The Quiet Signal: Knowing When It’s Time to Change (And How to Take the First Step)

Feeling like something needs to change—but not sure what or where to start?

In this episode of Elevate Her, we explore the quiet signs that it's time for a new chapter and why so many women stay stuck long after they know something isn't working. You'll learn practical, manageable ways to take the first step toward a life that feels more aligned—without waiting until you feel "ready."

Key Takeaways:

• The subtle signs it's time for a change
• Why we stay stuck even when we know it's time to move on
• How fear, comfort, and waiting for permission keep us in place
• Simple, practical ways to take the first step with confidence
• Why clarity comes from action—not before it

Hosted by Theresa Gonnella, a pharmaceutical sales leader and transformational coach who has led large teams and helped shape national sales strategy. After an unexpected layoff in her early 30s, she moved to Italy, built a private wine label, wrote a book, and returned to corporate America with a new perspective on risk, reinvention, resilience, and success on her own terms.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Elevate Her Podcast. I am really happy you're here. I'm Teresa Ganella, and if it's your first time with us, I am so happy that you found us. This is the space where we talk honestly about the messy, beautiful, in progress lives we're all living around careers, relationship, money, health, spirituality, identity, all of it. In today's episode, it's one that I've been waiting to do for a long time. And honestly, starting with the podcast, I love how this episode kicks us off because I think almost every person listening right now is carrying around some version of the same quiet thought. And that quiet thought is I think something needs to change. I don't know what, and I definitely don't know how, but I know something needs to change. So maybe it's your job, maybe it's a relationship, maybe it's starting a podcast, maybe it's just the way that you've been living on autopilot, doing the responsible thing, showing up for everyone except yourself. And that thought just kind of sits there for months, for years sometimes, knowing that you need to make a change, but that you're just on autopilot. So today we're gonna talk about two things how to actually know what it takes to make a change, because that's not always obvious. And then most importantly, how to take that first step because knowing isn't the hard part. The hard part is actually moving towards step one. So let's go ahead and jump into it. So here are the signs that you're ready, even if you don't feel ready. I want to start out by saying this wanting to make a change does not require a dramatic rock bottom moment. We've been sold this idea that you need to have some sort of big breakdown, some sort of crisis before you're allowed to change your life. And that is simply just not true. Most of the time, the signals are quiet, they build slowly, and we get so good at ignoring them that they become background noise. So let's talk about what those signals actually sound like and feel like. Sign number one, you feel relief on a Sunday when something gets canceled. So think about that for a second. If you're honest and your gut reaction to a meeting being canceled or a plan falling through, or an obligation disappearing is relief, and not, oh, that's too bad, but honestly, genuine relief, then that is information. Your body is telling you something that your mind has not caught up to. Sign number two. You're constantly explaining to yourself and to others. And if you find yourself justifying why you're still in a job, you're still in a relationship, you're still in the city, or you're still in that routine, and you're simply saying, Well, the pay is good, well, it's not that bad. Well, I've already invested so much time. You need to notice that. You need to notice that internal dialogue. We don't usually need to build a huge legal defense for the things that are actually working for us. So, sign number three, you started imagining your life without it. Maybe it's small, a daydream about quitting a job and a what if about moving, a fantasy about how things would be different if one thing were gone out of your life. Those daydreams are not random, they're your inner compass talking to you and pointing you somewhere. Pay attention. Sign number four, you feel like a smaller version of yourself. So this is a big one. Think back to who you were a couple of years ago, your energy, your curiosity, your sense of humor, your confidence. If you feel like you've shrunk into small parts of yourself, or that parts of yourself have just simply gone quiet just to keep the peace, or just to keep things running smoothly, that is not maturity. That's erosion. And erosion doesn't reverse itself. Interrupt the erosion. So sign number five, and that is the cost of staying the same has quietly become higher than the cost of changing. This is a tipping point that most of us actually miss because change feels scary and the status quo feels very safe. But staying isn't actually neutral. Staying actually has a cost, it's just a cost you've gotten used to paying. Stress, resentment, time, your health, your joy, it all has a cost. At some point, the bill for staying the same gets bigger than the bill for changing. That's the cost, and that's the moment, the moment to decide. Here's the thing about the these five signs none of them require you to have a plan yet. You don't need to know what the change is or how you'll do it to recognize that something does need to shift. The knowing part comes first, the how comes later. And honestly, a lot of us get stuck because we're waiting on the how to be figured out before we admit the what. So if any of those five things just made you go, oh yeah, that's me, I just want you to sit down with that for a second. Don't judge it, don't panic about it, just acknowledge it. That's step zero. That's the foundation that everything gets built on, just simply acknowledging it. So why we stay stuck and it's not because we're lazy or weak. So let's say you actually know you need to make the change. You've admitted it to yourself, you know something needs to change. So why, and I mean this with so much compassion, why do we sit in the knowing for years and not take action? I want to name a few reasons because I think when we understand the why we're stuck, the stuckness loses some of its grip. So, reason number one change feels like betrayal, betrayal of the people that you know that are in your lives now, betrayal of the past version of yourself, betrayal of the plan that you once had. If you built a career for 10 years and you now feel pulled towards something different, walking away can literally feel like you're saying those 10 years were wasted and they were for naught. I promise you they weren't. But if you can feel that way, that feeling is very, very heavy. And I completely understand that. Reason number two, we confuse comfort with safety. Familiar isn't the same as safe. A familiar job, a familiar relationship, or a familiar routine can be quietly draining you and still feel safer than the unknown, purely because it's a known thing. Our brains are wired to prefer the predictable pain over the unpredictable possibility, even when the predictable pain is the bigger problem. Pay attention to that. It's a super important thing to have knowledge of in your internal dialogue. So, reason number three, we're waiting for permission. So many women and so many individuals that I talk to are waiting for someone, like a partner, a parent, a boss, even a podcast host to basically say, yes, it's okay, you are allowed to do this. But here's the truth that permission may never come from the outside. At some point, you have to be the one to give permission to yourself. Reason number four, we think the first step has to be a really big step. This is huge, and it's the perfect bridge into what we're about to talk about next. We look at the whole mountain: quitting the job, ending the relationship, moving to the new city, starting the new business as this huge mountain, and that mountain literally feels impossible to climb. So we don't take any step, but no one climbs a mountain in one full stride. The first step is never the summit, it's just the first step. So if you've been sitting with this knowing for a while and you've been wondering why you haven't moved and you haven't taken action, it's probably because one of these four things, or a mix of all of them, or a mix of some of them. And again, that is completely not a character flaw. That is literally called being human. The goal is not to shame yourself out of being stuck, it's gently to understand why you're stuck so you can actually find a way that actually suits you and fits you. So taking the first step and what that actually looks like. All right, my friends, this is the part I really want you to walk away with because just take that first step is something that people say all the time. And it's true, but it's also kind of a useless without more detail. And it's great advice. However, you need to have some planning and some action behind it. So let's get a little bit more specific. I'm gonna give you some steps and some ideas to take that first step. So, first step, idea number one. Make the first step embarrassingly small. I mean it. I literally mean it. If you have this big change ahead of you, like leaving my job and starting a business, the first step is not quitting your job. The first step might be opening a notebook and writing down the business idea. And that's it. If the big change is I need to leave a relationship, the first step isn't a conversation that ends everything. It might be speaking to a therapist or a trusted friend or an attorney just to say the words out loud for the first time. The smaller step, the less resistance your brain throws to it. And resistance is the same thing that keeps us stuck for years. So outsmart your brain by making the step so small that it doesn't feel like change. It just feels like a random Tuesday. First step idea number two: make it about information and not commitment. A lot of us breeze through life and then we freeze because we think the first step is commitment. And commitment feels permanent and scary. But what if your first step was just about gathering information or researching or asking questions or having a conversation with someone who's done the same thing that you are also considering? You're not promising anything, you're learning and you're gathering information. And information gathering feels really safe. And that quietly builds momentum. So, first step, idea number three. How about you tell one person? Not everyone, not social media, but one person that you trust who you know will hold the idea gently. Saying it out loud to another human being makes it really real in a way that thinking never does. It also breaks the isolation because the I think I need a change, but I haven't told anyone yet feeling is incredibly lonely and it's very heavy to carry alone. First step, idea number four, set a date, but not a deadline. So deadlines feel like pressure. A date feels like an appointment with yourself. Something like on the first of the month, I'm going to update my resume. Or this Sunday, I'm gonna have an honest conversation with my partner about how I've been feeling. A date on a calendar turns a vague intention into something real and time-bound without making it feel like a countdown to doom. So, first step idea number five: expect to feel scared, expect to feel fearful, and let that be okay. This literally might be the most important one. You've often heard the phrase, feel the fear and do it anyway. So many of us wait to feel ready or confident before we move, but courage doesn't usually show up before the action. It shows up because of the action. You take the small step while scared, and the courage catches up afterward. If you wait to feel fearless, you will literally be waiting forever. The first step is allowed to feel shaky. This doesn't mean it's the wrong step. It just means it's unfamiliar to you. I want to add one more thing here because I think it's important and we don't say it enough on shows like this. Taking the first step doesn't mean you have to know where the whole path leads. You don't need the five-year plan. You don't need the certainty of the outcome. You just need enough clarity to take one honest action in the direction that feels more true to who you are. And here's something beautiful about that. The next step almost becomes clearer after you take the first one. Clarity is often a result of the action, not a precondition for it. We think we need to see the whole staircase before we're climbing, but really you just need to see the first step. The light reveals the rest as you go. A couple of things I want you to remember along the way before we wrap up. I want to leave you with a few of these things to keep close to you as you move through whatever change that you're personally considering. Number one, you are absolutely allowed to outgrow things. You're allowed to outgrow a job, a relationship, a city, and even an identity. They were right for you for the season that you were in, and now they may not be. That is not failure, that is growth. Growth, by definition, means becoming someone slightly different than who you were. If nothing in your life ever needed to change, it would mean that you've never changed either, and you've never grown. Number two, other people's reactions are not your responsibility to manage. When you start making changes, some people will be really supportive, some people will be confused, and some honestly might feel threatened because your growth can sometimes hold a mirror up to the areas of their own life that they personally have not looked at. That is not about you. So stay focused on your plan and do not worry about other people's responses or reactions to your change. Number three, change doesn't have to be loud to be real. We tend to picture change as this big, dramatic, Instagram-worthy moment. But most real lasting change is actually quiet. It's a hundred small decisions made consistently that add up to a completely different life a year or two from now. Don't dismiss the small changes, don't dismiss the small decisions. The small stuff is the change. And finally, you don't have to do this perfectly. You can take a step, realize it's not quite right, adjust, and then take another step. The goal isn't a flawless transformation story. The goal is to stop standing still in a life that no longer fits you and start moving even imperfectly towards the life that does. And here's what I want you to do after this episode. Not next week, not someday, but today andor tomorrow at the latest. Either take out your phone or take out your notebook and finish the sentence. The thing I've been quietly thinking about changing is and fill in the blank. Just name it. You don't have to do anything else. Just name it. Because naming it is the first step, and you've just taken it. Congratulations. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend who you know might be sitting on their quiet need to change. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do for each other is simply say, Hey, I see you. And whatever it is, you are allowed to move forward and move toward it. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I am truly so grateful. I can't wait to see you again here on the Elevate Her podcast. Until then, be gentle with yourself and please take that first step towards making change.