Two Years In. The Real Story

Two years ago I made some of the biggest decisions of my life. I left my job, sold my house, and started building something from scratch - with no guarantee it would work and no perfectly lined up plan.

This episode is the honest version of what those two years have actually looked like. The growth, the mess, the moments of "what on earth am I doing" - and why I'm not panicking, even when probably I should be.

We're talking about:

• Why feeling behind doesn't mean you are behind
• The slow wake-up call that changed everything for me
• What a day in Newcastle with my girlfriends reminded me about life and the stories we all carry
• The difference between the old version of me and who I am now
• Why the certainty always comes after the decision — never before

This one's real. No filter.

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📖 Ready to stop waiting and start choosing yourself? My ebook Is This It is everything I've learned and actually use - grab it here: 👉 https://hitthereset111.com/shop/ebook

Thank you so much for listening! 

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⚡️My ebook - Is This It - Available to download now here

⚡️You can also connect with me on Instagram: @whatsnextforme111

⚡️And if you’d like to support the podcast, you’re always welcome to buy me a coffee - Thank you so much 

We've got this. 

Gem xx

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Figuring Out at 40, life beyond the timeline. I'm Gemma and I am so excited to be back today. I've had a few weeks off. Um, I've been a little quiet, but trust me, it's not been quiet. But before anything else, the ebook is this it? The response has been honestly overwhelming, and I am so grateful to you all. Every message, every download, every share, it means everything. Link is in my show notes, so go and grab it if you haven't already. But right, that's all I'll say on that for now. Well, actually, maybe not, I'll come back to it later. But honestly, thank you genuinely. So let's grab a cupper, or even better, stick me in your headphones, in your earphones, in your ears, and take me on a walk. I don't know which one it was, because today we are getting right into it. So, what's been going on whilst I've been MIA? I hit 40,000 followers a couple of weeks ago. 40,000, and I'm nearly at 50, which is honestly, I don't even have the words. When I started my Instagram page, it wasn't really there was no real plan behind it, other than I started it for my business, and it's grown into something I never expected. And then along came this podcast, which full transparency, this happened because I was a guest on someone else's show, really enjoyed it, and thought, well, why not? Let's just go for it. I'd always said I wanted to have a podcast, but I thought that was years away. And I just thought, oh, let's just take that messy action, which is very on brand for where I'm at right now in my life. But here's the thing: I want to be straight with you, because the whole point of this, the follow account is amazing, honestly. And I'm not going to pretend that it isn't, but financially, it's hard, like really hard right now. And I think that it's important for me to say that out loud because I know that people are looking at what I'm doing, building something, moving abroad, going solo travelling, and assuming that everything must be lined up perfectly, that I must have had a solid plan, a healthy savings account, and a five-year strategy before I did any of this. And the honest answer is not exactly no. And it is uncomfortable at times, and I have my moments of, oh my gosh, what are you doing? There's genuinely days when I ask myself whether I'm having a midlife crisis, like an actual one. And I then I think, but why am I not more panicked? Because the old version of me, she would have been in an absolute state by now. But let's be completely honest, she it wouldn't have gone ahead. I'd have like been spiraling, convincing myself to go back to my safety before I'd even really got started. But I've done a year of therapy, I've done the work, and I think I really do believe that the reason I can sit in uncertainty without completely unraveling is because I've built something I've never had before. A relationship with myself, trust in myself, even when it doesn't look pretty from the outside. And that's what today is about. Because I want to talk about the version of me that existed before all of this. My life wasn't bad. I want to be clear about that because it genuinely wasn't. But I was sleepwalking through it, letting time pass me by, waiting for something to change, waiting to feel ready, waiting for the right moment. And in the meantime, constantly comparing myself to everyone else around me and coming up short at every turn. I always just turned that against me. I turned my like the way I used to speak to myself was not nice. I relied completely on my external environment to feel all right. If life outside of me was fine, then I was fine. And if it wasn't, I wasn't. I had no real internal anchor, no proper sense of who I was or what I actually wanted outside of the roles I played and the life that I just sort of accumulated around me without me really choosing it. And that's something that I've kind of been questioning a lot lately. Like I have been comparing my life to everyone else's, but actually, when I've looked at it, is that really what I wanted? Or is it just what I've been conditioned and just expected to happen because that's happened around me? And these are the things that I've been bringing up and working through over the last year, especially. But like this has been a couple of years since I quit my job. This has really, really stepped up, not in the way I expected it to, but here we are. But like I genuinely I didn't even realise, I just genuinely thought that that low level like dissatisfaction, I'm gonna call it, was just life. You know, you hear people say it, you just get on with it. That's life. But those cycles that feeling okay, then quiet, then stuck, then okay again. I thought that was just how being an adult was meant to feel like. I thought everyone was doing that, but not everyone is doing that, or they don't have to, anyways. So this is where I get on to that moment, it you know, that moment that I have spoken about when like it wasn't a dramatic moment where I woke up one day and was like, right, I am completely changing my whole life, but it was more of a slow dawning realization that started shifting things for me, and it came, and I've spoken about it so many times from watching cars, you know, my best friends, face something that none of us should have to face, especially not at such a young age. But when she got a diagnosis, something in me quietly started to move, and I didn't clock it at the time. I wasn't sitting there having some big epiphany, but looking back, that's when I started making different decisions, doing scary things, choosing things I'd been putting off, and she knew what I was trying to do. She was right there with me, behind me the whole way, cheering me on. She was 41 when we lost her, and she knew me well enough to know exactly what I was building, and she backed it completely. I don't need to say anything much more on that, you know the story, but I wanted to name it because it's the thread running through everything. She is a massive part of my why. You know, it's running through that the e-book that I've created, through the this podcast, through every decision I've made in the last few years. She was with me for most of it, and that truly does mean everything, and it's driving me forward. So, two years. The last two years. What exactly does the last two years look like? So it was my two-year anniversary the other day from when I walked away from my corporate nine to five, a job that paid me well. But my word, the burnout was something else, and the stress, the anxiety. But yeah, what does it look like? Looks like leaving a job with no certainty of what comes next. And call me naive, call me naive. But I honestly thought that things would start to shift a lot sooner than they actually did. But this has been part of my journey, and who I am right now is because of all of that. But the last two years, it looks like trying to move out to a beefest, starting an online business to now selling a house, which I have done, and yeah, I'm currently in that very fun state of limbo where I've sold it, I'm clearing stuff out, and no completion date. We're into like what is it, week 11. But I've been told it could take 20 weeks, so I'm just waiting because I can't really do anything else. And with everything going on with people, I've seen saying, Can you still get to Bali? Yes, I will get to Bali. If I can't get to Bali, it'll be somewhere else. But I am waiting, but I'm trusting. Now, the old gem, she would have been having sleepless nights over that one, she would have been laying wide awake in the like three o'clock in the morning, catastrophizing, and honestly, I would have talked myself out of the whole thing before I'd even got to this point. New gem, she's just sitting in it, which still surprises me, if I'm honest, because I am so chilled out about this. Ask me in a few weeks when I've got a completion date, might be a completely different like situation. But I am really surprised by how I how calm I'm feeling. But yeah, a beefair is still very much the plan. But honestly, I'm not gonna lie, um, finding it hard seeing all of the the the content online about a beefair. The weather's not been great though, I was gonna throw that in there. But I think I'm taking that as that's because you you want to be there, you want to be there, so I'm holding on to that. I know though, it's not the right moment yet, it absolutely isn't. Now, if I was to go back there now, I feel like I would go back two years because I know that I need to go and do the solo travel thing first, and I'm completely at peace with that. A beefer will still be there in a few months. I am learning, I have learnt through the last few years especially to trust the timing rather than force it. Which again, old gem, and if you know me and you're listening to this, I never would have done that, but that's the whole point. We can't control the outcome, we've got to stop like controlling the outcome and let it be. So, the last two years as well, what does it look like? Building a business which is nowhere near where I want it to be, but still going. I've also I've got a few things within, I'm gonna call it my business portfolio. I've got a high-ticket business, I've got podcasts, I'm a content creator, I am an author, and I've gone through a year of therapy, more self-development content that honestly I've done a lot of work on myself, and I've had so many moments of what on earth am I doing that I'll I'll ever put on Instagram. But my friends listening to this will be like, Yep, I've been there, I've been with her, I've had front row seats. But yes, it has been the hardest two years of my life, the messiest, the most uncomfortable, and also, and I mean this the most growth I have ever experienced. Not because it went to plan, but because mostly it didn't, and I've stopped standing still, and I know that there's gonna be even more growth, like yes, I'm in my house in Cumbria right now, but I'm still moving forward, even though some days I'm saying to myself, I'm st I'm still here, but I am that version of me. She is she is on a beach in Bali, she's living a life in another country, and even though I am in Cumbria right now, how it works is the external environment will catch up, but internally I have shifted so much. So this Saturday I went to Newcastle with a group of my girlfriends, my school friends who I'm really fortunate to still be so close to, and it was just one of those days, you know, the ones where you come home and you just my cup was full. We went together to Newcastle to celebrate Caz in the way that she would have wanted because the last time we were all together, it was under very sad circumstances, and it was definitely far from quiet, and there was no sadness, but there was a lot of laughter, a lot of talking over each other, and honestly, just being exactly who we all are together, and she would have absolutely loved it. The train ride home was so much fun. There was a guy with a speaker behind us, and playing songs, like one of Karen's songs came on, it was just so it was just fantastic. But at one point, I looked around at this group of women that were with me, and I thought to myself, every single one of us has a story: divorce, grief, loss, bereavement, illness, injury, drama. I couldn't make it up if I tried. And some of these women, by the world's definition, aren't behind. They've got the relationships, the kids, the things we're supposedly meant to have sorted by now, and yet life has still handed them the hard stuff. Having the timeline doesn't protect you from any of it, it just looks different from the outside. But I'm saying this because I know some of you listening might not have a Saturday like that. I know from messages people say to me that they don't have the friendships either. And you might not have that group or any group, but I want you to know that that doesn't define you and it doesn't determine what's possible for you. Your circle or the size of it or the absence of one, that is not the measure of your life. But I also want to say this, and I'm going to say this directly: we cannot live in the waiting room of our own lives. We can feel it, the loneliness, the comparison, the grief of what we thought life would look like by now. We absolutely should feel it. But we cannot stay there because I did four years. And all I did was watch time go by while I waited for something outside of me to change. Now, here's what I now know that I didn't know then. The certainty doesn't come before the decision, it comes after. You don't wait until you feel ready and then move. You move and the readiness builds. If I was waiting to be ready, I would never do it. I got back in from a run where I get all my crazy good ideas, and I was like, I need to sell a house, and that's what happened. Okay, I wasn't ready, I'm still not ready, but I'm doing it anyways. Now I'm not saying you have to do the drastic thing of selling your house, but it starts by making a conscious decision to do something, whether you're feeling ready or not, and the chances are you're not gonna feel ready to do it. But confidence isn't something you wake up with one day, it's something that you build by doing a thing when you're not confident, surviving it. We're still here, I'm still doing my podcast. I was terrified when I started this. I still have my moments where I think, what am I doing? But you keep doing it. Now I'm not standing here telling you that I've got it sorted and I don't want this to find sound like I have, and there's no preachy vibes, I'm just so passionate. Like, I haven't got it sorted. Believe you me, I'm financially stretched, I'm building something with no guaranteed outcome, taking chances, taking risks, and some days are genuinely hard, but I am moving, I am choosing every single day in small ways. I'm choosing that life that I actually want rather than waiting for it to arrive. I'm choosing my hard. This morning I didn't want to go to the gym, didn't want to go, but I went because I knew I would feel good. And I said to myself, you never ever regret a workout, and just imagine how you're gonna feel when you finished. And there we go, I felt bloody good. Didn't at the time, but it's all about progression, not perfection. That's all it is, and my ebook, I'm gonna put it in there right now. Is this it? Is everything I've actually used to get to that place that keeps me there on those hard days. It's not a one-time read, not a quick fix, it's a reset. Something to come back to when you're back in your headspace, back in that comparison spiral, back in that is this it feeling because you're gonna have them. I still have them, but it's like because those moments don't stop, you just get better at catching them. I know I have, so and and you will too, but you have to keep doing that, you have to keep reminding yourself, keep driving yourself, keep moving forward. The link is in the show notes, go and have a look. So that's it. Two years messy, hard, real, unfiltered, and absolutely worth it. I wouldn't want to like some of the stuff I've gone through, like you know, losing cars are are that horrendous, but the last two years of all the choices that I've made has been completely worth it, no matter how difficult some of it has been. So if you're sitting in that comparison right now, if you're feeling behind now, this doesn't some of you might be listening to this and you've you're married and you've got kids, but there's still something in you that that feels off. I'm talking to you too. And if you're waiting for the right moment or the right circumstances or the right version of yourself to show up before you start, I just want you to know that I do get it and I've been there, but you don't have to stay there, you don't need to have it together, you just need to start. Right, honesty. Thank you so so much, everybody. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. If you've enjoyed it, please do make sure to like, subscribe, please share it to anyone that you think would really benefit from listening to this. And as always, I truly do appreciate you all. Please take care of yourselves. Have a great week, and I will speak to you on the next one. Thanks, guys, see you soon.