Change is hard — especially when we choose it.

As much as we may hate our jobs, feel unfulfilled in our relationships, and feel like each day we just exist and perform, it’s easy to let fear drive complacency.

You would rather complain than leave.

You focus on the inconvenience of the change rather than the impact it can have. We begin to fluff up our pain — see it’s not that bad, I can stay.

We run ourselves ragged to keep making our current situation work, telling ourselves we have to “try one last time”.

I did this for years.

Staying in career paths, relationships, jobs and friendships well beyond their expiration for three reasons:

I didn’t want to be responsible for hurting anyone else or causing them pain.
It felt like giving up
I had no guarantee anything else would be better

It was the fact I had the choice that made it feel unattainable.

No one likes to deal with loss or endings, expected or not. But when it happens to us, there is some protection in it. If we choose it, not only is the loss painful but we are also responsible for it.

Even if making the change is for the better. We will trade fulfillment for predictable crappyness because we have such a deeply rooted shame story that tells us we deserve to feel this way.

So let me be the counter to your shame.

You don’t deserve a life of “fine”.

You will hurt and disappoint people no matter what choice you make. But we have to stop letting the stress of a change and the fear of the unknown be enough to talk ourselves out of doing what is best for us. You are not a bad person for choosing your own well-being.

You can still be kind and be assertive.

Time is not going to make the changes you seek any easier. So stop kicking the ball to tomorrow, next week or next year.

Take a breath. It will suck — temporarily. And then it won’t. And the”you” that is waiting on the other side of that jump can finally lean in to the life you deserve.

Convenience is not the goal.