A Moncton woman says her life has become a daily adventure since embarking on what she calls a “year of yes”
“I didn’t do anything. I talked myself out of everything,” said Sam McLenaghan.
Back in 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, McLenaghan said she decided it was time to stop being afraid to try new things and push herself outside of her comfort zone.
“I am such an overthinker that I could tell you every reason that something could go wrong and then I just realized that I had to stop doing that. I had to start living my life, so that’s what I did and I started saying yes to things,” she said.
After losing 170 pounds following bariatric surgery in 2019, McLenaghan said she found a new lease on life.
In 2020, she set a goal to say “yes” to as many adventures as possible which she shared on her Facebook page hoping to inspire others to push outside of their comfort zones.
“I am trying to live my life with purpose now. I am trying to do experiences that I have never done,”she said.
She didn’t jump out of a plane or set a goal to scale a mountain, but McLenaghan said she did start saying yes to all the adventures that her heart wanted but that her head and health held her back from enjoying, like hiking, boating, swimming and simply embracing life.
She even got a tattoo with the word “yes” on her arm to remind her that she wants to keep her adventures going for life.
“Just the exhilaration of being able to do things that you always thought that you couldn’t,” she said.
“I wouldn’t even go to the beach. I could not even tell you if I wore a bathing suite when my child was growing up,” said McLenaghan.
She is now shocking and inspiring her friends with her new sense of adventure, jumping into frigid waterfalls, taking in what nature has to offer. She posts her adventures online and, with her own comedic flare, is making folks smile and inspiring them to “put themselves out there”.
“She is like, I want to go tent camping. Ok, well you said it you can’t back out,” said her friend Isabelle Elliott, who joined her on many of her adventures and is inspired by her friend’s newfound sense of adventure.
“We went camping in a tent and I actually enjoy it,” said McLenaghan who said at one point in her life she would not even go to a restaurant because of her anxieties about her weight.
Now she said she is focused on enjoying not a year, but a life of yes. But she does have her boundaries.
“I will never jump out of an airplane, like it is never going to happen,” she said, nor will she venture down the road of online dating again.
She has been sharing her adventures on her Facebook page and is inspiring others to push themselves outside of their own comfort zones.
“Whether it be you never tried fried clams go try fried clams,” she said, which she did and and, for the record, she said are not “her jam.”
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