Certainty sells us a lie: that if we just hold out a little longer, the fear will disappear. It won't. This is a deep dive into the "Certainty Trap," the subtle way fear speaks in a convincing voice, and why the leap you're avoiding will never feel safe.

Psychologists call this an extinction burst. When we surround ourselves with pizza and Pringles on a Sunday night before a Monday diet, we aren’t failing.

We are just pigeons at the button, throwing one last, magnificent tantrum before we let go.

We give ourselves explicit permission to struggle with the unexpected curveballs. But when we choose to change—switching careers, ending a plateauing relationship, moving away—we trap ourselves in guilt, wondering why a positive choice still feels so heavy.

Living your best life is a strange phrase when you're inside it.

From the outside it sounds bright and chosen and free.

From the inside, for me at least, it looks a lot more like hard work and loneliness and fighting the fear of failure every single day. It just doesn't look that way on a screen."

I did not feel ready when I quit my job. I did not feel ready when I sold my house, gave away most of my belongings, and said a tearful goodbye to friends, family and my dog — decisions that still cost me something every time I think about them. I definitely did not feel ready when I boarded a flight to Thailand, with a one-way ticket and an inner monologue that went something like...

What the actual fuck are you doing?

We are very quick to recognise change when it hurts.

A breakup is a change. A redundancy is a change. An illness is a change. A loss is a change.

But what about the changes we welcome?

Building confidence. Falling in love. Recovering from something difficult. Learning to trust yourself.

Do we describe these experiences as change in the same way, or do we call them something else?