Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I wanna take ya to Bermuda, Bahamas, cooome on pretty mama!

So off I went to Bermuda.

Ok, so there’s a bit more to that story. I get asked this question all the time and I never get tired of telling the story. I still look back on it and think “Did I really move to Bermuda??”. The story began in February of 2010…

How it all started…

In 2008, I graduated from Dental Hygiene eager to start my career. I was so happy to finally be done school, my program was super intense and demanding. Not to mention the student loans, oh boy!

But as many of you may remember, 2008 was the start of a terrible recession. Coupled with the fact that my job market had some major saturation thanks to some private schools churning out dental hygienists like they were Honda Civics, finding a job was no easy task.

The first year and a half of my career was spent temping at offices that needed coverage for holidays, sick day and maternity leaves. There was so much competition and every employer wanted at least two years of experience. The work was so unsteady, one week I’d have a full 40 hours, then I wouldn’t see a shift for days or even weeks on end.

With student loan payments looming, I started to look elsewhere for work. I was willing to leave my city, and even entertained working out of province. But I wasn’t considering going any further than that, leaving Canada was not really an option. Then one fateful day, I received an email from a temp agency I belonged to about a job opening in Bermuda…

Why I Decided To Go…

Looking back now, there was what I call a “perfect storm” in my life that lead me to decide to move. Unfortunately, most of these factors were pretty negative things. I had just had a major falling out with a very close friend, I was in an unhealthy on-again/off-again relationship with my high school sweetheart, and as mentioned I couldn’t find stable work. The falling out with my friend was causing awkwardness with other friends. I felt like my boyfriend and I weren’t suited for each other but we were too comfortable to break up and stay broken up.The instability of work is self-explanatory.

I was also going through what I call a quarter-life crisis. I was 23 years old and still pretty fresh out of college. Half my friends were still in school, the other half were getting married and having babies. I was stuck somewhere in the middle. I was happy to have my college days behind me but not quite ready to settle down and start a family. I also live in a city that caters to university life and “settled-down” life, but not much in between.

Although I wasn’t looking for work outside of Canada, the opportunity and timing were perfect. I felt like it had to be more than a coincidence. So I sent my resume over and about a month later had the interview and the job offer all in one week.

I applied mostly just “to see” what happened next. I never really entertained that I’d actually get the job so I wasn’t prepared for it when my future employer wanted a response in a few days. There were a ton of people I consulted about this over the next three days!

Battling The “What-Ifs”

And here we have that pesky self-doubt kicking in again. Although I must say, not all of the doubt was my own. My close family and friends had concerns about the adjustments I’d be making. As a social butterfly, the idea of moving to a place where I didn’t know a soul was worrying. Would I get lonely? Would I feel isolated? Would I spin into a spiral of depression? All valid concerns.

Needless to say, there are a bunch of other “what-ifs” that come along with such a big decision. What if I hated it there? Or what if I just felt homesick in general? After all, I’ve always been very close with my family, and my friends meant the world to me. Would I miss out on a lot of big things while I was away? What if things didn’t work out with my employer?

Here’s the thing, there are always going to be reasons to do something, and when we look hard enough, an equal or greater number of reasons not to do something. The question becomes “How much could I miss out on if I don’t take this step?”. Yes, there would be things I’d have to miss out on. Birthdays, some holidays, random girls’ nights out or family get-togethers. But this was a chance to find out who I really was, to break out of my comfort zone and see what I was capable of. Imagine missing out on that?

And the moral of the story is…

I’m so beyond thankful that I took this leap of faith. The experiences I’ve had, the people I’ve met and the personal growth I’ve done as a result of moving have been invaluable. If you’ve read this far into this post, I feel like I’m just stating the obvious but allow me to elaborate. Moving to a new country (especially on your own) opens your eyes to a whole new world. A world of possibilities, of passions and desires you didn’t even know you had. You realize how much the world has to offer but also how small it really is. My family has been my rock and my friendships have grown stronger and you see who’s really by your side.

At the end of the day, big payouts often require big risks. Some of the risks are worth it, others…not so much. I could have spent all the effort and money to make the move only to absolutely hate it. But so what? I’d still be learning in the process! Learning about my limits, learning that I had the guts to take the leap. We learn from our failures, often times more than we learn from our successes.

So really, what do we have to lose? Take the leap!

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Please comment below and share about a huge risk or leap of faith you took and let us know how it turned out!