Why Owning What You Want Is the Bravest Move You Haven't Made Yet

There's a version of you that knows.

She knows the job isn't it. She's known for a while, actually. And she's not confused about what she wants — she's just been making it more reasonable before she lets herself say it out loud. Softening the edges. Finding better timing. Telling herself she just needs a little more before she can decide.

That version of you is paying what I call the Nice Girl Tax. And it's costing more than you realize.

What Is the Nice Girl Tax?

The Nice Girl Tax is the hidden price of being so responsible, so practical, so committed to doing things the right way — that you keep delaying the life you actually want to live.

You pay it with your time. Your energy. The creative ideas that go untouched because you're already exhausted. The desire that lives in the back of your chest that you've trained yourself to keep quiet because wanting more still feels a little like ingratitude, a little like recklessness, and a lot like being someone who doesn't know how good she has it.

It's not loud. That's what makes it so expensive. It sounds like: it's not the right time. I should be grateful. Once I get a little further, then I'll really go for it.

It costs you in the margins of your day, the margins of your energy, and eventually — if you let it run long enough — it costs you in the margins of who you actually are.

The Two Ways Women Finally Wake Up

There are two ways women come to the realization that the job they're in isn't where they want to stay.

The first is through time. Enough instances accumulate. Enough Sunday nights tip over into dreading Monday. Enough of the thing they've been tolerating becomes intolerable. The morning meetings feel frantic. The calendar feels like it's hemorrhaging. The promotions they worked so hard for stop feeling like wins. And eventually, that slow, quiet drip becomes a flood.

The second is when something wakes you up.

Not gradually. All at once. It's the circumstance that cracks your life open and shows you — with terrifying, undeniable clarity — that you have one precious life. And you don't have another year, another decade, or another version of you to waste.

September 4th, 2016 was that moment for me.

The Sunday That Changed Everything

My dad passed away unexpectedly that day. He was 64 years old. He was stung by bees, went into anaphylactic shock, and was gone before any of us could say goodbye. I was 29, just engaged a month and a half earlier. I remember standing in my mom's kitchen, holding some dish someone had brought over, looking at my sister and asking the question I couldn't keep from coming out: who's going to walk me down the aisle now?

Grief is like that. It asks the most practical questions in the most devastating moments.

But underneath that grief was something else — something that cracked me open in a way I didn't expect.

My dad was a good man. A genuinely, simply good man. The newspaper called my mom after he passed, because the story had run, and they asked her to describe him. What she said was: he was just everything good. That's the most accurate thing I know how to say about him.

And this man, who was everything good, had spent years quietly grumbling about his job. Not dramatically — it wasn't a tense household. It was subtle. The low-grade complaint on his way in the door. The grumble about the annoying customer, the dumb decision at work, the driver who didn't know how to use a crosswalk. It was never: I love what I do. It was always just: that's just how work is.

And that's what I absorbed growing up. That's the story I built: your job is the thing you complain about. You work, you wait, and someday — retirement — everything opens up and you get to live.

For my dad, that someday was woodworking. He was extraordinary at it. He'd spot something in a store window and think: I could make that. Then he'd sketch it out in a notebook and, a couple months later, there would be this stunning, one-of-a-kind piece that existed first only in his mind. He was building toward more of that in retirement.

He was less than a year away when he passed. He never got there.

The Permission Slip You've Been Waiting For

The moment I stood in my mom's kitchen after his passing was the moment I drew a line in the sand. A loud, permanent line. I will not keep trading my time for a someday that is not promised.

A few months later, my mom and I went to see The Shack — yes, two grieving women, yes, we sobbed through the whole thing. And leaving the theater, I started telling her about this health coaching certification I'd been circling. I was terrified of the investment. I was telling myself it wasn't responsible, it wasn't smart, the timing was wrong. All the things a very responsible, practical, Nice Girl tells herself.

And right in the middle of all that — while I was sharing the desire and the fear at the exact same time — an eagle flew over our car. Not past us. Over us. And it hovered.

From the moment my dad passed, the eagle had been his sign. His way of saying: I see you. I've got you. And in that moment, I understood the message as clearly as I've understood anything: go do the damn thing.

That was the moment I stopped pretending I didn't know what I wanted.

It wasn't a business plan. It wasn't a confidence download or a five-step strategy. It was the permission to own the desire — out loud, without making it more reasonable first.

And here's the thing I keep coming back to: my dad didn't run out of talent. He didn't run out of drive, or creativity, or love for the craft. What he ran out of was time.

You're Not Running Out of Strategy

When women start thinking about leaving their jobs and going all in on their businesses, the fears that surface are almost always about money, clients, strategy, not being ready yet. And those fears are real and valid and I'm not going to put a cute affirmational quote over them and tell you to just keep going.

But here's the distinction that matters: money can be earned. Clients can be found. Strategy can be learned. Confidence can be built. All of that can be accumulated over time.

What you cannot get back is time.

The cost of waiting isn't just time. It's the life you never get to live while you keep convincing yourself that later will be safer. And later will always have a reason to stay later.

So I want to ask you something real: What desire have you been trying to make more reasonable before you let yourself own it? What have you been calling "not the right time" when the truth is you're scared of what changes the moment you admit you want it?

You're not confused. You're not incapable. You're simply waiting for permission to want what you want.

This is your permission slip.

The Move Is Not Reckless. The Move Is Honest.

I want to be clear: owning the desire does not mean quitting your job tomorrow. It doesn't mean lighting your life on fire and calling it freedom. That's not what I teach, because pressure doesn't produce freedom — it just produces a different kind of constraint.

After my dad passed and I woke up to my own life, it still took me four more years to leave my job. Those four years mattered. I was building. Coaching clients. Creating evidence that I could do this. Strengthening my business until the foundation was solid enough that leaving wasn't a leap — it was the next inevitable step into a safety net I'd built myself.

So own the desire. Tell yourself the truth. And then build the structure to support it. Because sometimes the bravest move isn't the leap — it's the quiet, clear admission to yourself: I want to leave. Not because I have to. Because I want to.

That's where it starts.

If you're ready to stop postponing and start building a real plan, Exit Plan is the program that takes you from "I know I want this" to "here's exactly what I'm doing about it." Not a leap of faith. An actual plan. [EXIT PLAN LINK]

And this is only Part 1. Next week, we're talking about why leaving a job you don't technically have to leave is one of the hardest things a high-achieving woman can do — and why wanting more is already enough of a reason. Subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss it. And if this piece hit something real in you, share it with the woman who keeps saying she knows she's meant for more, but keeps telling herself she's fine.