by Lena Malorodova

“Magic happens when you head straight into something that scares the living sh** out of you.” 

When I first saw this quote pop up on my social media, sitting on my couch on a random Thursday in early 2021, I instantly liked it. It summarizes pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone and reaping great reward from doing so. Very short, sweet, and catchy, I thought to myself, “I obviously do this all the time, right?” But the longer I thought about it, the more convinced I became that this life philosophy is way more nuanced and oftentimes harder to execute than one might think, on a weekday, on the couch, in pajamas.

Over the last year and a half, the COVID-19 pandemic has completely restructured how we as a society operate. It impacted how we interact with others and changed the dynamic of how we go about our day-to-day lives. Our social interactions became limited and more contained, our travel and trips became less frequent, and our ability to meet up with new and old friends took a major hit. Plenty of people have been doing the same thing for so long now, that returning to what life “used to be like” seems impossible. 

“Magic happens when you head straight into something that scares the living sh** out of you.” For a lot of people, getting back out into the world the same way they used to is what scares them the most. 

For me? I felt stuck. I’d talked about moving out of the DC area for a couple of years, but when COVID-19 happened, life went into limbo. Things started getting better with the vaccine rollout, but at that point, the thought of actually making such a big change seemed unattainable. The list of things to do to make it possible seemed overwhelming, especially after spending so much time quarantined in my DC apartment. 

The list, though, looked something like this:

1. Find a new place in Denver, my ideal destination 

2. Buy a new car since my beat-up, old sedan wouldn’t cut it in the mountains 

3. Find a way to transport all my stuff across the country without breaking the bank

4. Learn how to survive without my DC support system

5. Make an in-company transfer to live outside of DC

6. Pack all of my belongings, hoping they don’t break

7. Unpack those same belongings on the other side

Every time I looked at this mental list, I panicked. It was too much planning, too much organizing, and overall too much to conquer. 

I spent most of May 2021 debating and stressing over whether this would be a good move for me or if I’d end up regretting it. And, to be honest, the stress of not making a decision was worse than any choice I could’ve made. The day I decided I was going to do it, and deal with anything that came after, a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I realized there’s no such thing as a right or wrong decision—I simply had to make one and then make it right. I tackled my list one at a time, setting manageable short-term goals for myself:

Example #1:

• “Today I’m going to call the moving container company to get a moving quote from them.”

  Knowing a task genuinely wouldn’t take more than a few minutes of effort made it feel attainable, and like I was working toward meeting my larger goal.

Example #2:

• “Today I’m going to check Nextdoor to see if anybody is giving away free moving boxes.”

  I ended up doing this twice, on two random days when I had a brief spurt of motivation, and that’s how I got all of the moving boxes I used in my move. Very little effort, it helped me save some money, and because I did it a couple months before my move, it saved me a lot of stress down the road.

Example #3:

• “Today I’m going to google everything I need to know about buying a car.”

  This was a new one for me, and quite daunting. Researching helped me feel much more confident walking into a dealership by myself to negotiate. I asked all my friends for tips and negotiating advice, and all were a big help! The day I bought my car, I felt the greatest sense of accomplishment since before the pandemic. I never would’ve forced myself to go through that process if I hadn’t decided to move to Denver.

Bit by bit, the list started whittling down. Suddenly my boxes were packed, my old car sold, and I was about to drive cross-country. I remember sitting on my living room floor with a takeout spread out in front of me on a spare box, looking around at the empty space, in shock that it was actually happening. From the second I decided to officially move, everything that followed was just a mountain of small tasks that, when broken down, didn’t seem like an overwhelming amount of work after all.

I’m not saying everyone has to make a big change in their lives; wherever you are is exactly where you need to be. But there’s something to be said for pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, and these days it’s harder to do than it may have been before.

Once you throw yourself into the thing that scares you, you enable yourself to grow and experience new things. At least for me, this decision is what I needed to get myself out of limbo and hit play on a life that had been on pause for over a year.

Lena is a Senior Consultant at IBM who currently lives in Denver, CO. She graduated from the University of Maryland, where she studied International Business and Economics. You'll often find her at the airport, traveling both for work and to fulfill her lifelong quest to find the best cafe both domestic and abroad. When at home, most of her time is spent watching Friends, reading a good book, or wandering the city (with a cup of coffee in hand, of course).