Back at university, I had a close friend who had been in a relationship for a few years. It was serious. They weren’t the party type just having fun, they had started adulthood together.
But I knew she wasn’t happy. Not really.
In my head, the answer was obvious: end it, move on, enjoy life. Simple. (I was very wise back then, clearly. 😅)
She couldn’t do it though. And when I pushed her on why, she eventually admitted it: she was terrified of being single. Of being alone. Of not knowing what came next.
She knew she was unhappy. She just preferred a known unhappiness over an unknown future.
Around 2021, I had what looked, on paper, like a pretty great job situation. Working from home, full trust and autonomy from my managers, a good salary, a role I could do with my eyes closed.
And I was miserable.
Not in a dramatic way. Just... bored. Stagnant. Completely uninspired. I felt like I was slowly fading. The thought of change was always there, nagging, but so was the fear. How do you walk away from something “perfect”? Who quits a comfortable, well-paying job to go backpack around the world at 30-something? It felt crazy.
So I stayed stuck. Until I didn’t. But more on that in a minute.
And if you’re reading this newsletter, I’d bet that some version of this is familiar. Maybe you don’t hate your job, you just don’t enjoy it. Everything feels a bit... meh. Or maybe you do hate it, and it’s bleeding into everything else: your mood, your relationships, the patience you have left at the end of the day. Yet you’re not making a move. Because what if the next thing is worse? What if you quit and struggle to find something new?
What if, what if, what if.
In 2016, my managers called me into the office with an offer: they were expanding to Miami and wanted me to help set things up. My immediate reaction was to mentally start packing my bags. Rosie’s reaction was... different.
We’d built a comfortable life in the South of France by then. Married, apartment, two cars, jobs, friends, plans to start a family. Life was good. Stable. Known.
Moving to a new country, a new continent, to a city with a reputation that wasn’t exactly reassuring? She wasn’t sure. The unknown was doing its thing, filling in the blanks with worst-case scenarios.
We talked it through. Decided to try it for a year, knowing we could always come back. And eventually, she said yes.
Three Stories, One Pattern
A relationship that felt safe but made her unhappy. A job that felt comfortable but was slowly draining me. A move that felt risky but turned out to change everything.
In all three cases, the same thing was happening: the fear of the unknown was winning over the possibility of something better.
And it’s not random. It’s not weakness. It’s actually just how the brain works.
The primitive part of our brain, the part wired for survival, doesn’t care about happiness, fulfillment, or growth. It cares about keeping us alive and safe. Back when “safe” meant not getting eaten, that instinct was useful. Today, it mostly just keeps us stuck in jobs we hate and situations we’ve outgrown.
When we imagine making a change, the brain doesn’t naturally wander toward the upside, how free she might feel, how energized we might be in a new role, how incredible Miami might turn out to be. It goes straight to the threat. The downside. The worst case.
We’re essentially making life decisions based on half the picture.
Why We’re Wired This Way
I think a lot of it starts much earlier than we realize.
From the moment we enter the school system, we’re taught that following the rules leads to good grades, good grades lead to praise, praise leads to the next step. Any deviation from the path gets corrected. Punished. We learn fast.
By the time we become adults, most of us have become good sheep. We follow the script. We conform. We do what’s expected. And any time we’re tempted to color outside the lines, there’s usually someone around to remind us why that’s a bad idea.
The result? The brain, shaped by evolution and decades of conditioning, defaults to keeping us stuck.
The problem is that nothing grows in comfort. Things quietly fade there instead. And by the time we notice, a lot of time has passed.
That sense of security we feel in a familiar situation is also, in many cases, an illusion. Ask the people who spent years in “safe” corporate jobs and were let go anyway.
The One Thing That Helped
When I was stuck in that comfortable-but-miserable job situation, what eventually got me unstuck was a fear-setting exercise. The idea is simple: instead of letting your imagination run wild with vague worst-case scenarios, you write them down. You look at them clearly. You ask how bad they actually are, how likely they are, and what you’d do if they happened.
Then, and this is the part most people skip, you do the same for the upside. And for the cost of doing nothing.
I’ve written about it in detail here, and I have a free workbook you can use to walk through it yourself. I won’t go deeper into it in this post, because that’s not really the point today. The point is: when I finally looked at the full picture instead of just the risks, the decision became obvious. I quit. And I have zero regrets.
How It All Turned Out
My friend eventually ended the relationship. Not long after, she met someone else. They’ve been married for years now and have kids. She built the life she was too scared to imagine.
Rosie said yes to Miami. We ended up staying three and a half years. It became one of the most defining chapters of both our lives, a place where we healed, grew, and changed in ways we hadn’t expected. Best decision we ever made.
And me? I’m writing this from Bangkok, working for myself, doing work I actually care about. No regrets either.
In all three cases, the fear of the unknown turned out to be exactly that: a fear. Not a prediction. Not a guarantee. Just the brain doing what it does, protecting us from a lion that wasn’t there.
Most People Will Read This and Do Nothing
I say that with no judgment, because I was one of those people for a long time.
You’ll recognize yourself in one of these stories. You’ll nod. Maybe you’ll share it. And then you’ll go back to your day, and nothing will change. Because that’s what most people do. Not because they’re lazy or cowardly, but because the pull of the familiar is genuinely strong, and the brain is genuinely good at talking us out of discomfort.
The one thought that usually follows is: “Yeah, it worked out for them. But my situation is different.”
Maybe. But probably not as different as you think.
If you’re sitting with a change you’ve been avoiding and you want some help actually working through what’s keeping you stuck, that’s exactly what I do. Book a free call and let’s talk. No pitch, just an honest conversation.
J