I Was Supposed to Do This Forever 🌿
By Sage Robinson-Miller – Growth Coach – Growing Sage
If you had told most people ten years ago that I'd retire from athletic training before I turned fifty, they would've laughed.
Honestly, I probably would've laughed too.
Then I probably would've gone back to work because I had three games, four injuries, two parent phone calls, and approximately seventeen things on fire at the time. 🤣
Not because I hated the profession.
Not because I wasn't respected.
Not because I wasn't successful.
Quite the opposite.
I loved it.
I was good at it.
People trusted me.
I had spent decades building relationships, developing programs, helping athletes, supporting coaches, and showing up day after day after day. Without ever really intending to, I had built a reputation. I had built trust. I had built a legacy.
From the outside, it looked exactly like where I was supposed to be.
And for a long time, it was.
That's what makes this kind of change so confusing for people.
Most people understand leaving something that's broken. They understand leaving a toxic job, a bad relationship, or a situation that's clearly no longer working. What people struggle to understand is leaving something that still looks successful. They especially struggle to understand it when you're good at it.
Really good at it.
The reaction I get most often isn't judgment.
It's confusion.
People usually stare at me for a second and then start asking questions. Lots of questions. 🤣
Because from their perspective, none of this makes sense. They knew me as an athletic trainer. They knew me as a teacher. And not just someone doing those jobs, but someone who genuinely loved them and poured her heart into them. They watched me build programs, build relationships, build trust, and create results. So when people hear that I retired from athletic training and likely won't remain in teaching forever either, they often look at me like I just announced I'm moving to the moon.
And honestly?
I get it.
If someone told me one of the best investors they knew was quitting to open a craft store, I'd probably have questions too. 🤣
Part of the reason this change confuses people so much is because we all carry assumptions about who is likely to reinvent themselves. Most of us know people who have had fifteen jobs, lived in six cities, started three businesses, and completely changed directions every couple of years. When those people announce they're doing something different, nobody is surprised.
That's kind of their thing.
We all know at least one person who's had eight careers, three side businesses, and a brief phase where they were making artisan candles out of their garage. 🤣
They're explorers.
Experimenters.
Professional reinvention specialists.
People expect change from them.
What they don't expect is change from the dependable ones.
The people who show up.
The people who stay.
The people who build things.
The people who become known for consistency.
The people who are structured, organized, responsible, disciplined, and predictable.
People like me.
I was the person who found a planner she liked and then bought the exact same planner for fifteen consecutive years.
Change was not exactly my brand. 🤣
For most of my life, I was exactly that person. I wasn't bouncing around chasing every shiny object that crossed my path. If anything, I probably stayed in situations longer than most people would have. When I committed to something, I committed fully. I wasn't interested in dabbling. I wanted mastery. I wanted excellence. I wanted to contribute. I wanted to leave things better than I found them.
That's why people are still so confused.
Because from the outside, it looks like I woke up one morning and randomly decided to walk away from two careers I was exceptionally good at.
That couldn't be further from the truth.
This wasn't impulsive.
If anything, it was the opposite.
The decision took years.
Years of reflection.
Years of health challenges.
Years of asking bigger questions.
Years of realizing that being good at something and being called to continue it are not actually the same thing.
That realization was surprisingly difficult for me.
For a long time, I assumed that if I was good at something, I should keep doing it. If people respected me, I should keep doing it. If I'd built something meaningful, I should definitely keep doing it. That seemed logical. In many ways, it was exactly how I had been raised to think.
My generation largely grew up believing that you chose a career and stayed with it. You built something. You committed to it. You worked hard. You put in your years. There was honor in consistency and loyalty. There still is.
But one of the interesting things about spending time around younger generations is realizing they don't necessarily view life that way. They don't automatically assume that a decision made at twenty-two has to define them at forty-two. They don't assume that changing directions means failure. They don't assume that outgrowing something means something went wrong.
And honestly, I think they might be onto something.
Many of us were raised to believe that if you changed your mind after thirty, you were required to submit a written explanation to the committee. 🤣
One of the things I've noticed over the last several years is that our culture does an incredible job teaching us how to achieve and a terrible job teaching us how to listen. We're taught how to perform. We're taught how to produce. We're taught how to be dependable, responsible, and productive. We're taught how to meet expectations, hit deadlines, climb ladders, and keep pushing through discomfort.
What we're not taught very often is how to slow down long enough to hear ourselves think.
We're not taught how to listen to our bodies.
We're not taught how to listen to our hearts.
We're not taught how to sit quietly with ourselves long enough to recognize when something no longer fits.
In fact, most of us were taught the exact opposite.
Tired?
Push harder.
Burned out?
Have some more caffeine.
Exhausted?
Here's another responsibility.
Problem solved. 🤣
Most of society seems designed to pull us away from ourselves. There is always another notification, another responsibility, another opinion, another expectation, another reason to stay busy. If we're not careful, we can spend decades responding to everyone else's needs without ever stopping to ask ourselves what we actually need.
I know I did.
For most of my life, I was so busy showing up for other people that I rarely paused long enough to ask what was happening inside of me. And when I finally did start paying attention—when I started listening to my body, my intuition, my energy levels, my health, and my heart—it changed everything.
Because once you develop those skills, there's really no going back.
Once you've felt the difference between alignment and misalignment, you can't unfeel it.
Once you've learned how to recognize when something is draining the life out of you, it's hard to keep pretending you don't notice.
Once you've heard that quiet inner voice enough times and watched it prove itself right, ignoring it becomes increasingly difficult.
Not because you're trying to be dramatic.
Because the consequences become too obvious.
I spent years watching my body wave giant red flags at me. Low energy. Chronic stress. Health challenges. Burnout. A nervous system that was practically begging for a different pace of life. Looking back, I don't think my body was betraying me.
I think it was trying to save me.
And eventually I reached a point where I couldn't unknow what I knew.
I couldn't unsee what I was seeing.
I couldn't keep telling myself that success automatically meant fulfillment.
That was the real turning point.
Not retirement.
Not the business.
Not leaving athletic training.
The turning point was learning how to listen.
Which sounds very wise and spiritual now.
At the time, it mostly looked like me wondering why my body was filing complaints with management every week. 🤣
I think one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is permission to acknowledge that reality. Permission to admit that we're not the same person we were ten years ago.
Permission to recognize that our priorities, values, goals, and dreams might have evolved. Permission to stop forcing ourselves to stay inside an identity simply because we've worn it for a long time.
Because being dependable doesn't mean being stuck.
Being loyal doesn't mean abandoning yourself.
And being good at something doesn't automatically mean it's meant to be forever.
That last one took me a long time to learn.
The truth is, I didn't leave athletic training because I hated it.
I left because I loved it enough to be honest about what was changing inside of me.
I didn't leave because I wasn't respected.
I didn't leave because I wasn't successful.
I didn't leave because I failed.
I left because the version of me who built that life wasn't the same version of me anymore.
And maybe that's what surprises people the most.
We tend to assume that identities end because something went wrong. Sometimes they end because they went right. Sometimes we succeed beyond our wildest expectations. Sometimes we build something beautiful. Sometimes we pour our hearts into it for decades.
And then one day we realize we've become someone different.
Not better.
Not worse.
Different.
Which is slightly less inspiring than a Hollywood transformation montage, but significantly more accurate. 🤣
And maybe the bravest thing we can do in that moment isn't cling to the old identity.
Maybe it's thank it for everything it gave us and have the courage to move forward anyway.
Even when people don't understand.
Even when we don't fully understand.
Even when everyone—including us—thought we'd be doing it forever.
Turns out the most predictable person in the room was capable of surprising herself too. ❤️
Reflection Questions
🌿 What identity am I still carrying simply because I've worn it for a long time?
🔥 Have I mistaken consistency for obligation?
🕯️ Where in my life am I being invited to change my mind?
Thank You for Growing w/Me.
With Love,
– Sage 🌿
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