I may be on a journey to financial independence, but for the longest time, when I was still on the hamster wheel, it was just a feeling of “I’ll get there when I get there”. I liked working, and I didn’t have any plans to stop. How the times have changed!
If you haven’t read my story yet, the short version is that I went straight from college to a PhD in Neuroscience and hoped to land my “dream job” as a professor in a location I didn’t hate. When I landed the dream job, as an Assistant Professor at a university in Vermont (dream location), making the most money in my career, I thought I had it all.
Spoiler alert – the dream job didn’t end up being the dream job.
I didn’t consciously realize it at the time, but because I was spending ALL my time working or thinking about work, I was miserable, anxious, and burned out.
What I did know was that I needed a change.
Realizing that there’s more to life than working all the time
I ended up taking a $20,000 pay cut to work as an editor for a remote company. While the pay cut hurt the ego, my salary started to feel much better when I realized I could still completely support myself financially AND save, and once I was out of training, I could get my work done in about 35-38 hours a week.
All of a sudden, for what felt like the first time in my life, I had all this TIME.
Over the course of about 3 years while working as an editor, with all this extra time and space in my brain and my body, I discovered that I had so many passions and things that excited me outside of work that I had never even had the time to think about before.
This is when I started to consciously realize that I had spent my whole life on the hamster wheel, never slowing down.
I was starting to realize this was not what I wanted.
Now, financial independence became much more of a goal.
Time to increase my income
The editor job was great while it lasted. I wasn’t making a ton of money for the background I had, but the work I did was relatively easy. Editing didn’t take a lot of brain power compared to what I was used to. And I was only working 35-38 hours a week. Sometimes as low as 32 hours if I was REALLY efficient.
But that all changed when I started working on a new product – developmental editing. Now, instead of reading papers to catch language and grammar issues, I was critically evaluating scientific papers and giving authors specific feedback on how they could improve the structure of their paper.
I really liked the new work I was doing. It made me feel like I was actually using my degree. But it took a WHOLE LOT more brain power. And I was working a bit more, back up to 40 hours, because I genuinely cared about the customers and delivering them a high-quality product. Not only was I now working 40 hours, but I was using more brain power, so I found myself much more tired at the end of the day.
All this, with no increase in income. My salary was starting to not feel so good anymore.
Couple that with the fact that to get to financial independence faster, and since I was already living pretty frugally, I knew I needed to increase my income.
After a while of going back and forth in my head, I decided it was time to move on and try to increase my income. I knew that I was likely going to have to work much harder than I had been working for the past 3 years, but I was ready. It was worth it to me to increase my income and potentially speed up my timeline to hit my financial independence goals.
Finding a good fit
At my next job, I upped my income from $50K per year to $80K. I was thrilled. But I quickly realized that the role was much different than the job description, not to mention that my team was completely toxic. My colleagues worked around the clock, messaging each other at all hours, and people would message me from their vacations. About work. The only reason I lasted as long as I did is because I had a pretty great manager.
Side note: I highly advocate for speaking up to your manager if you’re not happy before you consider leaving a job. What do you have to lose? They may be able to work with you to make the job more sustainable. Worst case, they say no. After working up the courage, I talked to my manager after about 3 months about whether we could re-work my role or whether I could move into another role. To my surprise, she was completely supportive. Although it didn’t end up working out in the long run, we had a good working relationship and I left on good terms, with the welcome for me to freelance for them any time (win!).
After 7 months (no, you don’t need to stay in a job you hate for a year before moving on), I transitioned to the company I work for today. I went from $80K at my last job to $95K and got a more senior job title.
Much to my surprise, this company is completely different (one of my fears was that all medical communications agencies would be the same). They (so far) seem to actually care about their employees, they protect our time, I get to do the exact work I was looking to do, I’m working remotely, and the list goes on…(oh, and no one messages me from their vacation or at midnight)!
Prioritizing lifestyle design led me to consider part-time work
All the time I was actively working to increase my income, I was also making changes to my daily routine. After realizing there was more to life than just working, but knowing I still had financial goals to meet before I could ever stop working, I decided to see if I could make changes to my day-to-day to bring more joy into my daily life, instead of living for the weekends and for vacations.
Now, the days that I am working I actually also enjoy. I carve out time for myself every morning to do things that bring me happiness outside of work.
The reality, though, is that it never feels like enough. I still find myself wanting more time.
Having the time to explore who I am outside of work has shown me that there’s SO MUCH MORE to my life then my work.
But the golden handcuffs are real…
My part-time work “a-ha” moment
There is a tool I found that has really helped me when it comes to thinking about what work looks like in my life (note: I’m not at all getting paid to say this; this recommendation is completely my own).
I somehow (who am I kidding, probably through a podcast) stumbled across the Sparketype Assessment. There is also the accompanying book Sparked by Johnathan Fields, which I have not read yet. I have since also started listening to the Sparked podcast.
When you go to take the assessment, the first thing you read is:
You are about to discover your Sparketype™, the essential nature of work that fills you with meaning and lets you feel fully-expressed, alive with purpose and absorbed in flow (“sparked”). Your Sparketype serves as one of the single biggest clues in your quest to figure out what to do with what the poet, Mary Oliver, called your “one wild and precious life.”
Um, yes please! That was enough to get me interested.
I took the test, and when I read the results, I had goosebumps all over (I know, I know – these tests are designed to do just that. But hear me out).
I learned that my Primary Sparketype is the Nurturer, and one of the first things I read about it is that people with this Sparketype often find a powerful outlet in non-professional pursuits.
That stopped me in my tracks because I had basically just recently been discovering this about myself. I was finding that with all my newfound time, I had such a desire to get involved in things outside of my work. The results of this assessment finally gave me the words to actually start talking about these feelings.
Then, I read that my Shadow Sparketype is the Maven, which is fully aligned with my current work as a medical writer, as the role basically requires never-ending learning, which is paramount for the Maven Sparketype.
The next sentence I read was my a-ha moment. I read that we do the work of our Shadow Sparketype in service of being able to do the work of our Primary Sparketype at the highest level.
My mind was officially blown. This was the link I had been searching for between my feelings of not really wanting to stop working completely because I do love what I do, and also wanting to have time to spend on other things that I enjoy. This is when I knew I eventually had to downshift my work life to live my ideal life.
Hilarious side note: I also found out that my Anti Sparketype is the Scientist, which made me laugh because I am, in fact, a scientist. But it also made perfect sense because I had ALWAYS known I didn’t want a life as a bench scientist (as in, I didn’t want to be the one actually DOING the science).
The results of this assessment were the seeds that started my current life and work goals. This was also right around the same time that I started to discover Slow FI and other categories of FI, like my current goal of Flamingo FI. You can read all about those financial goals in my last post.
The outcome of all this learning and contemplation was that I realized what makes the most sense for me to live my ideal life: to move to part-time work when I’m in the right financial place (for me, when I hit Flamingo FI) so that I have more time to pursue things other than work.
Where I am today
So where am I currently? To recap, I have spent the past 2 years or so 1) trying to find a company where I can see myself staying for the long-term and 2) trying to increase my income so that I can more quickly reach my financial goals.
For now, I feel I have achieved #1 – I am now working at a great company doing work I enjoy in a fairly low stress environment. In terms of #2, my current plan is to work there for a year, ask for a raise, and then after another year or whenever I hit Flamingo FI, go down to part time.
If, for whatever reason, me shifting to part-time work at my current company does not end up being an option, my plan is to go back to freelancing. For a little while after the professor job and before I took that pay-cut editor role, I had been freelance writing and editing, and I did love the lifestyle. I ultimately took the pay-cut editor role because I craved the stability that a W2 job gives you. I don’t feel that way as much now, and I would happily go back to freelancing as an option if part-time employment with my current employer didn’t work out.
I’m excited to see how this plan evolves, as I’m sure it will change (what plans don’t?). For example, I could easily make it work now going down to part time with the salary I have currently. I could even still save for financial independence, I just wouldn’t get there as fast. On the other hand, nothing’s really wrong at work, except for the fact that working 40 hours is dragging me down, and all I do is daydream about what I could be doing if I wasn’t working.
Only time will tell how this all unfolds! That’s the beauty of life.
I’d love to hear what you think! And I’d love to hear more about your situation. Are you happy with your current work life? If not, are you actively brainstorming ways you can make it better for you?