There’s a question that can come up when you look back.
“Why did I stay so long?”
And sometimes it’s followed by:
“I should have left sooner.”
You weren’t ignoring what was happening.
You were trying to understand it.
Trying to make sense of something that felt inconsistent.
Trying to find clarity in something that didn’t fully resolve.
And that can keep you engaged longer than you expected.
Not because you weren’t paying attention…
But because you were.
When something is confusing, it doesn’t always push you away.
Sometimes it pulls you in.
You replay things.
You think it through.
You try to figure out what’s missing.
And part of you still hopes.
Not because you’re unaware.
But because there are moments that feel real.
Moments that make it seem like things could shift.
Hope and confusion together can be powerful.
They can keep you in something longer than you intended.
It means you were working with what you could see at the time.
There’s also a moment that comes.
It may not be loud.
It may not be immediate.
But something begins to shift.
And that’s when things begin to change.
Not when someone tells you to leave.
Not when it “should” have been obvious.
But when it made sense to you.
And that matters.
If this resonates, I talk more about this in this week’s podcast episode: