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A post shared by Waylon Lewis & Friends (@walkthetalkshow) on Apr 25, 2019 at 3:05am PDT

I’d shifted from one of the top paid females in Canada who enjoyed their job, to working for minimal compensation.

Depressed, broke, and in a dead-end position that I did not enjoy, I started to analyze my options.

I had never contemplated that I would be part of the majority of Canadian populace who do not like their job. But in an effort to seek the security of full-time employment, I had.

I became more depressed as I realized my present position was not where I wanted to be. It was time to analyze the situation and find out what I could do to change my life.

I did not want to be depressed and spiraling into the rut of completing the same, boring routine—all the while wondering which bills should take priority.

The hard part is defining the problem. Solutions are easy once you realize you are on the wrong path!

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” ~ C.S. Lewis

Who have I become at age 50?

Strangely enough, as one becomes bogged down in the mechanics of existence, it is easy to forget who you really are and who you want to be. For me, this happens to be a risk-taker, fun seeker, and hard worker, capable of running with an idea right to the end.

Following my instinct and taking risks was exactly how I had spent years enjoying my life and earning a high income. It was the fear of poverty that led me to choose a job I would later hate. Fear can be so debilitating, preventing one from enjoying life and finding the opportunities that may be out there.

I spent months completing personality tests, reading books that encourage people to do what they love, and asking every friend: “What do you think I am good at?” Motivational books say that asking friends is a bad idea, but at the time, it seemed like a reasonable request. Those books were right, though—it turns out friends really don’t like to say what you are good or bad at.

I had taken on a job based on fear and a programmed need for security so I could pay my bills. But it was this fear of poverty and a false sense of security that lead me straight into the abyss.

What went wrong is that I focused so much on a single variable—security—and I forgot about the core of my personality. Changing a stagnant situation is tremendously difficult when most of our time is spent oscillating in the pain and the bondage of the perceived problem.

Clearly, action was essential to remove myself from the job I disliked, and after much deliberation, I resigned.

I was able to secure a couple of short-term contracts in my field and I enrolled in a writing academy. In the adrenaline of the moment, I also applied for a freelance writing opportunity, writing a couple of articles a month for a technical safety site, with no expectation to ever receive a response. I had decided to not let fear incapacitate me, so what the heck, why not try? The crazy thing is that they accepted my application.

Fear prevents movement and therefore success. When our inner voice keeps telling us not to try something different, that our fabulous plans won’t work, or that we are too old to learn something new, instead, think about what will happen if we don’t try something new, something that intrigues our soul and makes us feel alive and vibrant.

Michelangelo was still designing churches at the age of 88.

Conductor Leopold Stokowski signed a six-year recording contract when he was 94.

It’s never too late to start a new journey or to accomplish our dreams. Jump in and follow your heart.