Liz Silvestrini, LMHC, MA, JD

I attribute my success to self-trust and being willing to redefine success. It was really hard to walk away from a well-paying job and stability. I mean, I spent 3 years in law school, and then I spent 5 years working as an attorney, so I had a lot invested in that identity and in that career. But it felt a little bit like I was a little crazy for just walking into something that didn't offer that level of stability and certainty, and building a business, building a practice is really hard. So it's been a constant daily process of reminding myself how good it feels to have the kind of day that I want, being able to take care of myself first, and then being able to work at a pace that feels like it works for my body. I think that staying with the hard, staying with the doubt and the 'what if, you know, what am I doing here?' and continuing to build is how I would answer that. What really helped me was I started to think about my time differently. I started putting an actual value on the intangible quality of my time. For every hour that I spent taking care of my body or doing something outside that helped me feel balanced, I paid myself in blue dollars, which is an alternative to green dollars, like normal financial money. I wasn't getting paid for that time in green dollars, but I was calculating it and counting it as valuable. Once I could actually see how much money I was making in green dollars versus blue dollars, it made rational sense for me to continue to live in this way. I started thinking about all of the future healthcare costs I might avoid, and I started calculating all the expenses that I was not paying for to stay in my pain. Like, I was drinking a ton of coffee every day, and I was spending money on gym memberships I never used. When I looked at the finances and I actually accounted for quality in my life, the math just made sense to me, and that was the advice that I took from this thought experiment that occurred to me, and it's been working for me.

The best advice I can share came from a thought experiment that occurred to me about valuing my time differently. I started putting an actual value on the intangible quality of my time by paying myself in 'blue dollars' for every hour I spent taking care of my body or doing something outside that helped me feel balanced. This was an alternative to green dollars, normal financial money. I wasn't getting paid for that time in green dollars, but I was calculating it and counting it as valuable. Once I could actually see how much money I was making in green dollars versus blue dollars, it made rational sense for me to continue to live in this way. I started thinking about all the future healthcare costs I might avoid and calculating all the expenses I was not paying for to stay in my pain, like drinking tons of coffee every day and spending money on gym memberships I never used. When I looked at the finances and actually accounted for quality in my life, the math just made sense to me, and it's been working for me.

For anyone interested in changing careers or making a life change, I'd say start doing internal work now, because the external shift doesn't change anything if the internal shift doesn't happen. It's not just about changing careers that helps solve the problem, it's actually readjusting your perspective on what's important. Start trusting your body more than you trust what other people are telling you about what you should value. Start trusting your body's signals about what's healthy and what's not, what feels nourishing and what doesn't. For me, it wasn't just about changing careers, it was feeling like I could trust my body more than I trusted what other people were telling me about what I should value.

One of the biggest challenges in my field is that I can become so dedicated to my work that I sometimes lose sight of my own well-being. This makes it important for me to maintain balance and ensure I’m also taking care of myself outside of professional responsibilities.

The most important values to me are self-trust and being able to take care of myself first. It's been a constant daily process of reminding myself how good it feels to have the kind of day that I want, being able to take care of myself first, and then being able to work at a pace that feels like it works for my body. I've had to be willing to redefine success and readjust my perspective on what's important, trusting my body more than trusting what other people tell me about what I should value. I focus on trusting my body's signals about what's healthy and what's not, what feels nourishing and what doesn't. I structure my days to include morning yoga or stretching, walks, paddleboarding, and martial arts practice at the end of the day, which is a really nice way to discharge energy and reset myself after holding space for other people. I value the intangible quality of my time and count the hours I spend taking care of my body or doing something outside that helps me feel balanced as truly valuable, even creating a concept of 'blue dollars' to measure this worth.