I get asked all the time, why I left dental hygiene.  Were you scared when you left dental hygiene? Were you nervous that you’d be sad that you left dental hygiene?

Let’s be real.  I went into dental hygiene for all the wrong reasons.  At the time, I was a safety engineering student who had completed two prestigious internships for Marathon Oil Company, and all roads pointed to a career with MOC.

Except when I was attached to a cell phone, pager, rental car and laptop all of the time..how was I doing to be a mom?

So I quickly changed course to go into dental hygiene.  I had a perfect GPA so I knew I was a shoo in, the pay was great and I wouldn’t be away from my family.

What I didn’t consider was the mind numbing boredom of scraping a damn tooth.  

What I also didn’t consider was that I’d be proactively building someone else’s dream.  Someone else’s dental practice.  Someone else’s retirement.  

I was busting my rump to create someone else’s golden parachute.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the people, just not the process of doing the same thing every day.  Day in and day out.  Throw in some perio scaling for good measure, but it really was the same boredom every day.

After about 10 years of this, I started to question if this was really how I wanted to live out my life.  Bored.  Unfulfilled.  Stuck.  So I went and got a graduate degree in business (MBA) and dabbled in dental consulting.  Another reason why I left dental hygiene…I was still working for the same arrogant assholes.  I hadn’t solved any of my pain points.

So I started researching.   I researched about leaving dental hygiene.  I researched alternative careers for dental hygienists.  I researched options for dental hygienists who wanted to leave dental hygiene and not start over.

Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy, Oral Myology, and Myofunctional Therapy kept popping up.  (They all mean the same thing, BTW.) 

Little did I realize, until late one sleepless night (when I was making my plan to leave dental hygiene) that I had already been introduced to orofacial myofunctional therapy way back when I was just a wee baby hygienist.  I thought it was fascinating at the time, but I was a new hygienist and I was all about the paycheck.

Fast forward years later, and I was no longer about the paycheck.  I was about a life.  

So I did my research, found a course, enrolled and was making money before I was done with the course.  Don’t get me wrong, I had to figure out how to start a business, how to set everything up, get clients and actually do the therapy but I wouldn’t trade all that work for nothing. It was hard.  I didn’t have someone to support me through it all, or to show me the path, but that’s ok…I figured it out. 

The good thing is that you don’t have to go through all those issues because I will teach you exactly what I did inside the Ditch Hygiene Academy.  All of my profitable frameworks are taught to you.  How cool is that?

So eventually I got my ducks in a row to leave dental hygiene.  I had a plan that I wanted to leave dental hygiene in five years.  My orofacial myofunctional therapy business was growing and I had high hopes that in five years I could afford to leave dental hygiene.

I retired in two.

And not because I took a cut in pay.  Or anything else for that matter.  By that time, I had already established a 6 figure business so it was time to live a different life.  So I did.

Fast forward to now.  I have zero regrets about why I left dental hygiene.  Not only am I building my own dreams and retirement, but I’ve 10x’d the satisfaction of my life.  I can work wherever and whenever I choose.  I’m not geographically tied to any location.  I’m not tied to someone else setting my pay or my schedule and I get to live a life that I’ve designed by choice, not by chance.

That choice was to leave dental hygiene and never look back.

xo, 😘

P.S. 

My friend, does some of this resonate with your heart?  Did you find yourself feeling the same pains that I did when I left dental hygiene?  Nodding your head?  Shouting “hell yea”? 

Maybe I’m uncovering something inside of you.  Maybe you’re bored. Unfulfilled. Stuck.  Before the next Ditch Hygiene Academy opens, I would encourage you to do some more digging and learning about my profitable Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy business.  

Here’s some great resources:

• Myofunctional Therapy Business:  Just Get Started
• How a Bored Dental Hygienist Pivoted Into a 6-Figure Dream Job
• Bored Dental Hygienist:  Find Your True Calling

About the Author, Carmen M. Woodland

Carmen is a powerhouse myofunctional educator, whose “secret sauce” is teaching women how to build their own, incredibly satisfying career in myofunctional therapy.  She is obsessed with all things myo, myofunctional therapy business, marketing, social media, content, data, revenue, goals, and helping you navigate the messy and magical journey to becoming an authority in the myofunctional therapy niche.

She teaches you the tried and true secrets to building a career you’re in charge of, and one that’s life-changing for both you and your clients.

Shy away from the hard stuff?  No way, Carmen gets down in the trenches with you, just like your favorite gal-pal there to cheer you on.  Her no-nonsense-tough-love-common-sense-solutions-oriented approach is the real reason that she gives you the kick in the pants you need.  Carmen is your one-stop shop to learn everything you need to know about delivering effective orofacial myofunctional therapy, and building a thriving, profitable myofunctional therapy business.

A dental hygienist who got tired of watching unhealthy people slip through the cracks.  She took her 15 years of dental hygiene experience, completed advanced post-graduate training in orofacial myofunctional therapy, earned a prestigious M.B.A. (Masters in Business Administration), grew a successful orofacial myofunctional therapy business, and now she works from home with clients around the world and runs an extremely popular mentoring and business training program.

If you find your passion intersection at the corner of Myofunctional Therapy Avenue, Dental Hygiene Highway, Female Entrepreneur Boulevard, and Work From Anywhere Way…then get cozy here, because you’ve found your unicorn!  Carmen is here to educate, encourage, and empower you while she teaches you all the things!