The biggest lesson that keeps coming back to me in all shapes and forms when I watch a successful person in all their glory is not that they are talented or that they are gifted but that they are committed to their pov. However strange, problematic, kanye-ish it may be. They take their whole damn soul and decide to commit. There is nothing wrong with them. And if there is, they will not find out because when they are successful they will be what is normal.

What is my every emotional spiral about? It is not about what is happening or how I am feeling about it. It is that I don’t believe myself. I don’t believe that I should be feeling bad. Or that what happened was terrible enough. In the midst of feeling bad, I will remind myself to be grateful or that things could have been worse. When I commit to my pov, my spiral stops. ‘Yes, my friend is being a prick’ and ‘Yes, it is okay to be disappointed’ Trusting yourself is the first step to moving forward. We waste all time denying our own realities.

Maybe I learn that my friend is being a prick but also I am feeling extra bad because of something else that happened too. Fair. Progress. Maybe I learn that my friend is being a prick, but I am committed to our friendship so I forgive and move on. Progress. But I spend all our time thinking, ‘why am I so sensitive?’ ‘Why can’t I be like those other cool girls who don’t care about anyone?’ No, my friend is being a prick, I am feeling bad. The end.

This is the root cause of most worries, doubts, fears. Pretending that we don’t know. We do know. We know what we want, we know who we love, we know who doesn’t love us, we know. Sometimes, it is easier to pretend that we don’t know. Because once we know, it demands we do something about it. And doing something about it can be hard. So we pretend to be lost. To doubt ourselves endlessly into inaction. To not know our talents, to not know our joys, to not know who we are.

There are two options. You either trust yourself or you don’t. If you don’t, find out what it will take to trust yourself. Maybe you need evidence that you can be trusted. Or maybe you need to surround yourself with people who trust you. Or maybe you need to stop being so scared and trust yourself anyway. The worst thing you can do to yourself is believing that there is anything outside of you that can give you what you need. There is no such thing. Your only hope is you. So commit to your pov.