I've Walked Out on a Marriage, a Man, and a $20,000 Program. Here's What I Learned
One Day I Left and Never Came Back.
When I say that, it sounds simple and easy. But it never is and it wasn’t.
That's the thing people don't realize.
Take my first marriage. We were together for 11 years. The short version is, I left and never came back.
But behind that short version are years of accumulated challenges, repeated conversations, arguments, things said and things left unsaid. Feelings that built up slowly until they couldn't any more.
Six years ago, before I moved to the island, I usually tell people I moved for love, but not the kind that deserves a ‘awwww, how romantic’, the “I moved because I fell in love with the Island and stayed for myself.” I was in a relationship that lasted a year. I tell people of course the quick version: one day he went to work, I packed my things, and I left. And that's true. But it wasn't that quick, and it wasn't that simple. It was a year of accumulated behaviour, disrespect, conversations that kept going in circles, things that just didn't feel right. A year of me trying to fix it. Until I realized I couldn't fix it. I could only fix myself, and the only way to do that was to remove myself from a situation that was not healthy for me.
So he went to work. I left and never came back.
It's the same with leaving real estate. It wasn't like I woke up one morning, decided it wasn't for me, and cancelled my license. From the moment I got that license, I was trying and forcing. I was trying to make it work, trying to enjoy it, trying to fit myself into something that didn't feel right. I invested financially, emotionally, and literally everything. Until one day I realized, this isn't for me. And I don't have to keep trying. I can decide, at any moment, that I'm done.
So I did.
When you decide to start over, when you decide this isn't working, when you decide you're no longer subscribing to something, that decision doesn't come out of nowhere. Especially when, at one point, it did feel right and when you once believed in it.
And here's what I want you to hear and believe: that's not failure.
What did you learn along the way? Who did you meet? How did you grow? None of that was wasted.
Good for you for trying. Good for you for doing something different, for stepping outside your comfort zone, for putting everything you had into something, only to reach the conclusion that you didn't want it anymore. That's allowed and actually, really brave.
Last year, I spent around $20,000 on a real estate marketing program. I was all in. And before the program even ended, I decided to leave real estate entirely. When I tell people that, they look at me like I've lost my mind. But I can take everything from that program and still use everything I learned and gained, and in my opinion, I have an advantage because of it. So I'm not sitting here full of regret. This was my decision. The program was working. I just didn't want it anymore.
I can take it back even further. In 2021, I hired a book coach. I had decided: I need to write this book. I paid her, showed up, did every session. And at the end of it, I decided no. That's when I moved into real estate instead. Did the program fail? No. I did everything I was supposed to do. It was simply my decision to go a different direction.
Once you make a choice, that's the choice.
If you stay in something you don't want to be in, you already know how the next stretch of time is going to feel. It's going to stay exactly the same. Six months from now, a year from now, same position, same feeling.
But the moment you give yourself permission to step away, to change your mind, to pause, to say this no longer holds true for me, that's when you free yourself.
You're allowed to change. You're supposed to change. You should want different things than you wanted before. That's not instability and that doesn’t mean you gave up.
That's growth. And in growing, there comes pain. And after you pass the pain, the good part begins…
