Hello, friends! I’m so sorry I’ve been away for so long. I have missed writing, and hearing from you, so much. But I’m here today to fill you in on what I’ve been up to in the month of April and to (hopefully) get back to posting a bit more regularly.
It’s been awhile since I published an installment of my Experiment Stories series on the blog, where I chronicle my “experiences with experiments” (say that 5 times fast) on my slow FI (financial independence) journey! And even though this experiment I’m writing about today is still in progress, I thought it would be a great way to share with you, my readers, what I’ve been up to the past month, as well as give an example of some of the ways you can experiment with your ideal life, even when still working full-time.
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know I am a huge fan of experimentation on the journey to FI.
Many of us on the path to FI know that we don’t want to work for the rest of our lives (or even until traditional retirement age), but fewer of us know exactly how we would spend our time if we weren’t working for income all the time.
Although I have a pretty good idea of the basic structure I’d want my days to look like if I wasn’t working (which I figured out by experimenting, mind you), the actual things I want to do to fill up those days are less certain.
I keep a list of ideas for what I would consider doing, called my Financial Freedom List (FFL for short), but these are just that: ideas. Things I think I’ll want to do. Things that are calling to me, that I think I will like doing, but that I want to explore further.
For some of the things on this list, it’s difficult to experiment while still working a full-time job. But for other things, I can actually start doing some small experiments while I’m still working a 9-5.
The latest experiment has been on my FFL for a LONG time. Let’s dive in!
My latest experiment: palliative support volunteer training
When I first saw a post in our local community forum for a training to become a palliative support volunteer, something sparked inside me.
It’s one of those feelings that’s hard to describe but that I now know well. I’ve called it a creativity whisper on the blog in the past. Basically, I believe it’s my body trying to tell me something important about my life!
We spend so much time, live most of our lives, up in our heads. Our brain is REALLY good at making thoughts, and most of the time, we listen to those thoughts. But if we train our minds to tune in a bit less to those thoughts, like with meditation for example, we can start to listen more to our bodies. Many times (at least in my case), our bodies are telling us very different things about ourselves, about our lives, than our minds!
This felt like one of those moments. Something happened in my body that my mind wasn’t quite in tune with. My body was sending me a message, drawing me towards this volunteer training. My mind took awhile to catch up.
In fact, my mind went a bit wild to this response by my body. What? Really? You’ve never considered this before… Why now? Will you even like being a hospice volunteer? How will people react when you tell them you sit with people who are dying? These were just some of the thoughts that immediately started swirling.
But that’s the beauty of an experiment. You can take a chance on something you’re unsure about. You can let your body have a say, no matter what your mind is saying. You can give something a try with (usually) very little risk. There’s no downside here. In the case of the palliative support training, what did I have to lose, especially when my body was pushing me so strongly toward this? If the training wasn’t what I expected, or if I decided afterward that this wasn’t for me, I didn’t have to sign on to be a volunteer!
But if I didn’t at least try, I would never know.
The “right time”
Last year, when I first saw the volunteer announcement, it didn’t feel like the right time. I was just about to switch jobs. I wanted to give the training my all, which I didn’t feel like I could do at that point. After learning that the training was only offered once a year, I reluctantly decided to put it off. I could try again next year.
Ever since I made that decision, the training has been (sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly) nagging at me. My body hasn’t stopped sending me messages related to this training. That spark that ignited in me when I first read that post in our community forum didn’t go away. In fact, it only intensified.
On a podcast I listen to frequently, there was randomly a death doula who was being interviewed, and I was even more intrigued. I didn’t even know what a death doula was, but the more I heard her talk, the stronger that spark burned in me. Because of that podcast, I did a little research, and I found out that there is a course I can take at my local university to become certified as a death doula. That seemed like a big step, but it gave me reassurance that the volunteer training would be the perfect experiment to do first.
So this year, I knew it was time. I couldn’t quiet the creativity whispers any longer. I had to take advantage; I couldn’t wait another year. I didn’t want to wait a minute longer than I had to in order to take this next step on my slow FI journey.
A wrench in the plan (spoiler alert, there’s never a “right time”)
Of course, nothing ever goes perfectly to plan, does it? As the New Year started, I was sailing in my job. It was the least stress I had ever had for the most money I had ever made. It was the perfect time to add something else to my plate, to experiment with my ideal lifestyle.
But as the start of the volunteer training got closer, I learned I’d be switching to a new team at work. Once the switch was official, and after I’d been working on my new team for a few weeks, I realized how different my work life was going to be. I had flashbacks of my first job with a completely toxic culture. I saw my teammates working on their paid days off. Communication was lackluster at best. No one was really all that friendly. Our clients were completely demanding, and our client services department was not willing to push back on ridiculous demands and timelines. I realized I’d have to create a completely new set of boundaries at work, get used to working with new people.
A second wrench in my plan came when I learned that the volunteer training would be accelerated this year, due to the schedules of the trainers. What was typically a 10-week training, with 1 session per week and ~2 hours of outside study, would be packed into a 4-week training, with 2 sessions per week.
I started to panic. For a minute, I lost that longing feeling in my body, and my mind took over. You can’t do this. You won’t make it work. It’s too much. Try again next year.
But luckily, I’ve been on this slow FI journey long enough. I’ve made great strides when it comes to my anxiety. I knew that my thoughts were just that: thoughts. I knew what I had to do.
I decided to do the hospice volunteer training anyway, even though I knew it would be tough to juggle with work. It was simply too important to me to put off any longer, and I was willing to deal with the consequences. After all, that’s the beauty of financial freedom and my personal financial situation, having reached Flamingo FI (half my FI number). I’m not dependent on my job. I have a healthy emergency fund. Luckily, my skills are highly sought after – I don’t need this job, with this company. I could take a chance on something important to me outside of work, risking my work productivity, because I don’t need my job to survive financially. It was worth it to me to take the chance of underperforming at work in service of my wider, lifelong dreams.
April was an incredibly busy month (hence my silence on the blog). But I did it! I completed the training, and I’m now officially welcome to start volunteering when I’m ready (and I’m SO ready). I don’t know exactly what this will look like, or where this will lead (I’m actually off to complete my exit interview as soon as this post goes live). But I’m excited to get started anyway. And I will keep listening to my inner voice as I go.
*Oh, and PS: as is typically the case with me, I worry WAY more than I need to. I was able to keep up my productivity at work, and no one noticed that I started work early so I could sign off an hour early to hop on Zoom for my volunteer training. Based on my personal work situation, I decided to use the “forget asking for permission, ask for forgiveness later” tactic, and it ended up paying off.
What have you been up to this April? What progress have you made on your financial independence/life journey? I’d love to hear from you!
What an honorary volunteer gig. I hope the personal calling is all that and more for you. And a ‘death doula’, I never knew such a position existed. But it makes me very happy to hear that there are people, like yourself, who are being a guiding light at such a time.
Thank you! It is not something I ever would have seen for myself, even 5 years ago, but I can’t ignore where the inner voice leads! I’ll definitely keep the community posted. I’m incredibly excited to see where this goes. And yes, I was shocked and also incredibly heartened to find out how many folks, even in just my small community, give back in this way. Gives me great hope for this world we live in <3 Thanks for your comment!