As you’ve learned through this blog, it took me a long, long time to follow God’s lead and quit my full time job. By quitting I gave up awesome medical, dental, vision and mental health insurance, my pension that I would have been able to draw in 3 1/2 years and a guaranteed bi-weekly paycheck. Needless to say, I didn’t just run and take that leap of faith without some planning. Here are the top 5 things that I did to prepare:
Prayer: I prayed the same prayer over and over for years. Through those prayers I believe that God slowly changed MY attitude and beliefs until I was finally convinced that this was His will and that I could do it. In my opinion, prayer doesn’t have to be perfectly scripted or said in a certain order or way. Prayer for me is just like having a conversation with God, a continual conversation regardless of where I am or what I am doing – driving, cutting the grass, cleaning the house, whatever.
Listen: Of equal importance to prayer is creating a quiet or still time so that you can hear what He has to say. For the greater part of my life, whenever I was in the car, the radio would be blasting the entire time. I had to have it on from the minute I got in the car, until the minute I got out. Not anymore. At least 50% of the time I’m driving, I drive without the radio on. It’s amazing what that quiet time will do for you. Listen to your intuition. Listen to your gut. Listen to your thoughts. Listen to what others say to you. So many times God speaks to us through others. Mostly I listened to the peace within me about the decision to leave.
Save: I saved enough money to pay an entire year’s worth of both my car and house payments. Those are the most important things and those are the things that would affect my credit if they weren’t paid. I realize the importance of impeccable credit and so I do my best to keep my financial affairs in order.
Got my finances in order: I met with a financial adviser several times. It’s funny, she immediately said I should never leave my job. Five minutes into sharing my story with her of how God had been speaking to me, even she changed her tune. I refinanced my house with a lower interest rate, looked at all of my expenses and “cut the fat” as they say (turned off house phone, changed cable providers in order to drastically cut prices, etc). I made sure all of my debt was paid off other than my car and house.
Be proactive: Not only did I have anything and everything to do with my house and car checked over to be sure nothing was wrong with them, I did the same with me. I refilled as many prescriptions as many times as I could under my great insurance benefits before I left. I had a sleep study done. Had any dental work done that I needed. Went to each of my specialists and my regular doctor to make sure everything was going well with me physically.
By taking care of all of these details so carefully, I think I warded off a lot of problems and was well prepared for whatever or wherever this leap of faith would take me. So far, so good!