When You're Ready, This Is How You Heal

by Brianna Wiest

You believe that negative potential outcomes are more likely than the positive ones.

When we believe too much in our negativity biases, we end up resisting change, taking fewer chances, and overall adjusting to a less optimistic outlook on life.

You’re staying loyal to what you’ve put a lot of time into, even if it’s not what’s really right for you long-term.

You are giving precedence to what you believed first.

Whatever you were exposed to first or believed in first is going to take precedence in your mind. It’s important that you’re aware of this, because when a better option presents itself, you have to be able to see it for what it is.

You’re making a long-term assessment based on a short-term experience.

“This moment is not your life, this is a moment in your life.” — Ryan Holiday

You’re using self-reflection as an escape mechanism, rather than a way to actually change your life.

Everything that is truly right for you will make you feel at ease. Everything that is truly right for you will seem so simple, so obvious, so comfortable. Everything that is truly right for you will choose you as quickly as you choose it.

We just have to realize that life will magnetize to us what is meant to be ours.

The right things don’t often have to be chased, but rather, pursued.

We do not lose love when we lack passion, we lose it when we lack any further potential for growth.

If you watch those beside you for long enough, what you’ll notice is that those who are steadfast in the life of their deepest longing aren’t necessarily the most gifted, the most outrageously talented, or the most perfect at their craft. What they are is just a few steps ahead of you, because they showed up consistently during the time you spent wondering if you should.

Showing up is what makes your work worthwhile. Showing up is what creates your worth. Showing up and allowing is what makes your best product.

What’s on the walls of homes are the messages that speak to us. That’s what’s on people’s bookshelves, that’s what’s in their reading queue, that’s what they share with those they love. That’s what they choose to purchase, that’s what they choose to engage with. You do not have to be a fine artist to be worth pursuing what you love.

All you need is the willingness to create something that is authentic and true and moving to you, something that lifts you out of your human experience and into another, something that makes sense of the past, clears your perception of the future, makes you experience the same emotions you did when you first fell in love or learned to let go or felt completely at awe or inspired or at peace.

You will have to learn about business, even if you’re an artist.

You will have to determine where to create your platform, how to weave together your community, where your presence would be most impactful, and how. You will have to figure out the ecosystem that will become your life, the ways in which you will create and share and then allow your work to ripple outward and into infinitely more.

The confidence you are looking for will not arrive until you begin.

Overworking is not aspirational, it’s an escape mechanism.

What nobody tells you is that consistency outpaces talent.

What nobody tells you about doing what you love is that you have to learn where to source your creativity from, because where most people begin is with their deepest pain, and where they end is in burn out.

What nobody tells you is that making money from what you love isn’t selling out, it’s letting your soul support you and fuel you, it’s accepting that we all need income to live and if we can do it through our passion, that’s great.

Our purpose is just to be alive.

The path forward is understanding that we are sometimes collateral damage to people’s own inner wars, and that we do not need to adopt their weapons as our own in order to fight back.

The path forward is realizing that our sanctuary is within ourselves, and our power is impenetrable. It is there, resting, and waiting, until we are ready to act on it again.

It often begins with allowing yourself to enjoy something small, because you deserve that. It grows when you allow yourself to care for yourself, because you deserve that, too. It swells when you allow yourself to acknowledge how far you’ve come, and for every piece of yourself you can’t stand, there are a thousand others that are so much more beautiful, so much more worthy, so much more admired and cared for.

If you want to be in a completely different place by this time next year, you’re going to have to get honest with yourself. You’re going to have to stop using busy-ness as a distraction, you’re going to have to replace quantity with quality, you’re going to have to do some soul-searching, and you’re going to have to learn to prioritize what your future self will thank you for.

You have to start now. You have to adapt here. You have to do what you can with what you have.

Even if some circumstances are less ideal than others, if you’re subconsciously looking for a reason to play it safe, you’ll always find one. You’re never going to wake up one day and feel completely ready, completely fearless, completely assured.

You have to stop waiting for perfect circumstances. You have to create them instead.

Stop confusing your maximum output with your maximum potential. Your maximum potential isn’t doing the most work humanly possible each day. It’s not about trying to capitalize on every single moment of every single hour, thinking you can bullet-journal and morning routine into a robotic state of perfect functioning. You are a human being. Your maximum potential is creating a life that is peaceful and meaningful to you. It is doing less, but better.

Getting to your maximum potential means creating a daily routine that makes you feel most like yourself, where your activities, commitments and decisions reflect your values, and what your future self would thank you for doing.

Instead of waking up to check social media and the news or rush around your house to get ready and start work on time, try to amend your routine so that you wake up earlier and get to enjoy your coffee, find time to meditate or journal, work on writing, business building, or even spending time with someone you love. The way you use your energy each day plants the seeds of the harvest you’ll reap in the future.

Eventually you have to decide what matters to you, and then you have to commit to staying the course, no matter how the tides may turn. There is no perfect timing, there is just time, and what we do with how much we are given.

You’re not going to feel any kind of radical shift by committing to a new practice for only a few days.

When you commit to working on yourself, that effort radiates out and touches everything and everyone around you. So commit to growth. Commit to becoming better. Decide that you’re ready to expand your heart past its current perimeters. There is so much more waiting for you, but you have to be open to it first.

Being kind to yourself is often doing the thing you least want to do.

It is very often prioritizing your future needs over your current wants. It is awakening yourself to your destructive habits, it is recognizing your self-defeating patterns, it is learning how to self-heal, it is setting boundaries first with ourselves and then with others, it is recognizing our power and remembering how we have neglected to use it. That is kindness. Everything else is a distraction. The kindest thing to do is not always the easiest thing to do.

How To Write a Personal Mission Statement, because Your Vision can become Your Reality

I am completely at peace each day. I work two or three days a week consulting in a field that I am passionate about. I have more money than I need, I invest and save wisely, and I keep my living expenses low. I have healthy, loving relationships with my friends and family, I take care of my body and mind each day, and I am confident that I am leaving a positive impact on the world around me, in everything from my daily interactions to the work that I am most proud of.

What is it that you want to feel each day? What do you want to be most proud of by your life’s end? What work do you want to do each day? How do you want to be remembered? How do you want to impact others? How comfortably do you need to live in order to feel whole? Where do you want to spend your days? What do you want your relationships to be like?

What do you want your bank account to look like? What do you want your closet to look like? What do you want your home to look like?

Remember that, first, your mission need not be realistic given where you are at right now because you are going to need to think outside of your current circumstances to change your reality. Second, don’t expect everything to change instantly. Your life is going to be a gradual, constant unfolding. Third, remember that your mission can change as you do. You are allowed to grow, you are allowed to choose again, you are not beholden to anything you once thought you wanted. Be free enough to decide who you are and what you really want.