Lindsay Arnold's Bold Choice: Leaving Hollywood at the Peak of DWTS Fame for a New Life in Utah trucc

"When I decided to step away from DWTS, I didn't have this grand plan. I just knew I wanted to do things that were authentic to me," Arnold tells PEOPLE

Lindsay Arnold became a household name as a pro dancer on Dancing with the Stars, but after more than 10 years on the show she took a leap of faith in September 2022 as she announced she was stepping away. 

At the time, the dancer had already begun carving out a new life for herself as a mom after welcoming her daughter, Sage Jill, in November 2020 with her husband Samuel Lightner Cusick.

Now 31 and a mother of two (she gave birth to her second daughter, June Cusick, in May 2023), Arnold tells PEOPLE exclusively she has absolutely no regrets about her decision to leave Hollywood. 

Reflecting on her decision to step back from the dancing competition that helped her rise to fame, Arnold says that the biggest factor was her family, noting “everything changed in the best way” as she welcomed her first child. 

“A lot of my priorities and where I wanted to spend my time... it just shifted,” she explains. “My mindset shifted. Time goes 10 times faster when you have kids, and I just know that this time is so precious and something that you don't get back.” 

She notes that she had already begun having conversations with her husband about leaving the show about five years into their marriage as they discussed starting a family together. However, she wanted to feel a sense of completion before she officially parted ways. After winning season 25 alongside Jordan Fisher and participating in four more seasons, she felt ready. 

“I did want to have a sense of accomplishment within the show knowing that, ‘Okay, if we do have kids and I don't come back, do I feel like I fulfilled what I hope to do?’ I did feel like I was at that point. We honestly were probably past the point of being ready. We were like, ‘Okay, we really want this now,’ and I'm glad we waited for that time because it felt so right for us.” 

As she stepped away from DWTS, Arnold also stepped away from Los Angeles, making her full-time home in Utah where she grew up. 

Though many dancers dream of making it big in Hollywood, Arnold admits she never quite felt like the big city life was for her.

“To be honest, I actually never, ever loved or embraced Hollywood in a sense of where I'd want to live,” she explains. “Loved everything about what it offered to me, what it did for my career, what I was able to do out there, but I was actually always the pro that, in between seasons, [who] would sneak back to Utah to be with my family. This has always been where I know I want to raise my family.” 

“Growing up in Utah, the city life was never for me,” she continues. “But like I said, I know that my life would not be where it is without that time, and so I am so grateful.” 

As she settled into her life in Utah following her exit from DWTS, Arnold began the exciting — albeit terrifying — journey of completely starting over with her career. Like many others at the time, she turned to content creation on social media, where she boasts almost 2 million followers across Instagram and TikTok. 

“When I decided to step away from Dancing from the Stars, I didn't have this grand plan of, ‘Okay, this is my career. This is where we're going.’ I just knew I wanted to do things that were authentic to me, but that can be really scary because you just don't know how that will be received,” she explains. “At the time, I had a social media following for people who only watched me and followed me because of Dancing with the Stars. That was scary, because I'm like, are they just going to hate me if I'm like, ‘Sorry, guys, I'm not doing it anymore. I'm going to be a mom’? Maybe people hate moms. But it's been so cool, because every step of the way, by just truly being myself, sharing what I'm doing, it's naturally evolved my career, and my engagement, my community, in the most perfect way.” 

In addition to sharing more candid glimpses of her family life online, Arnold has kept her passion for dance alive through her workout program, The Movement Club, which she initially created with mothers like herself in mind. 

“When I first made the decision to stop doing Dancing with the Stars, I was absolutely terrified. Because up until that point, my outlet, my form of movement, my form of creativity, exercise, everything, was dancing,” she recalls. “I also was pregnant. I'm like, ‘Okay, my body's changing. What is happening to me?’ Things are just looking so different, and that is really what pushed me into creating my workout program.” 

“I started it during my first pregnancy because I really just felt like there was a missing space for a program that is literally for everyone,” she adds of The Movement Club. “No matter what stage of life you're in, whether you're in the best shape of your life, you've never worked out before, you're pregnant, you're postpartum, I just wanted a program that was inviting to all, because that's what I felt like I was needing at the time.” 

In recent years, her hometown of Utah has seen a rise of influencers like herself, from Ballerina Farm’s Hannah Neeleman to The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives cast, the latter of whom Arnold previously addressed on TikTok timed to the Hulu release as a fellow member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. For her, she feels incredibly “lucky” to have made her own community of moms in the area. 

“I feel like my community, the people I'm around, are the most incredibly supportive people. It has been really cool to see that there's a lot of moms that I think want to have another passion and want to have an outlet, a fun, creative outlet for themselves,” she says, referencing the rise of Utah-based mom influencers. “I'm really lucky to have a lot of mom friends. My sisters are all moms and they're truly my best friends, but to be honest, my community here in Utah could not be more supportive.”

Arnold also points out that her background looks a bit different from the typical Utah mom, many of whom have been attached to the “tradwife” phenomenon in recent years. “I've definitely lived a little bit of a different classic lifestyle than that,” she says. “I've traveled a lot. I've done a lot of things. I've lived in different places. I've been around people of all cultures and all the things. It's been so cool because I feel like no matter where I'm at, I've been able to find people who support me, and love me, and just want me to be happy in whatever it is that I'm doing.”

She also has a great support system in her husband Samuel, her high school sweetheart who she married in a small, private Mormon ceremony at the Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah, in June 2015. 

She notes that communication has been key in keeping their relationship thriving after all these years, as well as their support for each other’s career endeavors. “What's fun about me and my husband, we could not be more opposite,” she says. “We are the epitome of opposites attract. He doesn't even have social media, just to give you a reference of how different we are. But it's been so cool, because from day one, we both have just loved and embraced and supported each other's passions no matter what it is.” 

“Even if we don't understand it, if we don't get it, we are there every step of the way. He was at every single dance performance I've done since I was literally 16 years old. He supports everything that I do and vice versa,” she says, noting that’s the advice she’d give to other couples. “The biggest thing is just fall in love with your partner and what they do. Even if you don't really get it or you don't feel the same way about their passions, just fall in love with the fact that they are so passionate about something and support them in everything.” 

As she embraces her new identity as a mom, she says the most rewarding part has been simply watching her daughters “grow and learn” every day. 

“It's truly an honor that I get to guide them and watch them, and experience their journey of becoming who they're meant to be,” she says. “Something that's been really rewarding for me is reminding myself of the values and the things that are important to me because I'm thinking about what I want to instill in and teach my daughters. So, while I'm working on and thinking about the things that I want to help them know about themselves and help them grow into, it also has reminded me of those things that are important.”

Though Arnold is loving this new stage of life she’s in, she hasn’t completely closed the door on DWTS either. While she doesn’t consider herself officially “retired,” she adds that a lot of factors would have to go into play to make her consider returning. 

“It's not like there's like, ‘Oh, I'm waiting for them to say they'll do this or they'll give me this partner,’ or something. It's really just a mindset. It's a feeling like me, and my girls, and my husband, we're all in a place where the sacrifices that it takes to do the show, uprooting our family, moving to a different state, feel worth it to us. There isn't a checklist that I'm waiting for. It's just honestly just an intuition thing of feeling like, ‘Oh, okay. I feel like we could make this work right now in our phase of life.’” 

Of course, she did get to briefly return to the ballroom this past season as she watched her sister Rylee dance as a pro with Olympian Stephen Nedoroscik, who placed fourth in the competition. 

She notes that the moment she found out Rylee would be joining the show as a pro dancer in 2023, she felt an overwhelming sense of pride. “It was the coolest feeling for me. Honestly, I feel like that's up there as one of my top moments in my career, even though it had nothing to do with my career,” she says, pointing out their unique sibling relationship. “She's the youngest. I'm the oldest by 12 years, so there is that mother-daughter [relationship] as well. I always feel like she's a little bit like my baby. It's just so incredible, because watching her step into her own role as a pro in the show.” 

She adds that seeing Rylee on the show has actually helped with any FOMO she might be feeling. “A lot of people are like, ‘Well, now that Rylee's on the show, aren't you dying to be on the show?’ To be honest, it's funny, because with Rylee being on the show, I feel like I'm getting a perfect glimpse and taste of it in my life without having to actually move to California, do the whole thing,” she admits. “It's actually maybe done the opposite a little bit. Yes, of course, there's part of me that's like, ‘I want to be on the show with Rylee. I think that would be so cool and such a moment,’ but then it's been really nice to feel like it's still part of my life through Rylee in a way, but I can still be here where I feel like I'm meant to be.” 

That being said, she admits she still misses the show from time to time. “There are so many things I miss about the show,” she says. “I miss all my friends on the show. The community, the family, it is real. The second my sister hops onto the show, they're treating her like a little sister because it's family.” 

“What I don't miss is it is a full-on time commitment. If you want to be good at your job, if you want to do well, it's a 24/7 job,” she says. “And when you're a mom, that's a 24/7 job so that battle is really difficult.” 

“You're not just working when you're at rehearsal,” she continues. “You're home, studying, choreographing, watching your video a million times, perfecting things, going the extra mile to be really good at your job. Watching Rylee do all of that just reminded me, ‘Okay, well, I am not in that phase where I feel like I can give that time to that show.’"

While the change from dancer to mom and full-time influencer felt very scary at first, she says she eventually found her groove. “It's felt like a very natural progression for me, which I'm grateful for, because of course, there was always those moments when I did choose to step away that first season of like, ‘Am I going to regret this?’” she says. “I'm really grateful to say that I haven't. I haven't regretted my decisions one step of the way.”