At 38, I gave myself one year and £15,000 (nearly $20,000 USD at the time) to completely change my life. I told myself that if it didn’t work, I’d go back to the life I had spent so long trying to leave.
At the time, I was a VP of Sales for a global wholesale business. I had spent the last 12 painstaking years working my way up the ladder, giving up evenings and weekends to pursue the next promotion. On paper, it looked like I was succeeding, but in reality, every rung broke my spirit a little more.
At the same time, my marriage was ending, and everything that once felt stable suddenly didn’t. For the first time in years, I felt lost. I was at a crossroads of what I thought I should do and what I wanted to do.
I gave myself a deadline and a financial limit
When my house sold, I made a decision that felt both freeing and terrifying in equal measures. Instead of putting that money toward long-term security, I used part of it to “get my business going,” which, if I’m being honest, turned into a travel fund.
I set myself a boundary: £15,000 (nearly $20,000 USD at the time) and 1 year. If my travel blog couldn’t sustain me before the money ran out, I would return to the rat race.
At that point, my blog was only bringing in around £50 (around $68 USD) on a good month. Not nearly enough to support me. I remember refreshing my earnings dashboard, knowing the number wouldn’t change. It wasn’t a business. It was an idea.
The deadline may have given me focus, but it also put pressure on me.
As the money ran out, I prepared to walk away
At first, everything felt exciting. I was traveling across Africa, building something that felt more aligned with who I was, but I was still only creating free content. Excitement and free safari exchanges don’t pay the bills.
As the months passed, the gap between what I was building and what actually worked grew harder to ignore. The blog wasn’t generating meaningful income, and the money I had set aside was steadily disappearing.
To make matters worse, my blog, which had slowly been gaining traction, crashed quite exceptionally two months before my year was up. Everything I had dreamed of suddenly felt impossible.
I found myself scrolling job listings late at night, saving roles I didn’t even want, just to prove to myself that I had a backup plan. Some were jobs I would have been proud of a year or so earlier. Now, they just felt like part of a life I was trying to leave behind.
Things started working when I was about to quit
I seriously considered giving up. I told myself that “at least I had tried.” I wasn’t ready to throw it all away just yet, though. I just needed a different plan. And so with the last remaining balance from the money I set aside, I invested in a new website.
That money could have allowed me to extend my arbitrary boundary of a year by a few extra months. But instead, I decided to go all in and give my business the leg up it needed if I genuinely wanted people to take me seriously.
The results weren’t instant, but things did start to shift gradually. Work I had put in months earlier started to gain traction. My content began reaching the right people, and doors I had never even imagined started to open.
More on making a career pivot
My first breakthrough came in June 2025 when I landed my first paid brand collaboration. It wasn’t life-changing money, but it proved there was a market for what I was creating. A few months later, my Tanzania group tour sold out, and as my website traffic climbed, my affiliate income became meaningful rather than occasional.
It didn’t feel like success. But it sure did feel like relief.
Over time, that momentum became something sustainable. What started as a blog evolved into a mix of content, tours, and consulting work within the travel industry.
My idea of security has changed
Some may think I was reckless. Sure, I used money that could have gone toward long-term stability without any guarantee it would work. But what I’ve realized is that the version of security I had before didn’t actually feel secure. It was predictable, but it wasn’t fulfilling.
Giving myself a defined window and a financial limit forced me to commit fully in a way I never had before.
Sometimes, the bigger risk isn’t walking away. It’s staying somewhere that no longer fits.
Read the full article here
