Tune into my latest podcast episode, Escape The Rat Race and Live Life On Your Own Terms:

Just four years ago I experienced major corporate burnout, so I traded the rat race for a slow paced life where I run a true-north-aligned business that invigorates me AND gives me the freedom to spend long leisurely days with my son every day of the week.

I am now on a mission to help as many people as I can escape the rat race and align with their own true north, so they can live a deeply fulfilling life of presence, passion, abundance, and freedom… and spend their days as freely as they please.

What on Earth is the rat race?

The way I explain the rat race is that you’re constantly chasing a moving target of happiness. You’re always chasing the next best thing… the next promotion, the next pay raise, the next vacation, the next big break. It’s an endless pursuit of more success, more money, more achievement, more applause, more validation, more praise, MORE, MORE , and even MORE. When you’re in the rat race, you feel like once you reach MORE, you will be happier and more fulfilled.

The “race” part of the rat race is that this realm is extremely competitive and we easily compare ourselves to everyone else around us. Who is achieving more? Who is more successful? Who earns more? Who can climb the corporate ladder the fastest? Etc etc…

It’s an exhausting, repetitive chase that doesn’t leave much space for you to leisurely enjoy your life or spend your days as you please, doing what you truly love and following your passions. You get weekends and limited vacation days, but that’s really it. Then, you’re back to the race.

In the rat race, its really challenging to slow down, reflect on your life, listen to your intuition, and make decisions from your heart. This is because our ego is in the drivers seat in this race. Our egos are important to keep us driven, yet our ego should always be in the passenger seat, not the drivers seat.

However; in the rat race, our egos are often driving the car. Here is an example of how our ego may be driving (this is something I did in the past while in the rat race that I know many others can relate to): You might take a new job and be super excited to post that new job title on Linkedin for applause and outward praise, but you aren’t actually truly excited about the work itself. The ego is chasing an image of success instead of focusing on your actual fulfillment and alignment in your life’s work. Or, the ego takes this job solely for a pay raise — because the ego craves more — even though the work itself is just BLAH and its not work that you’re passionate about … at all. The ego-mind, while trapped in the race, will prioritize external validation and more money over inner joy and true fulfillment.

A question to ask yourself today — in which you should be brutally honest with yourself about the answer because self honesty is a superpower — is… Do you actually enjoy the daily work that your job entails? Does your work light you up? Does it energize you, motivate you, inspire you, and fulfill you? Does your work align with your passions and values? Does your work provide you with the lifestyle you desire? For example, if you value time freedom… does your work provide that for you? Do you wake up stoked to get to work and carpe diem?

If your answer is NO to any of these questions, then you’re out of alignment with your heart and soul. You’re out of alignment with your true north.

In the rat race, it’s hard to live in alignment and it’s hard to be truly present in our life because this race keeps us consumed by the next pursuit, the next shiny object, and the next best thing.

We are always looking ahead and aiming for more, even when the target isn’t in alignment with what we truly desire within the depth of our soul. We’re not tuning into our hearts and letting our hearts true desires lead the way. Instead, we’re consumed by the chase.

This chase can start to feel like groundhogs day where you’re going through the same daily routine, the same commute, the same conversations, the same feelings, and the same mindset. All is just the same, same, same. The rat race and hamster wheel go hand-in-hand.

There is truly no real, deep fulfillment in this endless pursuit or type of lifestyle. The rat race is actually very depleting and draining, and takes up all of our precious, creative energy.

I know this because I spent a decade in the rat race. I began my career in NewsCorp headquarters in New York City, then I went to work at Google, and then Square, and then Google again (I went back for very ego-driven reasons). In this paradigm, I found myself on many endless chases, chasing a moving target of happiness. I also caught myself on several hamster wheels. When I felt depleted or unfulfilled, I would change things up by going to work at a different company or taking on different sales roles within the company. But, for me, I just felt like I couldn’t escape that endless pursuit of more, more, more. It was addicting. It was like I had to get my fix of MORE all the time.

I was also in sales so I was constantly chasing monthly, quarterly, and annually quotas. I always had a number dangling above my head that determined my success, my paycheck amounts, and my on-paper value. I was also competing with everyone around me to be the top sales rep. It was so draining.

When we are stuck in the rat race, there is actually no winning of the race. We might temporarily feel like we’re on top —but it’s fleeting — and then we’re back to the chase. We’re just endlessly running laps and climbing ladders, and for me, chasing quotas. The finish line never appears, so it’s hard for us to see a way out.

We especially can’t see a way out when we believe that the only way to survive on Earth is to work these 9–5, demanding, often soul-suppressing jobs that give us no time freedom in exchange for a paycheck every other week. This in itself is just a limiting belief we hold in our mind, that comes from societal conditioning and matrix programming.

When we hold onto this limiting, disempowering belief, we have tunnel vision. We don’t see any other possibilities. Or, maybe we do, but we don’t take action. We can visualize other pathways, explore other unconventional ways to live, or dream of starting a true-north-aligned online business. However, we don’t take action towards these visions because it all feels so overwhelming, too hard, too unrealistic, or not logical to forge this different path. This is because it’s out of our comfort zone and it can feel scary. Our ego, who is addicted to the comfort of the rat race and the chase, will tell us all the disempowering stories around why this more liberating pathway we envision is not possible for us.

We can easily get sucked into the vortex of the rat race and it takes a lot of mindset shifting, resiliency, passion, and perseverance to get out of this vortex. It takes personal power and courage to declare that we are exiting the rat race to live life on our own terms.

To exit this race and live life on your own terms, you have to take your power back and let your heart lead the way. You must lean into self-confidence and self-love. You must master your beliefs by choosing new beliefs that align with your visions and values — beliefs that empower you (versus disempower you). You must shift your perspective and expand your consciousness to SEE that there is a totally different, more peaceful, more present, deeply fulfilling lifestyle that you can choose to pursue.

You have all the power to create a lifestyle full of joy, abundance, passion and freedom. You have the power to live a lifestyle where you can spend your days as freely as you please, while also being of service to the world through aligning with your true north.

You can escape the rat race. You have the free-will to do so. And this leads to a liberating-AF realm of freedom beyond what you can even fathom while in the race.

Here is what I know to be true…

We’re always just one decision away from a totally different, more liberating reality.

Yet, there can often be that annoying, disempowering voice in our head (the overpowering ego) that tells us that one decision is “too risky, too unrealistic, too illogical, too reckless, etc”. But… our heart keeps pulling us in that direction over an over again for a BIG reason.

We just can’t stop daydreaming about that more liberating reality until we just can’t resist it anymore. We know that “wish” or daydream is meant to come true, so we tell that disempowering voice to f*$k OFF and we answer the higher calling that is calling us.

Following my heart and leaving the rat race realm that no longer resonated with me (and didn’t fulfill me, but instead, majorly depleted me), was one of the most liberating decisions I ever made.

Betting on myself through building my own true-north-aligned business has been the most transformational and rewarding decisions I have ever made … bringing me so much fulfillment, passion, joy and freedom.

AND the icing on the cake is that I get to create my own schedule each day which makes me such a present mama and lights me up the most.

To my ambitious visionaries, aspiring freedompreneurs, and aspiring mamapreneurs who are striving to live life on your own terms, I created a free e-book gift to help you shift from the old paradigm (the rat race) into the new paradigm (alignment + freedom). It’s an e-book that I poured my heart and soul into to help you THRIVE: Your guide to Escape The Rat Race and Live Life On Your Own Terms. You can download this free e-book by clicking right here.

I am so honored to guide you. I want everyone in the world to be free and thrive.

Let’s all rise up to freedom together.

xox,

Laura