Why Moving to A New City Can Be The Most Terrifying,Yet Best Decision You Could Ever Make

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Whether it’s your first leap of faith at venturing out to a new city or you could consider yourself a veteran in the city-hoppin’ department, changing your environment for more than just a weekend getaway can occupy your mind with several feelings of doubt and uncertainty. This may also mean that you feel as if you have a vacancy sign, a Bates Motel worthy-kind, dangling high above what you recently considered to be carefully, well-thought-through ambitions and plans.

It’s an unsettling feeling: the idea of landing in a new location and giving its foreign soil the rights for your forwarding address. It can originally give you a sense of excitement for deciding to move away to a new place, pride for landing yourself a new, maybe even better, shot at your career, or hope that this new destination will be filled with a world of opportunities, personal and professional ones. After your initial reactions start to fade away, the fear and doubt begins to take over, completely masking the original go-getter, ambitious attitude you once possessed.

Both sides of your reactions are perfectly normal, and each should very well come with a lifetime warranty, never failing to show up when it comes to starting over. You know that moving to a new city should be considered a good thing, as it’s the one in the driver’s seat that’s taking you away from your familiar setting and into a new one, but you also recognize that you’re scared. Scared of failing? Potentially. Scared of missing what you have previously found comfort in? Probably. Scared of regret? Maybe that’s it.

You have to remember that there’s something inside of you that found a reason that was sound enough to start your quest for a new location. There’s also something that finally enabled you to “pull-the-trigger” and turn those thoughts into your new reality.

Your next place may not welcome you with “mom’s spaghetti” (cliché Eminem reference: check) or be filled with all the sunshine and views your imagination let itself run wild for.

Nevertheless, with more weight than you and your fourth grade bestie’s pinky promise could have ever had, this new destination is going to be the beginning of a new you, once you allow yourself to see all that it has to offer you.

Your decision to leave may have relied heavily upon whether or not you could sustain a life in this unchartered territory: choosing a location that feels and seems like it will be the best fit for you, finding a job that allows you to pay rent and fill your pantry with more than just packets of Ramen, and settling on an apartment that isn’t a ninety-minute commute without traffic.

Once all the big decisions have been taken care of and you’re content with your new zip code, slowly, but surely, it’s important to take notice of all the opportunities that it has to offer you.

These opportunities, though, won’t be possible if you’re still choosing to focus on what you had to leave behind.

As mentioned previously, it doesn’t matter if this is your first or seventh shot at moving onward to a new spot, your prior setting will no longer be within arm’s length. From your local gym to favorite boutique, neither will be a part of your routine any longer. Your crazy landlord, eccentric secretary who made the best muffins in all the land, and that dive bar across the street, known for its unpleasant smell yet amazing Thursday drink specials, aren’t going to be able to play the role as an “extra” in your new life.

You’ll be forced to fill those previous people, places, and things with brand new ones. You’ll have to move forward and find a new gym; maybe even by trying out all the week free-trials until you can settle on one that your bank account allows for. You are going to have to find other places to consider yourself a regular at, new restaurants and street signs to flood your Snapchat story with, and people to fill the void for the ones you had to leave behind.

Rarely in life, no matter which place you decide upon to call home, are opportunities going to present themselves without an invitation. Invite all that’s surrounding your new location to change you, no, not overnight, but with time and a sense of permanency, for the better.

You get to live your life, in a new and different way, than ever before, and it’s going to allow you to truly appreciate the memories from your former surroundings; something you may have never done without being forced to say goodbye to them all. It’s giving you the opportunity to recreate your setting and the people who you want to be a part of it, welcoming them all to have a place in your journey.

No location, person, or situation can help satisfaction decide to claim its occupancy under your new roof. You are the one with the sole capability to do so.

It’s a slim chance that a job promotion or new career launch will happen overnight, but a really awesome coworker could mean the start of a brand new friendship, a blessing you may miss if you refuse to be open to it. More than likely, you aren’t going to find the love your life on a street corner as both of you reach for the same taxi’s door, but you could go on some really amazing dates and eventually find someone that suits your fancy as much as you do theirs, if you actually make it a point to be physically and mentally available. You won’t wake up feeling like a new, improved version of yourself within the first few weeks of your move, but the people and places you have yet to explore may eventually help you discover a piece that your self-created puzzle has been missing.

Moving away from what’s familiar to you is worthy of all the self-praise and pride you have to give yourself. It’s a big deal and can be such a stomach-dropping rollercoaster ride for your emotions.

As a congratulatory side note, it also shouldn’t be misunderstood that making a decision to claim residency in a new spot isn’t a bold one or that a life-changing opportunity can’t be a potential reality for you. Yet, once you accept that this fresh start has so much to offer you, aside from the trophy-worthy, monumental ones, you’ll find that the term self-reliant should very well be considered synonymous with your name.

And when you make an uprooting decision like this, you should wear that attribute proudly because self-reliant is exactly who you are, a trait that wouldn’t be possible without deciding to make the move to elsewhere.

As much as you shouldn’t fail to give yourself credit for trading in your familiar scenery for an entirely different one, you have to allow yourself to see all the good things that are heading straight your way, with intentions to land, figuratively and literally, right at your door step.

Starting over will absolutely be the breath of fresh air that you need, as long as you’re open to the way and shape all these new changes will present themselves to you. No need to ask Dorothy if you can borrow her red slippers for a “click-click-click” because this unfamiliar land, soon enough, is going to be yours, knocking all those doubts and fears right out the window.