I Followed My Dreams This Year and Proved My Doubts Wrong!

I followed my dreams this year. The kind of dreams I always said “one day” to. The kind of dreams others called unrealistic. The kind of dreams that made me glow with hope and passion. The kind of dreams that made me squirm with discomfort and fear.

I followed my DREAMS, you guys!!!

And I want to share with you how I’m doing now. :)

Here’s me standing in my new home: Salt Lake City, Utah!

Mental Health Blog Disclaimer

I am not a medical professional, therapist, or mental healthcare professional. The information provided on this website is for informational purposes only, comes from my own personal experiences, and may be read, interpreted, and practiced at your own risk. Do not rely on this information as a substitute to medical advice or treatment from a healthcare professional.

Should I Follow My Dreams or Be Realistic?

Oh my goodness, did I have to unlearn this question. Unless your dream is turning into a mermaid and living at the bottom of the ocean for the rest of your life, your dream is probably not unrealistic. 

But you know, I have to point something out. If you want more than anything in the world to be a mermaid, you can actually make that happen if you get creative. You can swim in the ocean. You can make a DIY mermaid tail. You can even travel to deep parts of the ocean if you have access to a submarine.

My point?

Dreams can be actualized if you work around the obstacles that will inevitably be thrown into your path. Dreams can be conquered if you’re willing to get creative and think outside the box. Dreams can be real if you’re capable of letting go of the perfect “dream image” and you’re willing to get a little messy on the “dream journey” instead.

Dreams are beautiful, shiny murals painted in our minds. They’re called dreams because they often stay that way - imaginary, floating, and intangible. Why do they often stay that way?

Because people are scared as hell to follow their dreams! 

People come up with every excuse imaginable not to follow their dreams because they believe that dreams are unrealistic. When I asked myself over a year ago, “should I follow my dreams or be realistic?” I was just like every other person who was too scared to take action and too brainwashed by the world to just believe as children do.

Before I could do anything, I had to unlearn what I was taught.

Dreams can be more than fantasies. Dreams are realistic.

It is realistic to both enjoy your career and make enough money to live happily and healthily. It is realistic to live where you want to live. It is realistic to swim in the ocean with a mermaid tail because, I mean, Pinterest has step-by-step instructions on how to make them!

I was not completely comfortable when I took each step to follow my dreams this year, but I took them anyway. Baby step by baby step. Leap by leap. I had quite a bit to lose when I took the risks required.

But I didn’t lose. I GAINED.

So, here’s my story. Here’s how life is treating me at the end of the miraculous year called 2021.

I quit my engineering job!

I took a giant leap in March of this year when I quit my engineering job to chase my dream of being a writer and traveler. I gave up a comfy-as-hell $80k salary from a stable-as-hell job to start from absolute scratch as a freelance writer.

I’m not that special, to be honest. I’m a statistic. 

I’m one of many who quit their jobs this year to pursue something that makes them happier. In just the month of September 2021, a record 4.4 million Americans quit their jobs. Maybe we’re all finally realizing how important happiness is.

Happiness. That is something I did not feel from my engineering career. Sure, I received stability and security, and those two concepts are extremely important to me. It was really hard to give those up, not knowing if the career path I was chasing could give me those two vital things. You see, I was taught by a working generation; a generation with a hell of a lot of discipline, it seems.

Work to provide a stable income for yourself and your family. 

Work isn’t supposed to be fun; that’s why it’s called work. 

Work a 9-5, and then enjoy the weekends.

I’m so sorry, working generation, but fuck that! I spent two and a half years crying in my claustrophobic cubicle because I hated what I was doing each day. It doesn’t matter that I spent 4 years and tens of thousands of dollars on a mechanical engineering degree. That degree was not working for me.

So, I waited until I paid off my student loans and saved up a comfortable amount of cash. Then I did it. I quit my 9-5! I plunged right out of the technical engineering world to tumble freely into this beautiful thing called CREATIVITY. 

But before I really dug into the writer’s life, I ran away...

I traveled around the U.S. and experienced vanlife!

By “ran away,” I mean I chased my newfound freedom across the country like I’d never seen planet Earth before. Everything was beautiful and green and natural, and I wanted to explore it all.

With no more limits on my vacation time, I went wild. I was an adventurous monkey who found a way out of her cage!

In 2021, I traveled to 15 different states, some of them multiple times. I solo traveled up the California coast in a campervan and that trip is the most magical thing I’ve ever done. I visited friends I hadn’t seen in years and spent a lot of time exploring the western U.S. with my adventurous sister, Courtney.

The amount of gratitude I feel for my travels is the size of this planet. My heart is just overflowing with it. To all of the beautiful times I’ve had while adventuring this year: I love you. You have helped sculpt me into a more confident, grateful, peaceful, passionate, and fulfilled human.

I chased my dream career of being a writer!

Working on freelance writing client work in front of a beautiful Wyoming view in the coziest lodge.

After I quit my engineering job, I began molding my career into what I wanted it to be. I had learned a whole heck of a lot about writing over the past couple of years from blogging and writing the first draft of my first novel, but I still had so much more to learn. (Still do!) So, I researched everything. How to be a freelance writer? How to market myself? How to pitch myself? How to better build my brand?

As I began this new career, I hoped to gain as many writing skills as possible. I wanted to flex my writing muscles every single day as I freelanced for companies, blogged about my feeeeeelings, edited my fiction novel, dabbled in poetry, and more, more, more.

Landing clients started very slowly for me. Seriously, I only made $80 the first month!

But I celebrated that $80 harder than I had ever celebrated the $80k I made as an engineer.

Funny how gratitude vs. taking things for granted works sometimes. But it wasn’t long after that $80 month when I made my first $1,000. And then the next month, I made even more. And the growth of my business has continued in that fashion so far! I’m finding this beautiful balance between supporting my mental and physical health, earning an income, loving others, and enjoying my freaking life!

But there’s something important that everyone should know. Nothing is perfect.

Even though I am working my dream job, there are still pieces of this career that I’m not a huge fan of. Hard work and discipline are required to be an entrepreneur, that’s for sure. I still have to push through things that I don’t feel like doing, and I still struggle plenty! That’s life. But I can genuinely say that I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. :)

I moved out West!

HOLY CRAP I LIVE OUT WEST!!! A dream come true.

Fun fact about me: Traveling used to trigger panic attacks. For a long time, fear of change and uncertainty held me frozen in place. But I’ve learned that exposure therapy really, really helps with overcoming fears! 

Expose yourself to what you’re afraid of. Over time, your brain will learn that you’re not actually in danger. The fear is only inside your head.

Okay, story time.

Back in 2019, my boyfriend, Nino, and I had entirely different plans than we do today. We both agreed that we would move away from the boring Midwest and out to the exciting West one day. We’re talking - California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana - that kind of west.

“But that’s like four or five years down the road,” Nino said mid-2019, “and for now, I’m going to work my stable engineering job in St. Louis and invest in the real estate market I know well.”

“And I’ll also keep working my stable engineering job in St. Louis while I write my first novel on the side.” I said in response.

Nino and I had similar dreams in 2019. We wanted to get out of the corporate world one day. He wanted to do so as an investor, building a real estate business to earn passive income. I wanted to do so by being an artsy-fartsy creative writer. 

In 2019, traveling made me feel panicky, but I loved it at the same time. I took two big trips that year to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and to Denver and Dillon, Colorado. (I was also supposed to go to Costa Rica, but I canceled that trip out of fear.) I look back so fondly on those two wonderful trips. But I remember many crystal clear moments of panic. I also remember many crystal clear moments of sitting at work daydreaming of traveling out West. Yeah, traveling and I had a complicated relationship.

In early 2020, I broke the fear barrier. I took my first solo trip to Kansas City. I was very anxious driving to Kansas City alone, but this trip brought me space, a new perspective, and a realization that solo trips will help answer all of your problems. I came back home with a grand announcement.

“Nino, I hate my job. I hate where I live. I’m going to search for a new job. And I want to move out West sooner than we agreed.”

He was a supportive, wonderful boyfriend. He commended my job search idea, and together, we moved up our Move Out West Date to the end of 2022 or early 2023.

I planned more trips in 2020, and my love for escapism grew. Later in the year, I traveled to New Mexico, Colorado, Michigan, California, and Oregon. The more I traveled, the less panic I felt. Exposure therapy to change and uncertainty was working. 

Panic was replaced with passion. At some point, I fell head over heels in love with traveling. Especially out West. 

I was so in love that when I hopped back in the car or plane to go back home, I cried. You should have seen me on the way back home from California in 2020. I sniffled on my flight from LA to Phoenix. I cried during my layover and on the flight from Phoenix to St. Louis. I sobbed on my drive home from the airport. And I totally lost it when I stepped into our house.

Nino held me while I wept - all ugly, wet, red, puffy, and sad. For whatever reason, my heart belonged out West. I swear, I left pieces of it behind every time I went back home. Fragments of my heart were floating in the Pacific Ocean and balancing on the mountain peaks of the Rockies. Nino and I agreed to move our Move Out West Date to the end of 2021.

In the spring of 2021, after I had quit my engineering job and started traveling often, I created an absolutely ridiculous Excel spreadsheet.

It listed rows and rows of cities across the western United States. There were columns for the average rent, median home prices, median distressed home prices, tax rates, weather statistics, demographics, population growth, outdoor recreation, engineering job opportunities, and more. I made sure to track everything that would be important for a real estate investor to know because I wanted Nino to be able to carry out his dream wherever we moved.

I created a number system and used the rank function in Excel to rank each city based on our needs and interests. Two cities pulled away from the rest.

Boise, Idaho and Salt Lake City, Utah

In June of 2021, Nino and I went on a super exciting trip to decide which city we wanted to move to! After exploring Boise and Salt Lake City, the answer kind of slapped us in the face. The winner that blew us away was

Salt Lake City, baby!

Here are some highlights from our Salt Lake City trip!

Nino is probably the most logical, level-headed, reliable, and balanced person I know. But he’s an excitable, risk-taking dreamer, too! After we chose our city, I watched something new and golden glow in his eyes, which reflected the same excitement I felt when I traveled or wrote stories. Seriously, he spoke about snowboarding and mountain biking with the same eagerness kids express as they wait for Santa on Christmas Eve! 

Nino started his job search the week we got back from our western travels. He came home from work every day to spend tedious nights applying for jobs. That man has done SO MUCH to support our dreams. He even supported me when I started the conversation about moving away without him if he wasn’t ready yet. I wanted to move to the mountains so badly that I considered a temporary long-distance relationship. Thankfully, I didn’t have to leave him behind.

It all happened at once. Nino accepted a new job as an Engineering Project Manager in Salt Lake City, put his two weeks in at his old job, and put our side of the duplex he owns up for rent. Together, we moved the heck out to Salt Lake City, Utah! Nino drove a Uhaul that pulled my car on a trailer. I drove his truck. 24 hours of total driving time. One overnight stop in Denver. Multiple coffees. Lots of singing in the car. Oh, and one scratch on his truck because I’m oblivious. Oops.

We’ve been living in Salt Lake City for two and a half weeks, and wonderful things are happening already! I’m inspired by my environment, which very positively impacts my work. We live right next to the mountains. We made awesome new friends. We’re surrounded by our favorite outdoor adventures - skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, hiking, road cycling, and camping. And we get to make all of these new memories together!

The other night we reminisced, “Remember when we kept saying it felt like this day would never come?”

Well, it came. :)

Follow Your Dreams and Appreciate the Journey

The dreams in our heads are beautiful murals, and the dreams in real life are more raw and rustic. I’m living my dream and I still have anxiety. I’m living my dream and I still experience hardships. I’m living my dream and I still want more!

Enjoy the journey, people. The destination always turns out to be a stopping point on your journey, but you’ll continue on like Bilbo Baggins. Expect hardships no matter what. Do everything you can every single day to enjoy what you have right now, in this moment.