Broken your New Year resolution yet?
If not, good for you. If you have, don’t despair. A resolution can last longer than a week or two.
Three years ago, my New Year resolution was to make a big change. My wife and I had a serious conversation and agreed that it was time to make a new start in a new country. With family in Canada and having visited here several times, we knew it was the place for us.
But making the move meant taking that first big step: we decided to go.
Since then, we’ve had three eventful years. There was the preparation for applying to become permanent residents of Canada, gathering pretty much every piece of paperwork the human race ever invented, then mixing it up in complicated ways and rearranging it.
Then there was the actual application with all its weird little challenges, like police checks, medicals and transatlantic arguments. Then, armed with permission to move, we had to sell our house, pack up what we wanted to keep and ditch the rest.
Since arriving, there have been the small matters of finding work and a home, and re-establishing the lives we had shut down before leaving the UK. We lived in six homes during 2013. Yes, it’s been eventful.
All of that is a long-winded way of suggesting that decision, taken three years ago this month, has had consequences. It’s taken a great deal of work. The stress, heartache and expense have been significant. But, finally, I’m starting to feel like my 2011 New Year resolution has been fulfilled.
We have a normal life again. We have work and finally bought a house. In fact, we only moved into our house on December 28, because Christmas in a new country isn’t complicated enough and we had to make it a bigger challenge by moving home, too. Sigh.
At last, it’s all coming together. The big decision seems worth it.
So, what’s your New Year resolution? Do you want to make a big change in your life? It doesn’t have to be anything so drastic as emigrating, but it has to be important to you, so you can stick to it. That’s all it takes. Make a change and don’t give up.
Want to change your life? You can do it. I did. I don’t regret a thing.