LIFE CHANGES
How to Blow Up Your Life in Six Easy Steps
Make a concerted effort to stop doing the same thing you’ve always done under the guise of doing it better, and instead, do something different.
I’ve been blowing up sections of my life every six months for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, this was less of a tactic for growth and more of series of fuck-ups that only made my life messier. Now in my forties, and for the past five years, I have been starting and ending things with more purpose and vision than before. Still, when I decided to leave Los Angeles in the fall of 2020 and move across the country with my family, it had been over 20 years since I blew up all aspects of my life at the same time. Looking back on this portion of my journey, six steps got me to where I am today, which is much better off than before.
I got sick and tired of myself and my life. I’d been living in Los Angeles for over twenty years. Even though there were plenty of major life changes and dramatic shifts during that time, I hadn’t done or accomplished anything drastically different in over ten years. I got stuck in the loop of doing the same things better rather than doing something completely different.
So, I made a crazy decision, and I did it in the midst of a raging pandemic. Before the Covid-19 outbreak, my partner moved to New York for a job, and I figured I continue to be bi-coastal for a while. I wasn’t as ready as he was to leave California at first. But my feelings of stagnation were only magnified by mandatory lockdowns and the shuttering of the places and activities that had become a large part of my identity.
Then, I hyper-focused on making my decision a reality in ninety days or less and made it out of LA in less time. I decided I had nothing to lose, and sixty days after making that decision, I was on a flight to New York. I didn’t want to lollygag or pussyfoot. I focussed forward. There was nothing in my past I needed to revisit. My new life was full-speed ahead!
I created a shortlist of goals for this crazy decision and gave myself deadlines for achieving those goals. I read an article that urged its reader to Decide Where you Want to Be in Ten Years and Get There in Six Months, and it lit a fire under me. I made my list and started working feverishly toward my goals. After the first six months, I was very proud of myself.
I started dumping people and kept dumping folks as I walked further into my new life. I once saw a meme that said, my circle is so small, I almost cut myself off, and that best describes my life right now. Before leaving Los Angeles, I started snipping and sniping and kept the party going once I arrived on the east coast. Everyone can’t come where I’m going, wherever that is. I decided to stop attaching myself to people who don’t share my professional, personal, financial, or spiritual acumen. To this day, it is one of the best decisions I’ve made.
I’m doing it scared, alone, and uncomfortable. I complained, cried, and started making plans to return to Los Angeles just six months after making the move. As I write this, I’m so homesick it brings me to tears. I never planned to live on the east coast very long, but I certainly have to give it more than six months! Making this cross-country move has changed my life and opened a boatload of opportunities for me. So despite my longing for palm trees, driving through the canyons, and overpriced everything, I’m going to give this place my very best Mary Tyler Moore, go-get-em, throw your hat in the air in the middle of a busy crosswalk kind of try. I think I’m gonna make it after all.
If you’re on the precipice of blowing up your life, do it. Leave everything you’ve ever known and all that you’ve clung to, and go on an adventure. Make a concerted effort to stop doing the same thing you’ve always done under the guise of doing it better, and instead, do something different. Live, work, and look for love in a whole new city, state, or country. Do something that scares you because it scares you. Think of the most absurd thing you could do with your life and do it.
In a perfect world, if you could do anything and go anywhere without the burden of doubt or fear, what and where would it be. Then, after you’ve answered the question, follow that answer down the rabbit hole of possibilities. Where would you live and work? How much would it cost you? How long would you stay? Who would you take with you, and who would you leave behind? Most importantly, why would you do it?
Follow the why.
For me, I knew that if I stayed where I was, I’d just do the same things over and over again and call it a life. I knew what would happen if I remained in Los Angeles, but I didn’t know what would happen if I left. And that’s the thing about not knowing — there’s always the fear of falling, but more than that, there is the possibility of flying. And, you guys, I’m flying! It’s scary, and I don’t know where I’m going, but what I know for sure is that it’s not backward. That’s not to say that I’ll never go back to LA, but it is to say that I won’t be going back the same.
