The Priya Parker Project: The Back Story

It's been a month since I quit my job. A job that I had passionately loved.  A job with incredible coworkers. I was good at my job and it made me good money that I got to travel around the world with and pay off $60k in car and school loans. A job that gave me a lot of flexibility to work from home in Portland. 

But something was missing. Be it some growing pains, office politics, or the fact that I was not in the office regularly - which makes you the last person to know about anything, somehow the need for me to have fun at my job began to allude me. I can pinpoint exactly that time I started to lose that fun feeling. August 7th, 2013. Three weeks after getting struck by lightening on a rooftop deck in Seattle, and a week after recovering from emergency surgery. I remember myself getting admitted for an inpatient hospital stay, and the first thing I told my husband was, "Call my bosses and tell them I will be missing work." I was in so much pain and yet all I could think about was all of the work piling up the following week. When I finally opened up my laptop, after a week of recovery, I wondered why I even stressed out so much? What am I doing to myself? How did I let all this stress almost kill me? Is this really how I want to live? Shit still went on without me. My coworkers picked up my workload. My accounts got handled. Life went on and continues to goes on.

By January 2014, I started feeling like a person going through the motions. My husband and I were trying to have a baby, and that stress along with work stunted any joy I had inside of me. I started going to therapy to talk about it, and he made me realize that I didn't take long deep breathes when I spoke about my job and that I need to start changing the way I thought about things. And he was right. Little did I know that it would take me the entire 2014 to really start changing my thoughts and my attitude towards what I want from life. Along the way I met with a career coach, Aubrie, who helped me understand why I needed to feel like I am having fun and and encouraged me to explore more with what brings me true joy. When I was in Medellin Colombia in the fall, I met Jade, who was from Seattle (small world right?),  and she taught me about about the power of affirmations and living life as though you already have everything you need because the universe will provide. Even then, I still felt like I was standing on the diving board looking down at the water knowing that I needed to jump. That I have to jump. That there were no other options. But I didn't really know when to do it or if I was ready to dive into the water.

After coming back to Colombia, some things at the job unfolded, and somehow I am now blessed with this time off. I had been working 11 years straight with no real break, and now I can actually sleep in and relax without any deadlines and upset accounts calling or emailing all hours of the day. I'm not going to lie. Going from 45-55+hr day/night work weeks to zero responsibilities is shocking. Although I am using this time to learn new things, I still feel bored at times. There were no schedules or deadlines to meet. Five years at the same job going 100mph nonstop to nothing requires a lot of detox.

Early January I went on a vision quest with my best friend. She, herself, had recently made huge life decisions and moved to LA to give her daughter a real shot at becoming a child actress. So it was her brave energy that I needed to be next to after taking the plunge into unemployment. I recall being in Joshua Tree National Park and the rocks whispering things to me I was not ready to hear but needed to listen to. The next day we did a cleansing ceremony, and more messages came to me. Again, I was not ready to accept it. When I got home, I spoke to my friends and family and they all said the same thing.

"Who cares, Esther? Just do it!" 

And I wanted to do it. But the fear. The fear was holding me back. Correction: IS holding me back.

After a box wine and karaoke night, a friend sent me Priya Parker's Youtube on quitting and rebooting your life. Call it divine intervention, but it is exactly what I need to do right at this moment in order for me to take the messages I have been receiving and put it into good use.

There are 7 steps to rebooting I will be documenting on my blog  for the next few weeks.

STEP 1 (Mental & Emotional level)- Take the obituary test and make sure you pass: Write down your Obituary on paper. Answering basic questions like; how do you I want to live my life? etc.

STEP 2 (Mental & Emotional level) – Passion comic strip: What passion do you have? Interview 5-10 close people ask them When they have seen you happy? Draw on paper cartoon series about your passion and thing you wish to do or did till now.

STEP 3 (Physical & Emotional)- Get comfortable with this concept: Build your muscles for discomfort i.e. get habituated with awkward and humiliating situations in life! Just for the experiment she has suggested following 3 crazy ways -

(a)      Start singing in public places when in queue or standing. Notice your emotions inside  the body (heart),and feelings while doing this.

(b)      Go outside for dinner alone (habit of staying alone), without reading  material, mobile or anything to entertain

(c)      Stand-up facing back towards door in a lift (different from others)

STEP 4 (Mental & Emotion)- Life Sentence: Give yourself a life sentence, like many organization and companies generally have their mission and vision statements. Ask questions like, What do I value? What is purpose of my life?,etc see below:

A. What are the qualities and values that I bring with me (regardless of family or at work)?

B. What is that I actually Do?

C. Why I do all this? It is most difficult but important task. It helps in analysing your life and help you to make future decision-making about life

STEP 5 (Finance)-  Dwindling-Cash Experiment:  To check how much money is enough money for you to live a normal life. In this experiments you first note down how much money you spend on yourself per month (not how much you earn) . Take that amount from bank and put it in an envelope. Then divide it into 4 parts (40%, 30%, 20% and 10% of total).  Then expose yourself to 4 different money parts one in each week. Start with 40% money for first week, then 30% in next week, etc. Note down what you did in each week and how did you manage e.g.  live with this much money for one week each to know how much money is sufficient for you/your habits/constraints/spending pattern, mind-set, etc. Find out what amount you are comfortable with and live on. Build a financial model and see how much you need to “reboot” your life.

STEP 6 (Mental) – Help Somebody else: Identify 5 different friends/person who are doing different and interesting jobs. Ask them whether you can spend 1 hour with them to solve any of their difficult problem in their business. It will build habit , how can I help others and  realize which problems you can/can’t solve ( your strength weakness analysis).

STEP 7 (Mental & Emotional) – Social accountability & PR:  Invite your 7 ‘close’ friends and tell them about your plan of quitting current job and rebooting life. Note their Suggestions and reactions. This will help you to know about your Social accountability and PR groups practice.

If anyone wants to go on this journey with me you are more than welcome! I was going to start right off with the obit, but realized I wanted to document the back story for my own reading in order to see the progress being made. That's the project manager in me doing it.  LOL! For anyone going through a similar journey, I wish you all the best this universe has to offer.

Check out the video in the link below.

PRIYA PARKER: Quit Your Life & Reboot