How to Tell If It's Time for a Change

Episode 74: How to Tell If It's Time for a Change

In this episode, Holly Hibbard - Social Media Consultant & emotional intelligence nerd - shares with you...

• indicators you may notice in your life guiding you towards necessary changes in life
• the role emotional intelligence plays in your personal growth and achieving these new goals
• the latest changes and pathways she’s choosing to take in her professional and personal lives

If you like what you've read so far, I’d love it if you’d SUBSCRIBE to the show, and TURN ON your notifications so you don’t miss a future episode.

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A GIFT FOR YOU //

• 30 Done-For-You Social Media Content Ideas - your go-to resource for ending your posting struggles and instead creating consistent, authentic content that connects with your audience and attracts clients fast!
• Download it instantly - CLICK HERE 

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WORK WITH HOLLY IN JANUARY, 2025 //

• Ready to elevate your impact? Hire Holly as your relationship strategist and coach! Book a quick call with me here: https://tidycal.com/thehollyhibbard/quick

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Transcript

Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to The Holly Hibbard Show.
I am your host, Holly Hibbard.
And today I'm going to be sharing with you in this episode when you can tell that your feelings are about to dictate a better direction for your life.
When should you listen to those nudges, those inclinations, that gut feeling, your intuition?
What does it sound like?
What does it feel like when you are being told to do something different in your life?
As I'm filming this today and recording this episode, we're at the very, very beginning of 2025.
However, regardless of when you listen to this episode, I want you to know that by hearing what I have to say today, at any point in your life where you feel like you are in a rut or about to change direction, I'm really hoping that these tools and this insight that I lend can be of help to you in that moment.
This episode is inspired by my journey throughout 2024 in being in and out of my coaching business.
As some of you know, or you may not know, I launched a coaching practice back in 2014, primarily focusing on supporting singles and couples with their romantic relationships in terms of their communication, helping single, particularly women, get out into the dating world and do that thing without hating it quite as much as, let's say, that they were.
And it was a very successful coaching practice and it also, took leaps and bounds into other areas of expertise as well.
Not only was I working with people on communication and emotional intelligence and how to work with their partner as a partnership and how to navigate the world of dating for those people that that applied to.
But concurrently, I was also outside of my private practice leading, workshops on personal development and leadership, how to really be the leader of your own life.
And so I had these two major themes happening in my life, leadership and relationships, leadership and relationships.
And I was living out all of those skills and principles at the same time because I was single for a number of years.
So I was navigating my own life probably a step ahead of where my clients were.
And then when I was in the leadership workshop and teaching people goal setting and making sure that they have a metric for their life and pushing their limit just a little bit so that they can create really extraordinary things in their life that they did not, at that moment, think were possible.
I was doing the same thing.
I was pushing myself.
I was growing myself.
And before all of that even started, it was a nudge.
It was something intuitive.
It was a calling in me that told me it was time to go.
And here's what I meant by this.
Up until 2014, I had a classroom teaching career.
I taught secondary science, middle school, and high school for about a decade, and I had a really big impact with my students.
I feel comfortable saying that because they told me that and I loved it.
I love teaching.
I am by nature a teacher and I adored it.
And what happened is toward the end of year 9, year 10, also at that same point is when my dad passed away, I had a moment of asking myself the question of, is this it?
Is this all there is?
So today, for the sake of this episode, as I'm giving you different bits and pieces of what your intuition, what your gut feeling, what those thoughts, what those emotions might feel like or sound like that's telling you to go in a certain direction.
If you have thought that question, is this it?
Or is this all there is?
If you have had to life rather, if you've had that thought anywhere, then it may be the beginning or the middle of a turn in your life toward something new.
I'm not saying necessarily that your entire life is going to overhaul itself at once, But that was the question that would keep me up at night or whenever I have a really exhausting day teaching at the school and then driving home.
That thought was in my mind.
Is this it?
And remember, I really loved my career as a teacher.
I felt skilled with it.
I enjoyed it.
It was challenging, which I personally thrive in.
And I still had that question because to me, the thought was I'm 75% happy, let's say, with my career.
And could there be something that I could still be utilizing that 75% happiness and joy and putting it into a new field, a new industry that I could add to it and maybe get to 85 or 90% joy, throughout the duration of my career.
And I took the leap out of the school system and went into coaching, but they all started with that thought.
Is this it?
Is this all there is to life?
Is this all that's going to be in my career?
I also know that when it came to my first marriage many, many years ago, I had the same question that popped into my mind when that was about to change and dissolve because it wasn't fulfilling and it didn't work for my life and where I wanted to go with my life.
There's so much more depth with that.
I, obviously, I am married again now.
My marriage means everything to me and I come from a divorce family, so I do not take divorce and separation lightly at all.
At all.
At all.
And even still, that question, is this all there is?
That just could not quit.
It was in my mind all the time.
So that is the first start that's the beginning of where it started.
So then the next thing that pops up along the way is I found myself in my career with my coaching practice and in leading these workshops.
And I had so much joy and so much fulfillment, and I was making the difference that I wanted to make.
And I was incredibly passionate about the topics I was supporting people with.
And then I went through a significant life change.
So I said in today's episode, I'm going to give you some guidance as to what your mindset might be thinking about that gut feeling that intuition might feel like.
But another clue that your life might be turning in a different direction in one area or even more is if you have a significant life altering, event.
So as I mentioned before, when I left my teaching career, not only was I thinking that thought of is this all there is, but my dad had passed away at the same time.
Well, fast forward many years to 2022 and end of 2021 rather.
And at the end of 2021, my coaching practice was doing really well.
I was single for a very long time.
I was coaching mostly single clients.
I was supporting people also through their marriages and couples, and I loved it.
And I wrote a course and I just adore it.
I adored it.
I still love all those people that I worked with.
I'd work with them all again.
It was a blast.
And I ended up meeting my now husband at the end of that year.
It was a major life event.
When once the relationship became serious, it was a major life event for me because it was asking of me to shift from the mindset of a single woman who'd been that way for many years to being a family woman, to being a partner, to potentially becoming a mother to this man's child.
And that is essentially what ended up happening, but that massive life event got my wheels turning again because I wanted to ensure that the choices I was making at that moment in my life were now going to line up with my new reality, which, spoiler alert, as we know, I became a Hibbard and got married in the, in the, fall of 2023.
I have an 11 year old daughter now.
I have my husband, a little family.
It's everything.
It's great.
And it was also a massive life change that started getting those feelings again of, does this work for me?
Do I have the time to put into my business like I used to?
Do I have the focus?
Do I have the energy?
So a life event can also be that more so obvious sign to you that, hey, it might be time for something totally new or slightly new in some area of your life.
And yes, I'm giving you examples with coaching and my business, for example, but I want you to know that the same types of questions, feelings, life events can impact key relationships.
It can impact where you're supposed to live.
I'll use that one as an example too.
It was in 2018 that I lived in Florida for almost 14 years at that point, I think.
And I had traveled out of state for a trip and I flew back to Florida.
And when I landed back in South Florida and the plane hit the ground, I had a thought.
The thought crossed my mind that I don't feel like this is home anymore.
I just don't feel like I came home.
And that was a nudge.
It was a nudge and I started listening to it.
And then about a year later, I made the decision I was going to move out of Florida.
And once I made the decision I was going to leave, I started seeking signs or new people I was meeting that I felt were somehow guiding me toward where I was supposed to be.
And ultimately it brought me back to my home state, to Michigan, to where I grew up.
And that ultimately brought me to what I really wanted for many years, which is family, my husband, my child.
And as I've talked about on so many episodes too, speaking of life altering events, when my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the start of 2023, that was a massive life event that had me cross check everything before.
Now what was different about that event is unlike the inkling with my career or, quote, just having a, you know, then boyfriend with his daughter and shifting out of singleness into partnership, what was very significant about my mom's diagnoses was it was more emotionally draining than any other event that I had been through to that point.
I think even having been through a divorce, having been through bankruptcy, having been through cross country relocations times 2, I, for whatever reason, was so emotionally drained by my mom's diagnosis, treatment, hospital visits, doctor visits, phone calls, appointment making, driving her everywhere where she needed to go.
It was and then of course fear, because I knew I was going to lose my mom at some point and that emotional shift.
So when I started having that feeling of, I don't know if I can take this.
I don't know if I can survive this.
Meaning my emotions were just squashed.
I felt numb.
I felt checked out.
And I knew, again, my life was taking another change and that it was eventually when my mom did pass, about 9 months ago, it did force me into another season of my life where I had to evaluate in that circumstance, how much can I give to other people?
Because my capacity to give to other people not only changed when I went from single to married with a child, but then it changed again when my mom passed away, but also all the time she was sick.
I could I could barely handle my responsibilities, let alone take care of my husband, my child, us relocating and planning our wedding at the same time, and making sure that my mom had what she needed, and make sure that I could function, that I could take care of myself.
It was a lot.
So, so far in this episode, I've highlighted for you some really massive events and signs and signals that it's time to go in a new direction, like feeling completely depleted emotionally or feeling like you have no more to give in that area of your life.
But I've also given you more subtle hints.
That feeling when I landed in Florida, this just doesn't feel like home anymore.
Maybe you're in a job space or career and it just doesn't feel like you.
It doesn't feel like your personality or your interest.
It also could sound like that question in your mind of, is this it?
Or is this all there is to life?
And it's not that all these signs or signals or whatever, these tools, whatever you want to call what I'm sharing with you, it's not like these are all a green flag to completely erase everything that you're doing and take a 180, but it is a sign to consider what do you want most in your life right now.
And I'm not only talking about the tangible items where you say, I wanna live in this type of home and I want my family to be like this and I want my my health to be like that.
I'm not only speaking to tangible things that you go out and get or things that you make happen, but what I'm talking about is as every individual, myself included, you included, as we all age, we evolve and we shift and we change and what we want, not just externally, but our principles inside might also adapt as well.
And it may not be that your principles are totally being erased and swapped out for others, but it could be that your priorities are being reorganized.
And when your priorities in your life are being reorganized by either those thoughts in your mind, those feelings, or those massive life events, the priorities shift and therefore it may require that you begin to shift some things in your life so that your priorities can align with the way that you live your day to day life.
So with that, here's my conclusion for today.
Some of you know that in the last quarter of 2024, maybe, yeah, about that much, I was making content about making content.
I decided I wanted to tell people, teach people, show people how to get their message out there, how to make sure that their social media content matches their brand, can support them with their business, can support them with clients, can support them with consultant consultancy.
And while I still love that topic, something happened at the end of the year where I was asked to be on a podcast.
And then I was, and then I was introduced to a couple other people whose shows I may be on at some point.
And in one of those conversations, it was clear to me that what I wanted to talk about most are the 2 things that I have been focused on since 2014, relationships and leadership.
Relationships and leadership.
And if I had to say that there were 4 areas or categories that I love to work in, it's in relationships and emotional intelligence, those 2 together, particularly relationships of the professional kind or the scholastic kind or the maybe family, but not necessarily romantic.
Professional situations, sticky situations.
I really enjoy supporting people in learning the emotional intelligence tools that they need to get through those moments that need more empathy, better communication, clarity, knowledge of agreements and how to handle broken agreements or handle consequences.
I enjoy relationships.
I enjoy talking about emotional intelligence.
When it comes to leadership, that's my way of saying personal development.
I would not be where I am today if I had not taken a personal development course back in 2014, that 2013 in this case, that got the whole ball rolling for me.
That was one of the most pivotal moments of my life because it gave me time and space to think about what I was just sharing with you.
I got to sit and think for myself, what are the answers to that question?
What if this is all there is?
Is this really all there is?
And I had the opportunity with the help of coaches and teammates and colleagues to answer those questions and get clear on what it was I wanted.
And then I got to work at making my life match that.
I stopped allowing others to tell me how my life had to be or was going to go or should only look like this if you value financial security or whatever it was.
But I started making those decisions for myself.
And no matter how hard I try, I still love talking about relationship dynamics.
I love talking about leadership and personal development.
I love talking about emotional intelligence.
And yes, I'm an entrepreneur, so I really also enjoy supporting new entrepreneurs or people who want to learn how to be more clear with their brand, whether it be online or elsewhere.
But all those things come down to developing oneself.
If a person wants to improve their life in some capacity, particularly because that question of is this all there is, is plaguing them, then the likelihood is that I, as a transformational coach, are probably a fit for them.
So what does that mean for my podcast, my content?
Right now, it means those are the things I like to talk about and what I recognized from those conversations I had about a month ago is if those are the topics I really love to talk about and naturally in an unplanned conversation, that is what lit me up, then it was time for me to recognize that and stop worrying about everyone thinking, Oh, Holly, you flip and you flop and you go over here and now you're trying this and now you're trying this.
But what I'm really doing is following exactly what I just laid out for you in this episode.
I'm following a knowing and a feeling of what do I really enjoy?
Not only what am I skilled at, but what lights me up and how much, what do I know for certain I can support people with?
And that is where the show is going to take a turn to for a while.
It's really not that drastically different, to be honest.
I had a lot of episodes on content creation, but I also have even far more episodes of my podcast about relationships, about leadership.
And those are all ways of humans connecting with other humans.
And that I feel is such a big part of my mission in being alive, is helping people accomplish what they say they want and helping them to have those light bulb moments where they discover that they absolutely have what it takes to make that life happen.
And if they don't, that they are more than enough and resourceful enough to go figure it out.
So I appreciate you listening to this episode.
If you have any comments or questions for me, put them in the comments or a minimum, just say hi in the comments.
I would always appreciate that.
And, that's all I have for this episode.
So until next time, I love you.
I mean it.
And until next time, I will talk to you next time.