Why I Quit My Teaching Job to Pursue Content Creation Full Time

Why I Quit My Teaching Job to Pursue Content Creation Full Time Suppose you’re new here, welcome! For those who don’t know- my name is Jamie, and I am 27 years old (where my Geminis at)!  I left my dream job of teaching to pursue my blog, Everything Delish full-time almost five years ago! One of the

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Why I Quit My Teaching Job to Pursue Content Creation Full Time

Baked Apples

Suppose you’re new here, welcome! For those who don’t know- my name is Jamie, and I am 27 years old (where my Geminis at)!  I left my dream job of teaching to pursue my blog, Everything Delish full-time almost five years ago! One of the most frequently asked questions that I receive is, “why did you leave your teaching career?” and “how do I become a full-time blogger?” Today, I am answering all of your questions, so keep reading to hear more about my journey!

Becoming a Teacher

For as long as I can remember, I always dreamt of being a teacher. Maybe it was my internal instinct of always wanting to help others or my love to be around people, but teaching is something that I always pictured myself doing as my career. When I was 14, I decided that I wanted to pursue teaching and did everything to help build my resume in helping me do so.

I spent my summers at camp teaching swimming; I tutored throughout the school year and did co-op teaching placements during high school. Eventually, this led me to move to Montreal, attend McGill University at 18 and complete my education degree. 

Food has always been something that I have been very passionate about. Although, It wasn’t until I moved away for University in Montreal that my love affair with food significantly heightened. During my university days, I cooked meals for myself, dined out, and became immersed in a very diverse and incredible food scene.

Starting Everything Delish

When I traveled with my family- I never had an interest in any excursions, all I cared about was where we would be eating. Also, I am most definitely one of those people who look at every menu before going out to eat/making reservations (I still do this now)!

Many friends and family members would constantly ask me, “where should I go eat?” Rather than write our detailed emails, texts, or BBMS (remember Blackberry phones)- I decided to start an Instagram account called Everything Delish, as a place to showcase my love for food & dining experiences. 

I started Everything Delish before moving back home from Montreal to Toronto when I was completing my Masters in Education and substitute teaching on the side. When I began Everything Delish, it was just for fun and was more of a hobby than anything. My content consisted of food photos & videos from all over, documenting past travel experiences and restaurants in Toronto. At this time, I had no idea that Everything Delish would lead me to where I am today. 

Going Viral

Baked Feta Pasta

My food photos and videos quickly started to gain momentum, and I was rapidly growing in followers. As my audience started to grow, I started getting invited to ‘Influencer’ events. Since IG Stories weren’t a thing yet, I would document my experiences on Snapchat stories and in-feed posts. I couldn’t believe that restaurants and PR agencies wanted me to post about them!

My first-ever viral video was Cheesecake on a Stick from Heirloom Toronto, and this video has over 50M+ video views over the internet. This video also caught the eyes of many prominent publications like Cosmopolitan Magazine and more. This was the first time my name, Jamie Milne of Everything Delish, was in the press.

During this time, 9gag, who had 46M followers on Instagram, reposted my Cheesecake video. This happened during one of my seminar classes, and I remember running out of class, freaking out! I gained 1000s of followers, and this was before there was such a thing as an ‘algorithm’ on Instagram. I believe that this was one of the moments where everything changed for me.

Leaving my Teaching Career

One year into my Master’s program, my videos continued to grow in views rapidly, and Everything Delish became more well-known. As I continued to grow, brands started to reach out to me and inquire about my posts’ rates and services. I remember having 80,000 followers at the time and charging $100 for two video posts! 

During this time, when balancing Everything Delish and teaching- I would spend my days between classes, school work, substitute teaching, and curating content for social media. Nonetheless, it was extremely overwhelming, and I was struggling with where to dedicate my time too.

I ended up fast-tracking my two-year Master’s program, as I knew I was happiest when creating recipes, food content and focusing on Everything Delish. It was at this time that I knew that teaching was not something I wanted to pursue anymore.

I decided that I wanted to dedicate 100% of my time to growing my business, social media channels, and to create content. I finished my Master’s Degree and landed a full-time teaching position. However, I turned it down to pursue Everything Delish full-time.

The Decision

Before leaving teaching, one of the most important things was ensuring that I could financially support myself while running Everything Delish. This most definitely did not happen overnight and took a lot of time and hard work, but my goal was to establish myself to get to a point where I could work with brands consistently. I also earned extra income when starting out on my own by running brands/restaurant’s social media accounts and consulting on the side. I did this for about one year!

One of the hardest things that I experienced throughout this journey was deciding to leave a secure full-time job and taking that leap of faith. Especially since, at this time, ‘blogging’ and content creation was not well known.

Although this decision was difficult, I am so fortunate that I had an abundance of support from the people closest to me; my parents, boyfriend, sister, and close friends. While I had many supporters, there were still many people who were close to me who openly doubted myself and my career choice.

I would be lying if I said that those comments and people didn’t upset me or make me second guess my decision at the time. However, I blocked out all of the negativity and channeled all of that energy into building my business, creating content, and establishing myself, my community, and my presence online. When I look back at that time- I feel good knowing that I trusted my gut.

Now, five years later, Everything Delish has almost 2M followers across social media, and I run my own business. I wake up every day doing what I love. Undoubtedly, the best part of what I do is connecting with this amazing community!

Everything Delish Today 

Fettuccine Alfredo

Currently, Everything Delish has almost 350k followers on Instagram and over 1.5M followers on TikTok! My social media channels extend to my Website, YouTube, Facebook and Pinterest! Now, my days include:

  • Filming and editing 3-4 recipes a day.
  • Working with brand partners.
  • Community management.
  • Admin work (emails, calls, invoicing, contracts, etc.)
  • Providing creative consulting services on the side, and so much more.

Today, brands will hire me to create content specifically for my social channels, their social media and assist them in content-creator strategy. I genuinely am so fortunate for this incredible, Everything Delish community and to be where I am today!

No matter how long you have been following me- I want to take this time to say THANK YOU for all of your continued support! Thank you for allowing me to share my everyday life and passion for food/cooking with all of you because, without your constant support, none of this would be possible. I can’t wait to see where Everything Delish is in 5 years from now and what’s to come! Love you all xx

PS- I will be doing a second blog post on content creator tips so ask your questions in the comments! Xx

WATCH MY LATEST VIDEOS

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