How a teenage passion became a profession
I grew up in Nefteyugansk. Since my youth, I passionately wanted to become a journalist and after school I purposefully entered the journalism department in Tyumen, and then transferred to Yekaterinburg.
I have always enjoyed writing, communicating with people, and exploring the world. And I was good at it. It seemed to me that journalism was my profession.
I wanted to work in big, interesting publications. I remember my first internship was in my hometown and I was filming a story about the opening of a kindergarten. I was filming and even then I realized that this was something very local and small.
My recent internships took place in news programs, on Vesti and other channels. And then I realized that I was not interested in working in this field. I don’t want to write material on my knee in the car while driving to the studio, because as soon as I arrive, this material should immediately go on air. It was like I was riding a burning bike down the mountain. And by the fifth year I was finally convinced that politics, economics, news were not about me.
I became interested in fashion and cultural journalism, although our Soviet-trained teachers considered it a fake job and some kind of trifle. But even then it was difficult to lead me astray. I chose what I was most passionate about, and began to strive towards this area. It seemed to me that my childhood dream was coming true.
How I went to my dream job
After graduating from university, I moved to Moscow, to my future husband. It was a difficult period for me to find a job. I went to endless interviews and tried to get a job somewhere.
I ran around for interviews every day, but it turned out that finding a job in Moscow in the media is not so easy. It was very difficult for me to accept refusals, because at school and at the journalism department everyone praised me, but suddenly they didn’t want to take me.
One day I saw a vacancy for an editorial assistant at InStyle magazine. I decided that the path to the goal can be started with something small, I responded to this position, and they took me.
Frankly, the first two years at the magazine and in this position I felt very bad. I did administrative work in the office: I received parcels at the editorial office, handed in travel sheets for employees, wrote congratulatory letters to partners, bought tickets to Paris for the editor-in-chief or ordered her a car so that she could go to shows in Milan – I did everything but write. .
I didn’t really want to be an assistant. I wanted to be an editor. My irritation grew every day. But I had a clear thought in my head: since I’m already here, inside the editorial office, with these people, it means I have prospects and I have to be patient. At the same time, I was constantly in a dejected, depressed state.
Now, remembering this, I understand that you shouldn’t have gone to a job that you initially didn’t like.
But then the plan seemed brilliant to me: be patient and grow to your goal.
I have always tried to position myself as a competent, talented person with a higher education who is capable of something more than just ordering water to the office. And every six months I told the editor-in-chief that I really wanted to write. In general, I still believe that if you want something, it is important to declare it. And one day I was assigned one of the pages about the preparation of the issue at the beginning of the magazine. It seemed to me that I was entrusted with something very important, I did it for several hours and checked every word in a tiny text box.
And after this streak, I became bolder and told the director of the beauty department that I was ready to be on hand for free – any translations, any texts. As a result, before I could blink an eye, I was already writing half of the beauty section, still officially an editorial assistant. My feelings from work became better, there was even a certain euphoria.
So, almost two years later, I became the editor of the beauty department and worked in this position for 4.5 years.
How I decided to make a change
During the first two years I had a salary of 38 thousand rubles. When I became an editor, I began to receive 58 thousand. The financial issue really bothered me. Of course, my husband supported me and this helped me a lot, but I always had to balance my spending. I have always strived for financial independence and often worried about money, whether I would have enough for a trip or a large purchase, and not just for the essentials.
But after six and a half years in the editorial office, low salary was not the only reason to think about changing activities.
In fashion journalism, everything happens in cycles: you write about autumn care, about New Year’s makeup, about cellulite, about Sanskrin – and so on in a circle from year to year, trying not to repeat yourself. I compared it to a carousel: the first round you’re having fun, on the second you get seasick, and on the third you already want to get off. And after another such circle, I realized that I really wanted to get off.
I was in a terrible existential crisis. I was dissatisfied with my salary and the way my work was structured.
Outwardly, everything was very beautiful: travel, flights to Europe, interviews with fashion divas, photographs with Natalia Vodianova, presentations.
I really wanted this!
But the reverse side was not at all presentable: you are running around like a squirrel in a wheel without the opportunity to rest and without an ultimate goal, doing the same thing.
I went to a psychotherapist to figure out why I felt so bad and wanted to cry all the time. We worked for a year, and after this time I realized that something decisively needed to be changed.
The magazine always had a salary cap; it was very difficult for me to go to the office every day and wake up in wild anxiety at 9 am from messages from colleagues. All this drained me day by day, and I stopped seeing both joy and prospects.
And here I have to pause and say that I have been interested in psychology since my youth. I read Jung, Freud, I liked to understand it on an amateur level. Even when I entered university, the psychology department was my backup option. So now, when I was at a dead end, I decided to turn to my hobby and try myself in it.
How I sat down at my desk again and became a student
The first step was to at least start doing something in parallel, at least move in the direction of change. I didn’t yet seriously think that I would change jobs completely, but I decided that I could at least go learn something new while combining it with work.
I found a one-year educational program at the Higher School of Economics and entered the full-time department. This is a master’s program based on higher education. She gave a basic understanding of different theories of personality, the history of psychology, we got acquainted with different schools and studied counseling techniques. After this program, it was possible to choose a master’s degree and delve into a specific method of psychotherapy.
My studies partially coincided with the pandemic, in this sense I was lucky because it was easier to combine work and study. Besides, during the pandemic we were sitting at home and there was nowhere to spend money – so I spent it on training.
From that moment until today, studying has been my priority.
Therefore, I managed my money extremely wisely in order to be able to study and be independent.
After HSE, I entered Moscow State University for two years of retraining and at the same time entered the Gestalt Institute. In the second year of study, I received the right to start an internship as part of writing my diploma and accept my first clients.
I saved up part of the funds for my studies myself, and partly my husband supported me. In this regard, I was lucky. Many of my classmates took out educational loans to be able to study for a new profession.
I am currently studying for a master’s degree in psychoanalysis at HSE. When I entered there, I won the Olympiad, so I had the opportunity to go to one of the programs completely free of charge. But I decided that the method taught in this program was not entirely interesting to me, and I chose another one – for money. By that time, I already had an internship, and now I can pay for this training myself.
In total, I have so far spent 4 years on new higher education and advanced training.
When I started all this, I was 29 years old – a young age, but by the standards of our society, close to a certain milestone. It is generally accepted that at 30 you should already have decided on a career and established yourself in it. And it turns out that I was disappointed in my childhood dream and was preparing to start something all over again and spend several years of my adult life learning it.
How I overcame fear and began to achieve success
I was wildly scared. I was already studying, but until the very end I clung to my job at the magazine. No matter how mentally difficult it was for me, stability attracted me. Although it was an uncomfortable chair, it was familiar.
After a year of studying at Moscow State University, when I received the right to accept my first clients as a specialist, I slowly began my practice. The cost of my first therapeutic sessions was 2,500 rubles.
There were very few clients, I didn’t fully understand how to develop. When I announced on a social network that I was opening registration for the session, four people signed up to join me. A few months later there were six or seven of them.
With the money I earned, I rented an office in a co-working space for psychologists. It was located next to the editorial office, so a couple of times a week I received clients and ran back to the office.
Therapy was still a part-time job. On the one hand, I really liked that I could leave and not depend on anyone, that I would not have bosses. On the other hand, I was overcome by a huge fear that I wouldn’t find clients, or that the clients I already had would run away. Therefore, I continued to combine psychology with work in the magazine.
And it also seemed to me that in therapy I would never earn the same 58 thousand that I received in the office.
In the first month of my work as a therapist, I earned 17 thousand rubles.
Then the income grew to about 40 thousand.
And yet, I began to transfer my page on social networks from a blog about cosmetics and travel to a blog about psychology and began to slowly gain popularity in a new capacity.
The last straw in the magazine was the personnel changes: after so many years of work, I was not promoted, although an ideal vacancy for this became available, but I must admit honestly, I myself understood that the promotion would not lead to anything and I needed to make that most important decision. Trying to sit on two chairs became increasingly difficult: my affairs in the editorial office were not going well, and due to my busy schedule, I could not fully devote myself to development in psychology.
And I couldn’t stand it: it was time to cut this umbilical cord. I went on vacation, landed and the first thing I did was write a letter of resignation. It was 2021.
By that time, I had been combining journalistic and psychological activities for two years. But when I quit, I still felt some kind of loss and even despair. No matter how tired I was of working in a publication, no matter how uncomfortable it was for me, it was an understandable discomfort in which I knew how to live. One day, in a moment of weakness, I wanted to return to the previous bad, but familiar space, and in agony for some reason I began to look for journalistic vacancies again. Thank God, I didn’t find anything suitable and continued to do therapy.
How I developed my business
To reach your goal, you need to make some effort every day. Overcoming fear and uncertainty is half the battle. I had a rough plan in my head for promoting in my niche and working on recognition, and I began to stick to it. I wrote articles as a guest expert in the media, announced myself, asked my friends to tell me about me, and promoted social networks.
It was important for me not just to receive support and education in due time, but to direct them in the right direction: start a practice, develop a client base, and become successful.
This is a lot of work on yourself as a specialist. The new profession simply captivated me. And I tried very hard and clearly defined my priorities.
Gradually this bore fruit, I began to have more clients and more visiting days. Starting in the winter of 2022, I began to increase my check. My session began to cost 4 thousand.
After another advanced training, even more people signed up to join me, and then I earned my first 100 thousand. Then everything went faster. You learn quickly, gain experience, become a more valuable specialist – and your earnings grow.
Since the summer of 2023, in addition to clients, I have been leading an educational and therapeutic group for psychologists, which has become quite in demand, and in October my intervision group opens. Now my earnings are 300 thousand a month. I have enough clients, a rich practice, and there is even a small queue for me.
Now it seems to me that I succeeded, the changes were beneficial. But they were difficult, and I did not go to them very quickly, like many of us.
These difficulties can be terribly frightening, so we are afraid to change something and leave our favorite place, even if it’s bad there. But I think it is very important to be patient and believe in yourself.
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