Almost three years ago, I left my position as legal counsel at Google and moved to Bali, where I live with my family and run a few companies. It took me more than a year to make this decision and another few months to prepare all that was needed to implement it. I was excited, picturing how my amazing life would look like, what I would do, how I would feel. I felt so ready for it. When I told people about that, 99% reacted by saying “OMG, that’s amazing”,” You are so courageous!”, “Wow, you live in Bali, that’s my dream!”.
“At that time, I felt everything but being brave.
I landed in Bali, came home, and I was TERRIFIED for many, many weeks…”
My loved ones surrounded me, and I felt lonely.
Our companies were growing, and I felt useless.
I was supporting my employees and wanted to disappear at the same time.
I could call one of the most beautiful places in the world, a dream destination for millions, a HOME, and I felt nothing.
And I don’t know how many times (1000+ probably) I wanted to call Google, apologize for my stupid decision and convince them that we should forget about this crazy episode AKA me leaving the company and moving to Bali.
I was constantly asking myself what the heck is wrong with me. I wanted this, I planned this, I prepared everything for this. So why do I feel so lost instead of dancing on the rainbow with unicorns?
The answer came during one of the sleepless nights. I put a lot of energy and focus on HOW I will execute this change instead of WHY I’m doing this. WHY is it important to me. WHY I want this.
I took care of many technicalities in Poland.
I took care of many technicalities in Bali.
I took care of my family and friends, who stayed in Poland.
I took care not to leave any skeleton in Google’s closet.
I took care of my new circle in Bali.
I took care of many things…
And I forgot to take care of myself.
Sounds simple, sounds obvious but for me it was kind of an “aha” moment.
Instead of giving myself time to adapt, from Day 1 I decided to jump into this change.
Instead of giving myself time to grieve for the things I left, I decided to be 100% in the new reality.
Instead of giving myself time to figure out who I am now, I decided to rely on all the expectations and visualizations I had.
Why am I sharing this?
You can learn from my mistakes – there are better ideas than sugarcoating changes, even exciting ones.
Change is not about the outside circumstances. Yep, it’s important. But less than YOU in the change – your feelings, thoughts, self-esteem. How are you going to find yourself in everything new?
Focus on yourself, rest will follow. And yes, you’re gonna have moments of regretting the old times. And it’s fine.
If you came to this point of my messy message you may think “How could she have never thought about this?”. Believe me, I’m proudly calling myself a very rational person and my friends would confirm it without a blink of an eye. But as they say, the shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot.
You may also think “Yeah, it will not happen to me, she changed her life completely, it’s a big change”. But in fact change is change, there are no rules saying which one is big or small. Besides your own ones.
See you next time,
Ewa