What it Takes to Choose Yourself

We’ve been sold a version of change that looks a certain way.

The woman who quit her corporate career on Monday and launched her own thing on Friday. The one who woke up one day and just knew. The lightning bolt of clarity that rearranged everything.

And those stories are real. Some people do experience change that way.

But most of us don’t. And when we’re in the middle of our own quiet, uncertain, not-very-dramatic process of becoming, we can start to wonder if we’re doing it wrong.

We’re not. We’re just doing it honestly.

The Part of the Story That Gets Left Out

Every dramatic leap has a long, quiet walk that came before it.

When I left my corporate career, the decision didn’t happen in the moment. It happened slowly, over years, in small moments of awareness I didn’t even have language for at the time.

In 2014, there was a role that didn’t fit. My health was declining. The distance between the people I loved and me was growing.

Then in 2016, I intentionally took a much more junior role, to the surprise of nearly everyone around me. I wanted space to complete my coaching certification, and I knew if I stepped into something big again, there wouldn’t be room.

My leap in February 2020 to start my own business may have looked sudden from the outside.

From the inside, it was the result of a very long and very quiet walk towards the edge.

Change Doesn’t Begin With Confidence. It Begins With Honesty.

Honesty is the thing we don’t talk about enough when we talk about change.

Not the loud kind of honesty, the quiet kind. The kind that asks you to notice what you’ve been pretending not to see.

That thing you’ve been ignoring. The feeling you keep pushing past. The thought that surfaces at 2 am and you stuff back down before morning.

Noticing is the work. And noticing requires space.

Which is where things get complicated for many of us. Because if you’re someone who says yes to everything, every meeting, every “Hey Mom,” every request that arrives, you have no space for noticing. No gap between the ask and your automatic yes.

Start Here: The “Not Right Now” Practice

Try this, just once in the next few days.

When something comes to you that you would automatically say yes to, say: “Not right now.”

Maybe it’s a meeting you didn’t really need to be in. A commitment you’ve taken on out of habit for years. Something someone else could handle.

And in the space that you just created, ask yourself one question:

What do I need?

Then listen.

That’s the practice. That’s the beginning.

Why This Is an Act of Courage (Even When It Doesn’t Feel Like One)

You may have a definition in your head of what courageous looks like. And “not right now” to a Tuesday meeting probably isn’t it.

But for a woman who has been leaving herself at the bottom of her own to-do list, every time you allow yourself to consider what you need, that is an act of courage.

Every time you act on that consideration, you build more.

And the muscle you build matters, because change is disruptive. Not just to your schedule. To your identity. To how you show up. To how others experience you showing up.

The people around you, the ones who have depended on you to show up the way you’ve always shown up, may not take this well. Some of them may not support you. And that will cost something you weren’t expecting.

Having done the inner work to understand why your change matters to you, that becomes the thing that holds you steady when the people around you aren’t ready.

Self-Trust Is Built, Not Found

Every time you say “not right now” and nothing falls apart, that’s evidence.

Every time you listen to your body and rest instead of pushing, that’s evidence.

Every time you make a small choice for yourself and survive the discomfort of it, that’s evidence.

And the evidence accumulates. Slowly, the voice that says you can trust yourself gets a little louder. And the one that says you need to earn the right to take up space gets a little quieter.

I hired a coach when I didn’t know what I wanted. I pursued my certification while I was still figuring out who I was. I opened a business one month before the global pandemic.

None of those felt certain in the moment. All of them were acts of self-trust, built on the evidence of small choices that came before them.

You don’t need to have the whole path mapped out before you take the first step.

The path will become clearer as you start to walk it.

You’ve spent your whole life being courageous for everyone else. Showing up. Delivering. Holding it all together.

That courage has always been yours. It just hasn’t been pointed in your direction yet.

Start with “not right now.” Start with one small thing you’ve been saying yes to out of habit. Find 30 minutes or an hour that you can reclaim. One morning, when you ask yourself, before the day gets loud: what do I need right now?

If this resonates with you, the quiz at thecourageousmiddle.com/quiz is a quiet place to begin. It takes just a few minutes, and it will help give you the words to help you understand where you are today.