The Pivot Year

by Brianna Wiest

Happiness is not finding success by a certain time, but finding something you love so much time itself seems to disappear.

Self-protection is learning how to take a pause between what you feel and how you react.

What you are waiting on is your own willingness to accept the mountain you must climb in order to pull those desires out of the deepest parts of you and create them in the world you already inhabit.

Maybe you don’t need to find more energy, maybe you just need to find a dream that makes you actually want to get up in the morning.

Like the changing of a season, everything shifts slowly until all of a sudden, you are standing firmly in the after, in all you feared would never come.

What feels on the surface like rejection is often redirection.

Move toward the people who remind you of what you contain, who help you fall a little more in love with life. Move toward the people who energize you more than they drain you.

If I have not one other friend in this world, I will be my own most loyal companion.

I will not spend my life engaging in things that can only bring about my own unhappiness.

Maybe you should learn to trust in what passes you by so you’ll begin to trust in what lands right in front of you. Maybe you

This book is full of wisdom and self-guiding words.

should trust that in what isn’t working, because it might be trying to guide you to what will.

What did not transpire was not meant to; the end of that journey would not have led you somewhere you would have wanted or needed to be. If you are really honest with yourself, you know this on the inside.

Kind people are not just good, they are heroes in their own ways.

Sometimes, the quiet whispers are the most accurate ones. The voices of pride and ego and attraction are louder, but they are often devoid of the fullness of truth. Listen for the quiet yes, for what gently sprouts, for what grows, and grows.

You will have to learn that the very act of letting go is not a failure, but a signal of completion: one of the truest signs that you are evolving as a human being.

It’s time to stop waiting for some future scenario to bring your dreams into the light, but to dig them out from beneath your fear and begin. Truly begin.

When it’s time to act, the energy will come. When it’s time to make the choice, you’ll know what to decide. When it’s time to leave, you’ll find yourself writing the resignation. Trust yourself.

You will be taken care of no matter the situation. Have faith in yourself.

Eventually, you give way to the guidance of your inner being, the part of you that knows how vital

it is to recover, to reintegrate, to reflect, to balance all doing with the simplicity of being. There is nothing wrong with you for needing to take life at your own pace, in your own timing.

making balance your highest priority.

What is happening around you when you are the most peaceful, open-minded, inspired version of yourself? What is happening when you are not?

In everything you choose, you must first ask: but what will this do to my soul?

to believe that everything will work out one way or another—we begin to live more completely in the moment, releasing the illusions that had been clouding us all along.

Not everything you lose is a loss.

If you have a heart that is healing, what you need to remember is that there is more to life than romantic love.

Love exists in myriad ways, but the assumption that this singular form of it will lift you up above your human experience, sanitize your pain, and make the rest of your days a fever dream is not only untrue, it’s unhelpful.

The measure of a life well-lived is not how often you have avoided discomfort, pressure, or change, but the grace with which you navigated it.

The merit is not in whether or not you have ever experienced anything challenging, but the courage with which you faced what challenged you.

To love someone is to allow them to be sovereign. It is to honor their path and their ability to choose how they want to spend their time and their life.

That is what you are really waiting for—love that is intuitive and clear, that does not make you question or doubt how worthy you are of being prioritized, of being invested in. Love that chooses you as you choose it.

You are meant to grow as new evidence and experience are presented to you, as you adapt to new ideas, solve new problems, gain new skills, hear new perspectives, and see more of the world as it really is. You are not meant to remain one static character within your life.

Even if you are the only person in the entire world who knows where you are going, that is more than enough to make it all the way there.

The experiences that delivered you those essential pieces of knowledge—no matter how uncomfortable they were at the onset—were not useless. They were not wasted. Your pain was not for nothing, your hurt was not meaningless.

Your story is not for everyone. If they have not proven that they intend to hear you and hold you gently, you are under no obligation to share the most raw details of yourself with them. There are some things you are allowed to keep sacred, that you are allowed to keep small. This is not denying yourself, it is protecting yourself.

You become brave when you realize that you do not have to always feel calm and certain, but be able to find the strength to keep showing up regardless.