We’ve all heard the advice.
“Bloom where you’re planted.”
It’s embroidered on pillows.
Printed on mugs.
Shared in motivational posts by people who have probably never spent six months crying in the parking lot before work.
And sure...sometimes it’s beautiful advice.
Sometimes life is simply asking us to be patient. To put down roots. To weather a difficult season.
But sometimes?
The soil is just bad.
Sometimes you’re planted in a place that slowly convinces you you’re asking for too much when all you’ve ever wanted was basic respect.
Sometimes the people around you only notice your mistakes and never your gifts.
Sometimes every Sunday afternoon your stomach knots up because Monday is coming.
Your body often knows the truth long before your mind is willing to admit it.
We tell ourselves to hang in there.
To be grateful.
To keep blooming.
To work harder.
To be nicer.
To make ourselves smaller.
We mistake endurance for virtue.
But there is a difference between perseverance and self-abandonment.
The world has convinced us that staying is always noble. It rarely asks whether staying is also costing us who we were created to become.
Here’s what I wish someone had told me years ago:
You are not a tree.
You can move.
You can leave the job.
You can end the partnership.
You can walk away from the committee that drains your soul.
You can start over at sixty.
Or seventy.
Or tomorrow morning.
One of the most creative acts you’ll ever perform has nothing to do with painting, writing, music, or business.
It’s redesigning your own life.
Creativity isn’t just making things.
It’s making choices.
It’s refusing to believe that because you’ve always done something one way, you must continue forever.
Every major transformation in my life began with one uncomfortable question:
“What if this isn’t where I’m supposed to stay?”
That question led me to new careers.
New friendships.
New opportunities.
New dreams I didn’t even know existed.
Leaving isn’t failure.
Sometimes leaving is faith.
Sometimes it takes enormous courage to believe there might be better soil somewhere else.
Not easier.
Just healthier.
A place where your ideas are welcomed instead of tolerated.
Where your work is valued.
Where your laughter returns.
Where Sunday afternoons feel like possibility instead of dread.
If you’re constantly shrinking yourself to fit inside someone else’s expectations...
If you’re never celebrated...
If your gifts are treated like inconveniences...
If your spirit feels exhausted before the week even begins...
Maybe your problem isn’t that you haven’t bloomed.
Maybe you’ve simply outgrown the pot.
You don’t owe your life to bad soil.
You are allowed to choose sunlight.
You are allowed to choose peace.
You are allowed to choose joy.
You are allowed to choose yourself.
Because you are not a tree.
You can move.
And sometimes...
Moving is exactly where the magic begins.
Stay sassy, loves.
And go make some damn magic.
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For sure. My similar Change oriented theme is usually… “you can’t build on shifting sand”.
OMG, I cried in the parking lot before work once. If I could go back in time, I would have quit that job much earlier than I did.
Brilliant thoughts, Stephanie. Thanks for writing this.