Walking Out of My Own Woods
A Career Transition Story
They say third time's a charm. Or in my case, the third time's when I chose courage over fear.
I tried to break free twice before. Both times, I came back—too scared of walking the unbeaten path, too scared of standing in the dark.
I don't blame myself. I don't blame the 19-year-old me, or the 22-year-old me, that chose safety. I've looked hard enough at my past life to understand now that it was my coping mechanism for a childhood that didn't feel stable. It was my way to maintain control.
Yet, just before my third and final attempt, all that safety I'd carefully built over the past 10 years came down. A beautiful castle, shiny, but built on shaky foundations.
And I no longer wanted to do damage control. I wanted to build back properly this time.
If you're a mid-career professional feeling stuck between the security you know and the life you crave, this story is for you. It's about fear, career transitions, and what happens when you finally stop running from uncertainty.
The First Escape: London at 19
I've always dreamt of exploring the world, traveling. At 13 years old I asked my parents to send me to study abroad for a year.
"Once you are 18, you can do what you want."
I felt like a girl trapped in a city too small for her.
But during high school, the conditioning, societal expectations, and a desire to fit in took over those ambitions.
And when the time came to choose a university, instead of taking a year to decide what I really wanted to do, I picked a degree based on logic and fear. The wrong reasons.
Raised to believe a secure job was the main goal, and being good at maths, I chose engineering. Never mind that the rigid university schedule felt tight and the total disinterest in the subjects made me numb. But I was still too proud to admit I'd chosen wrong, and too scared to admit I didn't know what the alternative was.
I was more scared of walking in the dark than walking the wrong path.
After a few months, a "fortunate" event happened—the first of many strange ones, which later in life I started to notice as a pattern. A brief but karmic encounter over an aperitivo gave me the push I needed. He told me "go out and see the world, travel."
My hunger for expansion came back, and suddenly I felt restless.
So I booked a one-way ticket to London to work as a waitress while I "figured life out." I was 19, knew no one there, and was following a different path than the usual school-university-job route, but I wanted to see the world and I needed to learn English for that. So I went.
People called me brave, but I didn't feel brave. I just felt I could no longer pretend I wasn't hungry. Hungry for more adventure, more expansion, more life. Not going felt impossible.
However, it didn't take long for fear to creep in.
None of my friends or family understood what I was doing. "You're too smart to not finish university," they said.
I remember being in the tube, 11pm at night, back from my 10-hour restaurant shift to the West London flat I shared with four strangers, thinking: What am I doing? I'm losing time. I'm falling behind.
I felt lonely too.
I booked a flight back, just in time for my second year of university to start.
The Second Escape: New Zealand at 22
Two years passed. Fun memories with university mates. A few backpacking trips that kept that old hunger from starving me completely. But also the first signs of a chronic digestive disorder that I would carry for a long time—my body trying to tell me something wasn't right. And that same restless feeling, getting louder and louder.
I graduated as quickly as possible, pushing through a degree I deep down hated, while plotting my second escape from a life that didn't fit. This time I needed even more distance, so I flew to New Zealand.
And because I apparently loved making things harder than necessary, I went somewhere I knew absolutely no one. I could have gone to Australia where I had contacts, but that would have been "too easy." Looking back, I was self-sabotaging. And if I didn't fail, at least I could say I'd done something most people find hard. Ahhh, the ego!
But it was exactly the same pattern of three years before, just further away. I couldn't sit with uncertainty. I couldn't wait for the fog to lift so I could see the path. And I didn't have anyone to guide me through those dark moments, to teach me how to walk through the unknown.
So I decided to go back. Again.
But not before a month-long stopover in Thailand. (I mean, if you're going to fail at finding yourself, at least do it somewhere warm, right?)
The Christmas I'll Never Forget
We all have existential crises, but aren't they better when we spend them by the beach?
During that month in Thailand, I felt ashamed of my second failed attempt. And I was terrified about what I'd do when I got home. I had no idea. I felt I was standing on a bridge between two worlds, neither of which felt like the right one.
On Christmas Day 2013, I was 22 years old, traveling between stations in Bangkok. I'd started writing down my thoughts on my phone (a habit that would become full-blown journaling ten years later). I found this note from that day:
"There are those who celebrate Christmas in their own homes, with families and many gifts, eating cappelletti and panettone... I'm not totally indifferent to this situation, and I can say that I miss those moments a bit. But I just spent Christmas day going from one station to another, between buses, taxis and rickshaws, having a McChicken meal as my Christmas lunch. My Christmas has Bangkok as its backdrop, a city where 90% of the people are Buddhist. I walked in smog and not in snow... But these are the Christmases I won't forget. I won't forget it because I've never felt as much like myself as I did today."
Looking back, I wish I'd given that young woman permission to not follow through with the plan, to miss her flight and just continue with the journey. I wish I could tell her to have faith and trust her instincts. I feel she was onto something.
But I didn't. Instead, I flew back and chose a compromise: a master's degree in business, but at least abroad. I moved to Barcelona.
I was too afraid to fail again, so I chose a path I knew I could handle and that somehow fed a little that ancient hunger. Breadcrumbs.
The 10 Years I Stopped Feeling Anything
What followed was a decade of doing what I thought I was supposed to do. What I thought would stop my restlessness. Barcelona, then Amsterdam. A safe, well-paid job. Caring about climbing the ladder and salary increases. Buying a house. Settling down.
Finally, I didn't feel scared. Actually, I didn't feel anything. I was numb.
Well, not completely numb. There was still that lingering anxiety. And my chronic digestive disorder remained, telling me something wasn't right.
But I kept pretending I didn't know what was wrong. I kept hiding from the truth: this wasn't my path.
And I needed a big crash to show me that.
When My Life Fell Apart
In 2022, everything fell apart within six months. A sudden breakup after buying a house with my partner of seven years. My mum's cancer diagnosis. An exhaustion so deep trying to juggle personal life and a very demanding job, that I became genuinely worried about my mental health.
Finally, I had no choice but to stop and ask: How did I end up here?
The big ego that had pushed me through life wasn't happy when I started challenging the decisions it had made. I started questioning myself: did I really know how to do life?
I got deep into yoga. Started journaling. Meditation. And once again, someone appeared. A karmic encounter, a guide showing me a different way of living. More authentic. Less shiny, but more real.
In that person, I saw myself. Or rather, I saw who I would be if I didn't allow fear to make my decisions. That inspired me to change.
And for the first time ever, I felt like the person I was always meant to be.
That's when I found my purpose: I wanted to do the same for others. To serve people. To be that guide I'd desperately needed at 19 and 22.
The only problem was that I had no idea what that looked like in practice. What was the job title? Where was the path toward that?
I was facing the fear of the unknown. Again.
The Third Attempt
My teacher says: "There are no new beginnings until everybody sees that the old ways need to end."
This time, I decided to approach my third attempt differently. To take my time figuring things out. It was a major exercise in patience and trust.
During this time, I realized that I wasn't the only one who felt like that. Who didn't fit into the conventional path. People who were hungry for something more but terrified of stepping into the unknown.
If I wanted to help them, so they'd know they weren't alone, I needed to share my story. But to do that, I needed to first understand my story.
So I went on an inward journey. I took my time to figure out who I actually was and what I actually wanted. I quieted the noise around me, then within me. I stopped running away from fear, and instead realized that everything that scared me was just something that needed to be learned, so I could move to the next level. So I could evolve.
After a 10-day silent meditation retreat, the vision finally got a name, a job title. I was going to train as a coach to help others face the fears that stopped them from living their authentic purposeful paths.
And the moment I chose courage over fear, help arrived. Money I wasn’t expecting, friends supporting with accommodation, etc. They all felt like gifts. The firsts of many that I noticed kept appearing every time I chose courage over fear.
But not before. I am asked to trust and have patience, for the gifts to arrive.
What I Know Now About Fear and Career Transitions
My path finally has shape: a career transition coaching business helping mid-career professionals turn their fears into opportunities. Workshop facilitation teaching resilience, courage, and mindfulness. And writing—sharing these stories with the world.
And here's something to keep in mind: Through all three attempts, all fifteen years of figuring this out, I never stopped paying my bills. Not my parents paying them, not my ex-partner, just me. Not at 19, not at 22, and not at 32. Every time I made a move, I found a way to fund it. This isn't a story about quitting everything and drowning all your savings, hoping for the best. It's about learning to walk toward what you want while keeping your feet on solid ground. While keeping paying your bills.
That's what I can help you with.
But what I really know now, after three escape attempts and fifteen years of running from myself:
Fear isn't the enemy. Fear is information. It's data. It's your guide. The question isn't "How do I get rid of this fear?" It's "What is this fear teaching me?"
Looking back, each escape attempt was teaching me something different:
At 19, my fear was teaching me that I craved expansion, yet I was too scared of falling behind and walking solo.
At 22, my fear was teaching me that I was more afraid of judgment and of standing in the dark than I was of living an unfulfilled life.
At 32, my fear was teaching me that numbness is more dangerous than jumping into the unknown.
I spent so much time trying to run away from my fear that I never stopped to listen to what it was actually saying. And every time I ran from it, I ended up right back where I started. It's a cycle. It's a lesson that until it's learned, won't go away. I'll just have to take the exam again—older and more disappointed at my attempts.
The Hard Truth About Career Transitions
If you're reading this and seeing yourself in my story (the restlessness, the hunger for something more, the fear of leaving your job), I need to tell you something, and you're not going to like it:
You already know what you need to do. You just don't want to do it because it's scary.
And that's okay. It is scary. Leaving security for uncertainty is terrifying. Going against what everyone expects of you is terrifying. Admitting that the path you've walked for years isn't right for you is terrifying.
You might not know what comes next, and that's terrifying.
But if at 19 years old someone had told me (and I'd believed them) that fear doesn't go away, perhaps I would have taken more time to learn how to walk alongside it.
You don't need to wait until you're ready, because you will never be fully ready. You will never have absolute clarity about what comes next. A detailed 5-year plan, with a clear job title, compensation, and a secure circle of friends that will never change.
You just need to take the first step. And then the next one. And then the next one. And trust that it will bring you where you need to be.
And maybe—just maybe—you need someone to hold your hand through the dark. Someone who's been where you are and can tell you: Yes, it's scary. Yes, it's hard. And yes, you can do it anyway.
Someone who can teach you how to get out of the woods. How to quiet the noise so you can wait for the fog to lift and see your path. How to walk through the obstacles you might find on your way.
Because the alternative is another decade, or longer, of feeling numb. Another decade of your body trying to tell you something's wrong through anxiety, insomnia, digestive issues, or whatever form your discomfort takes. Perhaps drowning in one too many drinks over the weekend?
Another decade of standing on that bridge, not belonging anywhere, wondering what your life would have looked like if you'd jumped onto the train instead of waiting at the track. That sliding door moment.
What's on the Other Side
I won't tell you that choosing to change will be easy. It won't be. It's not my style to sugar-coat things.
But I can promise you this: You'll finally feel like yourself. That Christmas-in-Bangkok, McChicken-eating, walking-in-smog version of yourself that feels more alive than any promotion ever made you feel.
And in ten years, you won't regret the risks you took. You'll only regret the ones you didn't.
Third time's a charm, they say.
What they don't tell you is that the first two times were never failures. They were practice. You were learning how to listen to your fear instead of running from it. Learning what happens when you try to fit into a life that was never meant for you. Learning that the hard way is sometimes the only way.
So if this is your first attempt, or your second, or your third—jump on board. I see you. I've been you.
And I'm here to tell you what I wish someone had told me: Miss the flight back. Do the thing that isn't logical. Trust that crazy voice coming from your belly that says to jump.
The path is already there. You're just too scared to see it.
And that's okay. We'll walk through the fear together.
If you're a mid-career professional ready to navigate your career transition without sacrificing financial security, let's talk. Sometimes all you need is someone who's been there to hold your hand while walking out of the woods.
