because I felt desperate.  Our practice was growing and we needed help both in the front and in the back.  We decided to try a concept called “the bullpen.”  I figured if this person didn’t work out for me, we could use her in the back and I could try someone else.  I continued to interview, but no one seemed right. Then one of our employees suggested someone she knew, but the young woman was afraid to apply thinking she wasn’t qualified.  We got her to come in for an interview and hired her immediately.  We started her out in the back learning the technical side of dentistry, but then she seemed to migrate naturally up front.  I was cautious, but after giving her some responsibilities in my area, I knew I had finally found someone capable of replacing me.  Amanda is probably reading this and wondering, “Was that me?”  Yes, Amanda, it was you.

I was harder on Amanda than anyone else I had hired before because I knew that if she truly was the one, she would be on her own. I was not going to be around to rescue her, so she had to know how to research accounts, solve insurance problems, deal with patients, and handle countless other issues, all while keeping a smile on her face.   Obviously, she came through.

So what was next for me?  I became anxious.  This was the only life I’d known for 5 years, and I knew the tech world had moved on from the programs I had taught.  I also knew that a lot of the companies I had worked for were no longer in business, or had training departments of their own.  I knew I had good writing skills, especially in the technical writing area, but did not know if there was much of a need or how to go about getting started.  I finally decided to contact my previous employer.

Four weeks later, (!) I did.  I called the owner, set up a lunch meeting, and explained exactly where I was in my life and what I wanted to do.  During those four weeks, though, I had a lot of learning to do – about myself.  I knew that placing that call was the next step – I could feel it, but I kept holding myself back saying that I wasn’t ready, or that Amanda wasn’t ready.  It was as if I was waiting for someone to make the call for me, or walk up to me and say, “Here you go, Debra, here’s your new career, perfectly laid out for you, all you have to do is follow the yellow brick road.”  Little did I know that there really was a “yellow brick road” laid out for me, anxiously awaiting my weary little feet, all I had to do was wake up enough to see it, in other words, change my thinking.

I started reading motivational books, articles, blog posts, anything I could get my hands on.  I consider myself fortunate to stumble upon and purchase, “Wildly Sophisticated,” by Nicole Williams.  On page 9, Ms. Williams talks about how we can spend a lot of time making plans, deciding what motivates us, and determining our values, but eventually we get to a point where it’s time to take action.  That’s where I was.  I had made all the plans, knew what my values and motivators were, but I could not make that leap from “safe life, always having my husband around to rescue me,” to “new career – on my own.”  I needed something to prod me into action.  In the last sentence of the second paragraph of that page, Nicole writes, “One of the most effective ways you can inspire action is to ask yourself, ‘What will my life look like if I don’t try?’”  That’s when I picked up the phone.

Did my husband’s business and my marriage survive such a huge change?  Actually, we’re all doing better now.  The practice is continuing to grow, and our relationship is even better than before because I’m happier.

The change for me came when I realized that I am the only person with direct control over my life.  I make my own choices.  Even when it seems like I have no control, I’ve really decided to let others have control over me and make my decisions for me.  Once I accepted responsibility for my life and started making decisions based on my values, my life changed dramatically. 

I can remember several times over the past 20 years when I’ve longed for a life like I’m living today.  We really do create our own reality; we just have to believe that we can.  For me, it was a matter of finally deciding to take responsibility for my own life, stop waiting for someone else to do things for me, and to take charge of my life in every way.  We waste time wishing and hoping for our circumstances to change; our actions must follow what we say we desire or our desires will not manifest.  It’s like someone on a diet.  Have you ever noticed that there are a lot of people out there who are always on a diet, except for when they’re eating?  If you really want to lose weight, stop eating so much.  (See my post, How I Lost 25 Pounds in One Month if you want a good plan and are serious about losing weight.) It’s also like saying you want a clean, more organized home, yet when you have the time to clean and organize, you choose to do other things.  Your actions must back up what you say you want, or you’ll never get it.

I had to realize that this is my life and that I own it.  I am responsible for it.  My husband and family responsibilities are a part of who I am, not the other way around.  I am married because I choose to be, not because I have to be.  I’ve chosen every part of my life, whether I like it or not.  The decisions I am unhappy with, I can and will change.  It really is that simple.  The difficult part, is waking up.

Now it’s your turn.  Who are you?  What do you want?  What are you waiting for?  What will your life look like if you don’t try?

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Posted under Inspiration, Law of Attraction, Leadership, Motivation, Weight Loss