Throughout my life, I have heard, “ Faith without work is dead”. Although I was able to identify how this quote resonated with my life, it wasn’t until I reflected over the past 3 years that I understood how my faith and work combined ultimately brought me exactly what I was praying for.
At the beginning of 2019, I wrote out my New Year’s resolutions:
Be happier
Put myself first
Stay positive
Influence and inspire others to be positive as well
Release a second LoveLoudd book
Decide if I want to stay in Los Angeles or move to Atlanta or New York.
I wrote this list with the intention of finding peace again. If you read my previous blog, Anxiety: A Silent Beast, you are aware of the battle I fought with anxiety and depression after my grandmother passed away in 2018 and when I lost my job in 2019. These major life turns affected my faith and made me feel as if everything I worked for was moving me in the wrong direction.
“What am I doing wrong?”
It wasn’t until October 2019, when I stepped into my therapist’s office, that I realized I wasn’t doing anything wrong. The hand I was dealt wasn’t bad nor did the decisions I made taint the trajectory of my life. Everything that was meant for me before my depression was still meant for me. I just had to believe it. If I wanted to ensure I accomplished what was on my 2019 New Year's list, I had to put in the work. As a result, I unpacked every negative event I believed ruined my life and learned to find the positives in them. I was able to identify how what I thought was holding me back, ultimately assisted in my growth.
Fast forward to 2020 there was still one thing on my list from 2019 I hadn’t yet accomplished:
Decide if I want to stay in Los Angeles or move to Atlanta or New York.
At this point I had already moved out of Los Angeles and back to my hometown. Throughout the course of my transition, I was asked several times about my plan for my next move. The most I could muster was, "I don't know where I'm moving, but I know that I'm moving." It was true! I had no idea exactly where I would land next, but in my heart leaving my hometown for the third time would be a blessed adventure. What I knew for certain: I wasn't moving anywhere without landing a job first.
August 2020, my best friend and I took a random visit to a psychic at the Jersey Shore. During my session, the psychic told me I would be moving "here". I wasn't sure if she meant the East Coast or specifically Brooklyn, but her statement made my heart race. I still didn't know how I would get “here”. (Listen to Truth Carpet Season 1 Episode 10 for all the tea on my psychic reading).
Two months later in October, I decided to figure out where I truly wanted to be. I spent one week in Atlanta and the next week in Brooklyn to envision myself living there.
Did I feel comfortable?
Did I really want to move here?
The process made me nervous, but I couldn’t deny that I could feel my urge for something new. Still unsure, I started to officially put in the work that needed to be done. I reached out to people I knew, informed them of the type of jobs I was looking for and asked them to let me know if they heard of anything. After about a month of no luck, I began to feel myself giving up, but I also had to remind myself of a few things:
There is still a global pandemic preventing people from finding new jobs
The job I want may have to start remotely
Most importantly, giving up is not an option
I decided to go back to the drawing board and took a free course on how to update my resume and perfect my cover letters. Once it was complete, I passed it along to others well versed in the resume world for feedback. Critiques given, edits made and I felt ready to start applying again. The process of applying felt tedious and I was getting tired, but had I given up I would have never gotten the influx of interviews that began to come my way. Unfortunately, with the many interviews I received didn’t turn into employment and I was starting to believe it was meant for me to stay where I was.
March 2021, after my birthday, my life began to quickly change before my eyes. I applied for 5 more jobs: one in Oakland, one in Atlanta, one in Jersey and the last 2 in New York. I interviewed for 3, hired for one in New York and turned down the third. When I was hired it felt surreal. What I prayed for had finally happened and when I least expected it. The job I thought I would get never called me back! But everything happens for a reason, and has all turned out for good. I dedicated my last month being home to spending as much time with my family as possible because I wasn’t sure when I would be able to come back. I was excited to finally be super close to my best friend and truly watch our business flourish. I had a place to call home before leaving California. I was blessed to have my close friend of almost 10 years be my roommate. Everything was aligning perfectly.
During my final week before starting my journey to my new home on the East Coast, there was a rush of anxiety that came over my body. I was suddenly unsure If I was making the right decision. As I emptied an old drawer, the sign I needed to get my ass on the plane stared back at me: 3 postcards that my Nana saved from her trip to New York in the 80s. I never knew she had ever visited, but I know she was speaking to me through my discovery. The final link to my new journey.
Keep pressing forward.
When you feel as if you can’t keep going, give yourself more credit because you have the strength within you to make it to the finish line.
Don’t allow anyone to tell you what you can and can’t accomplish.
Only you can determine that.
If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough.
Walk by faith, not by sight.
What’s meant for you, will always be for you.
I truly believe that if you don’t put in the work for what you want, you can’t expect it to fall into your lap. Life isn’t meant to be easy, nor is it meant for everyone to have the same story. Your life can change for the better at any moment, but if you always doubt yourself, you will never receive what you desire, you will never get it. Obstacles are always going to try and stop you from getting from where you want to be, but your resilience and consistency will get you through each one. Write down your dreams, put in the work you need to get there, and have faith that it will all work out. It may take 5 months or 5 years, but through it all you have to believe it’s yours.
As I sit, and look out the window of my NYC apartment, I think “Damn, this is what I prayed for.”
