My Career Story Part 2
This is a 4-part series on my story of going into teaching to leaving teaching for a new, non-traditional job. Read Part 1 here.
After college, Cody and I got married and moved into our first place in St Paul. I took a job as a teacher’s aide in a Pre-K classroom, and really fell in love with teaching early elementary kiddos! The next year, a position opened up and I was able to move over into a role teaching music, library, and computer to all 3 levels of preschool. It was an ideal job for me, and I was PUMPED!
I loved jumping back into teaching music and having to really work to do a good job. It was so rewarding!! I pulled out resources from my college years, planned like crazy, and really poured my heart and soul into everything we did in the classroom.
The good
There is SO much I loved about teaching. The kids, my coworkers, having my own classroom, creating content that helped every child learn to love music and learn to love books, flexible summer schedules and a long Christmas break. . . in a way, it was everything I had ever wanted out of a career.
The Bad
There were things that were super hard though. I’m an introvert, and so as much as I loved my students and my coworkers, a full day of teaching was incredibly draining. I didn’t have the energy to do anything beyond finish my lesson plans and crash on the couch. From August to May, I had basically no social life. It was fine for a while, but after four years, it gets a little lonely.
Every school year I would reach a little breaking point where I would look for another job. Not many people know this, but I even actually applied for another job my second year of teaching.
And the other (ha, you thought I was going to say ugly, didn’t you?)
Another aspect of teaching that was hard for me is that it only used one area of my skill set. All the other areas that were missing in my life needed some kind of outlet. It couldn’t happen in my (missing) social life, but it needed an outlet. This is where LuLaRoe came in. It gave me some interaction with grownups, and outlet for my social media skills, and an opportunity for friendship and leadership. I was able to interact with people on an introvert’s schedule – I could take time to unwind and recharge when I needed to, but still had a great way to connect with others. It was SO MUCH FUN. It also allowed us to have extra income to get out of debt faster, and a way that we could serve others.
I really started to think that a combination of teaching and LuLaRoe was going to fix all the problems. Both were a good fit for me and for our family, but it didn’t truly fix the issues.
LuLaRoe brought so many amazing people into my life (shoutout to my amazing community!). I will NEVER regret those new relationships and experiences that I got! I actually met one of my now-dear friends mostly through LuLaRoe. But that’s where the story starts to take yet another major turn…
Check out part 3!