A LinkedIn message on my yoga path
Two years after leaving corporate to teach yoga full-time, I found myself scrolling through my own LinkedIn profile and questioning the path I had felt so deeply aligned with.
Rahel Zuber (2023)
When I went back to LinkedIn and scrolled through my own timeline, I did so from an observer perspective. And from a corporate lense, my path looked exactly as expected: fluent in several languages, roles at big companies, relevant certifications and promotions every couple of years… And then, there suddenly one reads: yoga teacher 👀
Then, believe me or not, a message from someone I hadn’t spoken to in fifteen years landed in my inbox. It asked a simple but powerful question: From Associate Director at IBM to yoga teacher… that must have been a scary leap. How come?
My first reaction? “Wait… that’s nosy!” 🫨
My second? “People must think I made a huge mistake.” 😰
And underneath it all, a deeper doubt I didn’t know I had in me: had I jeopardized all the hard work my younger self had put in to build up a corporate professional career?
Courage isn’t a leap
Reading that message made me pause. I checked in with my self through journaling. Reflecting on this message, it reminded me that courage doesn’t arrive fully formed. It isn’t a sudden, heroic leap.
Transitioning from a corporate career to teaching yoga full-time wasn’t flipping a switch. The fear was real though… fear of leaving stability, fear of failure, fear of not being “enough.” Yes, some days I doubted my choice entirely.
Small steps, quiet confidence
But over time I realized something important: courage doesn’t mean not feeling fear. Courage is showing up anyway, even when uncertainty is loud. Every small decision, sending an email, teaching a class, offering a workshop, built confidence quietly, step by step. Each choice was a brick in the foundation of trust I was building in myself. Stepping into a new version of yourself isn’t a one-time act. It’s a practice, like yoga. Some days feel graceful; some days feel awkward or uncertain. But each step matters.
Old habits die hard
Even now, I occasionally slip back into old habits from my consulting days; measuring my worth by output, observing people’s paths on LinkedIn and thinking “oh nice, they got promoted, what is my next step (aka comparing my path to people who aren’t on the same journey anyways)!
Even when doubt shows up, each choice you make toward growth compounds. It’s not the leap itself that makes you courageous, but the small acts of showing up, learning, reflecting and trusting yourself along the way.
Want to see the full journey?
On my Substack, I share the behind-the-scenes of this transition and what I answered to that high-school acquaintance of mine, but also; how I named my fears, imagined plausible scenarios, treated my own leap like a project, and built trust step by step. These are the actionable strategies that turned fear into confidence and hesitation into practice.
