The Hardest Part About Choosing Yourself

“Decisions like these don’t feel empowering in the moment. They feel terrifying, lonely, and often exhibit symptoms like grief. ”

The Lie We Are Sold

Social media has convinced us that empowerment is a feeling. That one day you’ll wake up, know your worth, set a boundary, leave the relationship, quit the job, speak your mind, and never look back. It makes courage look clean and almost effortless.

Real life doesn’t work that way.

Sometimes choosing yourself means disappointing people who have benefited from the version of you that never said no. It also can mean questioning family traditions you’ve carried for years, leaving friendships you’ve outgrown, walking away from relationships you prayed would work, or accepting that a career you’ve spent years building no longer fits the life you want.

None of those decisions feels empowering in the moment. They feel terrifying, lonely, and often exhibit symptoms like grief.

Knowing Isn’t Always The Hardest Part

Choosing yourself isn’t difficult because you don’t know what to do; most of us already know.

We know the relationship that’s draining us. We know the job that’s costing us our peace. We know the friendship that only exists because we’ve become comfortable betraying ourselves to keep it alive.

The hard part is accepting that every decision comes with a loss.

Why We Go Back to Familiar

Change isn’t comfortable, comfort and growth aren’t friends, and they don’t exist in the same space. When we are evolving, it can feel so unfamiliar that our brains recognize it as a threat because it’s not our usual pattern, and trust me, the brain considers predictable as safe most of the time.

Add the fear that some possess of disappointing people, the opinions you’ll hear from those who benefited from your lack of boundaries, the guilt, the self-doubt, and the loneliness that often follow, and it’s no wonder so many people return to what feels familiar. Not because it’s better, but because it’s known territory.

Growth Doesn’t Happen Overnight

If my books, my writing, or my work challenge you, I don’t expect you to change overnight. I don’t expect you to read one chapter and suddenly leave the relationship, quit the job, or start over.

Real change doesn’t happen because someone posted a motivational quote or reminded you to choose yourself. It happens through hundreds of small decisions that slowly become a different way of living.

I know that work can be done because I’ve done it, and I continue to do it every single day.

Why I Write This Way

In future workshops and writings, I’ll share more about the odds I faced growing up, in the military, and beyond because transparency matters to me. I’m not a woman who operates in shame.

What would it look like for me to tell you to choose yourself if I’d never had to make that decision over and over again? Like BS, that’s what.

I don’t sell bullshit dreams or fluff. The real will always be present here, in my books, in my courses, and if you ever decide to work with me one-on-one.

Savage Truth

A savage doesn’t confuse choosing herself with feeling fearless. She makes the decision while she’s scared because she knows courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s refusing to let fear make the decision.