I was listening to the DIS Unplugged 10th anniversary podcast this week and really enjoyed it. There was something that Pete said that I wrote down while I was driving. He said to “follow your heart”. Do we always follow our heart? I think many times we want to; but then we let our brain or our emotions get in our way and that leads us away from a path that our heart was leading us to.

This past year I followed my heart a few times. One was with a job change. I had been wanting to leave the job I was in; despite it being a relatively new job for me, and I needed to leave that job because my heart was telling me to. But it wasn’t easy to get into the place that I am at now, Slalom Consulting. I had to wait a long time to get this dream job. I call it my dream job because that is exactly what it is. However, I wouldn’t have found this job if it weren’t for my good friend Heidi leaving our previous place and going to Slalom. The day I found out she was leaving and where she was going I checked out their website and applied online. There wasn’t a position open at the time there but I kept in touch with the company and eventually they reached out to me to begin the interview process. One year later I am in my dream job. I followed my heart, had patience (I’m not a patient person), and I knew the paths would align for me to be where I needed to be when the time was right.

I also followed my heart in regards to my health this summer. In June I decided that I no longer wanted to feel the way I felt about myself. I was tired of feeling unhappy with my body and was getting a little burnt out with just running as my primary form of exercise. So I asked around on Facebook with some of my friends about this Beach Body thing that everyone was talking about and the 21 day fix and my friend Dale reached out to me and told me she was a coach. I knew this was the program for me to shake up my routine and clean up my food intake.

So far it has been very successful. I have lost 10 pounds and several inches and I can see some muscle forming that I hadn’t seen in about 15+ years! I am also feeling stronger in my legs which helps me with my running. I followed my heart when it said it was time to take charge and not make up any more excuses or just have one drink at night, or that cinnamon bread for breakfast was ok. It wasn’t and I knew it wasn’t. Now my diet is so clean and I am no longer having issues with my hearing condition called meniere’s disease. It was getting so bad that about every other week I was having problems with my ears feeling full and losing my hearing. I knew right away it was time to reduce the salt and alcohol that was going into my body.

So here I am three months later, two months into my new job and three months into my new health routine and I am very happy. I’m very happy I followed my heart and I will continue to use it as my barometer and compass on new paths that life takes me on.