How I Decided to Move to New York City

NEW YORK

“THE CITY SEEN FROM THE QUEENSBORO BRIDGE IS ALWAYS THE CITY SEEN FOR THE FIRST TIME, IN ITS FIRST WILD PROMISE OF ALL THE MYSTERY AND THE BEAUTY IN THE WORLD.”

I moved. Officially. I’m paying rent, guys. It’s IG official. KG official. State tax official, ah. Moving to New York has been a quest, and while many figured this place was for me, it took me a few nudges along the way to decide this city was the specific move for me, right now.

I Always Knew I Wanted to Leave My Hometown and Expand my Horizons

I love my home city and appreciate it more and more now that I’m away. Montreal is so special, and will always be a part of me. However, growing up, I always knew I wanted to expand my horizons, and that my identity did not lie in one place. When I was younger, I thought, I’d end up in L.A. pursing my acting career, but as time went on, and I thought about my business career, I became open to the possibilities of different cities around the world. London? Singapore? San Francisco? I realized I wanted to move to a fast paced city where I’d be able to start fresh, grow independently, and work to catapult my career while having an exciting social life...and home was too comfortable.

I Tried Many Options and Worked Around the World Before Settling on New York

I’ve had the luxury of traveling around the world and also working in many cities. I remember I moved to Vancouver first. Then, in consulting, I was staffed in the Bay area, did end up working in London, Toronto, and eventually, New York. Being able to work across different places gave me the chance to network around and understand the corporate climate, culture and social life of each place. I did my best to meet as many people as I possibly could to ask them about their experiences, both professionally and socially.

If you don’t travel for work or don’t have the time to network in person, LinkedIn is a great resource. Connecting with people and asking them to set some time to chat over the phone or a video conference is a great way to learn more about them, in a hassle-free way.

I Visited Friends and Envisioned a Life

I’m blessed with wonderful friends and people in my life who were kind enough to open their homes to me throughout the years. I was able to visit friends and live vicariously through them. I got a sense of how life would be in different cities around the world as I got to know their circle of friends, their routines, favourite restaurants, hobbies and more. As I asked myself “would I see myself living here?”, the time I could only bring myself to say “yes!” was New York…I get butterflies thinking about how I felt when I slowly discovered this place.

YouTube and Blogs

Elena Taber, you’re awesome and I appreciate your videos. ❤️

Her video on moving to NYC helped me cement my desire for the move - or at least - reminded me that it was possible. It also excited me to see a young woman do it and see how she was able to make friends, find a place, and get her set of hobbies in place. Watch it below!

Family

New York is close to Montreal - where my family lives - and I knew that while I wanted to be in a new city, being close to my family was crucial. Understanding that my monthly budget would need to be allocated towards flying out to see my family almost monthly, being close to home, was something New York had.

The Cliches

Yep - If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, thats what they say…

I wanted a place that inspired me, where the greatest talents have come to persevere and make it. I’ve always had big dreams and New York, while scary at first, can be tamed…It got me down once, but I wasn’t going to let anyone or anything knock me down (twice?) - so it was time I showed New York who’s boss, and I could not be happier!