What ChatGPT will never tell you about staying / leaving

She typed the question into ChatGPT once again: should I stay in Switzerland, or go back home to the UK?

Like every time before, she got a beautiful answer. A neat table with pros on one side and cons on the other, plus some thoughtful questions at the end (Chatty loves a few questions to keep you in the echo chamber). It all made sense and... She was exactly as stuck as before.

When we first spoke, she’d been in Switzerland for five years. She’d struggled with the culture from day one (whenever she spoke German, people switched languages on her - a small daily reminder that she was foreign). But she’d consciously chosen career first, and for five years that choice worked.

More than worked actually. Her career accelerated and she became a manager in no time (this lady is a true powerhouse).

Then her mentor left the company. And a short relationship had opened up something she usually kept neatly in a box: feeling alive, feeling connected, feeling part of something bigger. Plus, while she’d just turned 30, her friends back home were buying houses and having kids, making her quietly question if she was missing out.

The day before our call, sitting in a strategy meeting, it hit her.

“I always thought my job was the anchor. And now I’m realizing that anchor isn’t here anymore.”

It was hugely disorienting - she had always prioritized her career. The next day in our call, after a few sharp questions and observations from my side, she said: “I think I have my decision already. I just need a roadmap.”

Months of circling, going back and forth between two locations, and constant background thoughts about the unknowns of her future - and then clarity in one sentence. Same country, same options, same table. So what changed?

Here’s what was going on underneath.

For five years, one weight decided everything: her career. As long as that weight was heavy, Switzerland won, easily. Every doubt about the culture got outweighed by the job and the fantastic progress she was making.

But when the anchor faded, the scale went flat instead of tipping toward going home. Because the things she wanted now - connection, being seen, a life outside the office, maybe a family - had never been put on the scale at all.

ChatGPT couldn’t weigh them, because she never typed them in (heck, she had barely admitted it to herself!). Her table was a perfect answer to the question of the person who arrived five years earlier.

And now where have we seen this before?

(This is partly a rhetorical question because I've been in the same boat, several times 😇 But you might be, too.)

You moved abroad (or home) for reasons that were true at the time. A career step, adventure, love, safety. Since then you’ve changed, but your scale stayed exactly where it was.

So you keep weighing today’s options with yesterday’s weights - and with everything you've built since, painfully aware that a different choice is going to mean you need to give that up. Perhaps even giving up the identity you've had for years, like the corporate powerhouse climbing the ladder. You may want different things, but who are you when you give up what you have now?

So of course staying, going home and somewhere new keep coming out even.

If you've been in constant fog for more than six months, let me tell you Test: you’re not indecisive. Your scale is just outdated.

And if you want to get out of expat decision limbo, getting clear on what matters to you now, not five years ago, is the fastest way.

Now you might think: easy, I’ll just sit down this weekend and update my scale over a glass of pinot noir 🍷

But here’s the catch. You’ve been staring at your options for so long that they’ve become the lens you look through. The moment you try to think about what you want, your mind jumps straight back to them - but what about the salary, the visa, my partner’s job, having to start from scratch again?

My client couldn’t see it either, until an anchor disappeared in the middle of a strategy meeting and I prompted her with my observations.

From inside your options, the scale you’re using is almost impossible to see.

That’s also why the usual fixes keep you circling:

Another pros and cons list adds items to the same old scale, only adding to your mental load.

More research tells you more about the options, and nothing about how to weigh them.

Your friends and family give you their scale instead of yours (not to mention dropping their limiting beliefs and fears onto you).

And ChatGPT can only work with the weights you give it, so it hands your outdated scale back to you, formatted in a text so long it actually only adds to the fog.

Meanwhile, the question keeps running in the background. It comes back every time you think about buying the good couch, every time your partner says "whatever you decide, works for me", every time someone at the family table asks “so, are you staying?”, or every time you're hesitantly downloading Hinge wondering if you should even be dating when you might not live there next year.

Another year goes by with one foot in and one foot out... and each time, you trust your own answers a little less.

So how do you find out what’s on your scale today?

That’s what I’ll show you on tomorrow, the same way I do it with my private clients. I’ll tell you one thing already: it starts somewhere you normally wouldn't look.

Keep an eye out for next post 😉

Greetings from Mexico City,

Amanda