I originally came to Driven Woman in the hope of making friends, which despite having been in Zürich for two years, was more difficult than I’d imagined. At the time of the initial Introduction evening I was somewhat unhappy with my work situation, but also lacking motivation or confidence to do anything concrete about it. I would describe myself as being passively content.

The situation wasn’t even that convenient for me as my commute to work is 90 minutes each way, to a job that didn’t excite me any more at all. However I wasn’t sure that the upheaval of trying to change things would be a success or that I had the energy for it.

Through unusual circumstances I had just begun talking to a new company about a potential new position. The company was in Estonia and the job would be created for me, meaning I’d have no predecessor and would need to define a lot of my goals and processes to deliver what the company was asking of me.

Part of me wanted the challenge and part of me was worried about the risks.

But finding the confidence to make a change is difficult!

I was wondering if the risk of rocking the status quo was too big and would I even be able to make a success of it?  The interviews were moving in a positive direction and yet still something was holding me back from leaping at the opportunity and taking the risk.

During the Introduction evening at DrivenWoman I felt really inspired by the variety of women and their stories, and the challenges they were facing and the fact they were prepared to talk openly. My experience that evening was so positive that I didn’t really think twice about signing up despite having described myself beforehand as “not being the type at all to get involved in feminist women’s groups”.

When I began talking about my dilemma during the first official meeting – my indecisiveness and spending too much time weighing up options and worrying about what may or may not happen – I felt as though everyone in the room was immediately rooting for me and on my side. Everyone was so positive.

I said things like, if this doesn’t work out I’ll have more than two one year stints on my CV indicating I’ve made the wrong decisions. And, what if I’m not self disciplined enough to work from home? The company is in Estonia!

But regardless of what concern I voiced, the women in the group encouraged me to take a chance and made me feel that none of those things were hurdles, but rather the whole thing was an exciting adventure. They immediately had a bunch of reasons why none of my concerns were founded. What’s the worst that could happen?

And then Miisa suggested, that when she needs to make a decision like this, she doesn’t ask herself that question at all. She told me to turn it around.

Think about both scenarios and create the best possible outcome of each one.

That finally helped me to guide my decision.

The weirdest thing was, as soon as she’d said it, I made the connection in my head and created the best possible outcome for staying in my job and for changing jobs within about 5 seconds.

The clarity I felt was immediate.

It was literally like a eureka moment for me. Since then I’ve resigned at my current place of work, I am working my notice and have arranged everything with the new employer and will start on 1st of August. I’m still spinning from how quickly it’s all gone and how brave and empowered I feel about making this leap of faith. I’m convinced I wouldn’t have done it without my driven women group.

I’m still getting so much support and encouragement, tips about working from home and even about Estonia! I feel like I’ve found the confidence to make a change and got the best support network I could ever wish. It’s fantastic!

~ Nicola- Nicola Rosenthal is a DrivenWoman Zurich Member.