So You’ve Just Signed Your Separation Agreement

Congratulations. Finalizing a separation agreement is a real achievement, and it usually comes at the end of a genuinely stressful, emotional stretch of your life.

Signing it will likely hit you harder than you expect. It’s tangible proof that the life you once had hopes and dreams for is actually, finally, over. That can leave you feeling strangely aimless, since the agreement itself has probably been the singular focus of your life for a long stretch, and now it’s just done. But the agreement isn’t the end. It’s the actual beginning of your new life.

The first thing you need to do now is stop.

You’ve been running hard, and you’re still carrying the momentum from your old life forward with you. You’re on autopilot, mostly just trying to survive the days of this new reality.

But this is your life now, and you get to build it the way you actually want.

One of the first things worth doing is simply giving yourself time to process what just happened. The day I signed mine, my lawyer told me, “Don’t underestimate the emotional impact this is going to have on you.” Even hearing that directly, I still wasn’t prepared. I’d built up this expectation that my life would suddenly be fine now that I didn’t have to deal with my ex anymore. Instead, sadness and a sense of failure moved in and took over. It took time and real grieving before I understood that only one part of my life had actually failed, my relationship with him, not the whole thing. Giving myself that time was what let me actually move forward.

Time also taught me I could design my life however I wanted going forward. I didn’t have to try to reassemble the pieces of my old one as the only available path. I had to actually take the time to figure out what mattered to me now. For a lot of newly separated people, that’s a genuinely dramatic shift, since up until separation, you were likely living according to shared values, or in some cases, mostly your spouse’s. Taking real time to reassess what actually matters to you now is essential if you want this next chapter to actually work.

I Can Do It

There are a lot of negative thoughts out there that keep a person stuck in place. I know, because these particular ones kept me stuck for years. I let them steer my actions without ever really questioning them.

One that kept showing up in my life was “I can’t do it,” usually paired with some version of “I’m not smart enough, driven enough, deserving enough,” insert whatever positive adjective felt out of reach that day.

I don’t know exactly when I internalized that thought or started building my life around it, but I didn’t notice it was actually in the driver’s seat until my divorce. Since then, I’ve been actively working to loosen its grip. I know it’s working because instead of me saying, “oh, I could never do that,” I’ve started hearing other people say it to me. “Wow, you’ve accomplished so much. I could never do that; I’m just not as smart, or driven, or whatever, as you.”

Four different people said some version of that to me in one week recently, which genuinely surprised me. How had I gone from being the person who said “I can’t” to the person other people were saying it to?

The first real step was noticing that most of my inner dialogue, for most of my life, had been defeatist, occasionally tipping into something closer to self-loathing. So I started journaling. I can already hear the objections: I can’t journal. I used to say the exact same thing to myself, and unsurprisingly, that turned out to be a fairly self-fulfilling belief.

I started anyway, documenting the actual thoughts running through my head. They were pretty grim. And then, naturally, I got self-loathing about being self-loathing. For at least two weeks, maybe longer, I was stuck telling myself I can’t do this, and how could I ever be expected to, since apparently I was just born this way. That was its own small vicious whirlpool for a while.

Then I came across a different idea: those thoughts weren’t actually mine. They’d been handed to me by the world around me, absorbed rather than chosen.

That reframe made the whole thing start to feel almost like a game. When my mood started slipping, I’d try to catch the specific thought pulling me down. There was always one there. They’re sneaky, and they can pull you under before you even notice what’s happening. The game became catching them before they got that far.

That was essentially the whole practice. It took a long time to land on, but I finally did. What’s remarkable is how directly it connects to the idea that your thoughts shape what you build. For a long stretch of my life, I was building around “I can’t.” Now I’m building around “I can.” It really did come down to noticing, and then choosing what to believe.

Do you listen to the thought that tells you you can’t? Do you find yourself telling more successful people, “well, you’re just smart, or driven, or lucky,” as a way of explaining why you couldn’t do the same? I’d push you to look at that thought for exactly what it is: just a thought, one that’s only true because you’ve let it be.

You can change this. I know it because I’ve lived it, a genuinely old, deeply worn pattern that took real, sustained work to loosen its hold on me.

But you’re the only one who can actually do that work. I think you can.

Use the Discomfort

Today I woke up feeling unmotivated. I tried to work for a bit, decided it wasn’t going anywhere, and took a break instead.

I got to thinking about how cold my house was, the pilot light on the boiler had probably gone out again. I emailed my tenant to ask him to check, then started thinking I should really just call a heating and plumbing company to come do the annual maintenance properly.

I sat with that thought a while longer. I didn’t love the idea of my tenant constantly having to relight a pilot light that wasn’t his problem to begin with.

So what was actually stopping me from making the call? My last few experiences with the company I usually used hadn’t been great. The previous year, when someone came out for the annual maintenance, my tenant mentioned the repair guy had spent the entire hour on his phone texting. Unsurprisingly, the pilot light kept going out again shortly after. I called them back, same repairman came out, and this time he actually did the work, and unsurprisingly, the boiler did what it was supposed to do: heat the house. On his way out he told me he wouldn’t charge me for the visit, like he was doing me some enormous favor. I recognized that tone, it was the same one I got from the receptionists every time I called.

Those were the thoughts that had been keeping me from picking up the phone. What actually got me to call this morning were the more uncomfortable ones: how much I was inconveniencing my tenant, and how this wasn’t exactly responsible-homeowner behavior on my part.

The receptionist was rude. She told me they were busy for the fall, grudgingly offered an appointment in two weeks, then informed me that next year I’d need to book my service in spring or summer instead.

After hanging up, I sat with the fact that it had gone exactly as I’d expected. I realized I’d been quietly justifying sticking with this company for a while, they did decent work eventually, and I didn’t know of anyone else to call. That annoyed me. Here I was, a customer they clearly didn’t value, still handing them my business anyway. That annoyance was what finally moved me to actually look around. Turns out there were other companies doing the exact same work. I called one, and the repair technician is at my house right now, as I’m writing this.

I woke up unmotivated this morning. What actually got me moving wasn’t inspiration, it was discomfort. And the worse that discomfort got, the more motivated I became, not the other way around.

It’s not fun being in an uncomfortable spot. But today reminded me those spots can genuinely be useful. Use the bad place as a stepping stone toward wherever you’re actually trying to get to.