There are only so many times you can be pushed to your limit before you finally say “enough is enough.”

There are only so many passive aggressive emails you can respond to and days spent walking on eggshells you can spend before you realize that you just cannot stay here. Different places and people will become our homes throughout our entire lives, but there is no guarantee on how long we will be allowed to stay. Maybe it is three years later, and you wake up forgetting what it’s like to want to go to work or maybe it’s been a decade of wondering who you really are. No matter the time frame or the situation, you have to promise yourself that you will not stay in places that no longer serve you. You have permission to choose someone else to spend your life with, and you most certainly have permission to leave any and all toxic environments.

Change is never going to be easy, but it is far better to choose something difficult for yourself over something damaging.

The “easy” way is often the most detrimental. The way it drags you down little by little, each and every day. You brush it off as just another small dent in an otherwise picture-perfect life. But what we often fail to realize is that there can only be so many small dents before a larger, unfixable one is created. You can only polish something so many times before its original shine eventually fades away. We can only justify our choices to stay in negative situations for so long before we begin to see that we are truly in too deep.

The depth of some of the worst situations you will ever experience often takes years to surface, but once it does, be certain that you will be forever changed and will probably spend a lifetime trying to undo the damage wreaked.

This is not to say that we are weak or we are wrong for staying in toxic situations. You will experience times in your life where sometimes all that you can do is grin and bear it and hope for the day you don’t have to pretend anymore. We will all go through some sort of hurtful situation in our life; it is inevitable. Maybe it’s a bad relationship, which will teach us just how much better we deserve than we ever thought possible for ourselves, or maybe it is a job that works you to the bone without even as little as a “thank you.”

Just because something is inevitable, does not mean you have to let it consume you. We can use each and every negative emotion and situation to grow and better ourselves, but you have to take the first step. I believe everything happens for a reason and that while some reasons may take ages to surface, eventually we will hit that “aha!” moment, and everything will come full circle. I believe in destiny, but also in our own ability to either pull in or push away that which we are meant for.

The hardest decision you will probably ever have to make is to leave.

You might have to leave the person you convinced yourself was your soulmate because sometimes we learn that people are not who we perceive them to be. Maybe the job that saved you all of those years ago has now become the reason for your pain. Just because someone or something was a positive influence in our lives, in the beginning, does not mean they will remain that way. Just as we grow up and evolve, the people and situations we find ourselves in do as well; sometimes this growth is for the better, and sometimes it can hurt us in ways we never thought possible. We spend an awful lot of time painting a prettier picture of our lives for ourselves and others, and often we can lose our own grip on reality because we have become such great artists. It is amazing what you are able to convince yourself of when fear is involved.

Please don’t let yourself believe that you deserve anything less than being happy with your life, your relationships, and your job.

Maybe today won’t be the day when everything gets better, but tomorrow could be.

As long as you never give up on wanting something better, you will be able to find it. You just have to promise yourself that you will take the first step towards freedom when the chance presents itself—or when you create it.