I think commitment was the real issue.

Not talent.Not intelligence.Not even lack of options.

Commitment.

Because if I’m being honest, I have spent a lot of years starting, stopping, pivoting, rethinking, reimagining, getting excited, burning out, and then asking myself the same damn question again:

What the hell am I supposed to be doing with my life?

And that question has followed me through degrees, jobs, side hustles, books, business ideas, and all these little versions of a life I thought maybe I was supposed to want.

I went from medical billing and coding to human services to marriage and family therapy. Before that I thought I wanted to be a nurse. I did the CNA program. One day into the externship, I knew I didn’t want that either.

Three quarters into one program, I already knew I wasn’t going to use it.Finished it anyway.Got the degree anyway.Never worked in the field a day in my life.

That has happened more than once.

And it wasn’t because I’m lazy. It wasn’t because I can’t do hard things. I can. I have. I do. It was more like once I could see what something actually was, once I could feel the weight of it, I knew whether it belonged to me or not.

The problem is I didn’t always trust that.

So instead of trusting it, I kept trying to force myself into things that looked respectable, practical, stable, secure. And if you know what it’s like to keep reaching for certainty because somewhere deep down you’ve never really felt safe, then you probably know this feeling too.

For me, some of that goes all the way back to being adopted. That constant internal reaching for something settled. Something solid. Something that says, here, this is it, now relax.

But that feeling never came from the outside.Not from the degree.Not from the title.Not from the next plan.

And I kept trying.

I had a million jobs. I’m barely exaggerating. Because every time I mastered something, I was like, okay… now what? You mean to tell me I’m supposed to do this exact same thing for the next ten or fifteen years? Absolutely the hell not.

That used to make me mad at myself.

Why can’t you just commit?Why do you keep changing your mind?Why can’t you just pick something and stay there?

And then life really started life-ing.

My marriage was hard.My house felt chaotic.My finances were stretched.I had a baby.I mentally checked out of my full-time job because I just couldn’t do it anymore.

So I cut down to part-time, but I still had to make money. Which meant I was out here doing everything. Mystery shopping. Helping seniors. Washing people’s laundry. Side hustle after side hustle after side hustle, trying to hold it all together while quietly losing my mind.

That season did something to me.

Because when you’re in survival mode, you don’t always have the luxury of asking what is aligned. Sometimes you’re just asking what is going to help me make it through this week.

And I did make it through.

That’s the part I keep coming back to.

I made it through one of the lowest financial seasons of my life. And weirdly enough, inside of that, I learned something I don’t think I could have learned any other way:

Everything I thought I needed, I didn’t actually need.Everything I was panicking about, God had already handled in ways I could not see yet.Everything I thought would break me… didn’t.

That changed something in me.

Because I started to see I don’t need to chase life the way I thought I did. I don’t need to build some huge empire just because that’s what people online keep screaming at us. I don’t need an LLC right now. I don’t need to force myself into entrepreneurship if what I actually want is simplicity. I don’t want to manage a big business with a bunch of employees and all that pressure. I do not want that damn headache.

That is not failure.That is clarity.

And I think this is where a lot of people get stuck.

We keep trying to build lives that match somebody else’s nervous system. Somebody else’s appetite. Somebody else’s definition of success. Then we wonder why our body feels tight, why our mind feels loud, why we feel like we’re dragging ourselves through our own life.

Your body knows.Your spirit knows.The problem is a lot of us have gotten so used to overriding ourselves that when something actually feels natural, we don’t trust it.

For me, what feels natural is talking.

I love to talk.I love to learn.I love to teach.I am much more of a talker than a writer.

So when I sat down with this mic and just started speaking, my body got calm.

That matters to me now.

Not because calm means easy. Not because calm means there won’t be work involved. But because calm is a clue. Calm tells me I’m not forcing myself to become someone else. I’m not trying to perform a version of success that doesn’t belong to me.

And I’m tired of doing that.

I’m tired of trying to make it look right.I’m tired of trying to make it perform well.I’m tired of trying to create according to everybody else’s formulas.

Look at the numbers.Watch the analytics.Pay attention to engagement.Make sure people like it.Make sure they comment.Make sure it grows fast.

All of that had me stuck.

I’ve started and stopped on Substack more times than I want to admit. Not because I had nothing to say, but because I was too busy paying attention to whether anybody was clapping. Nobody liked my notes. Nobody commented on the videos. Nobody seemed to care.

And if I’m not careful, I can let that s**t get all the way in my head.

I would read posts from people saying, “I just made my first post and already got five subscribers,” and I’d be like, you a lie. How? How are you doing that when I’ve posted six or seven things and got nothing?

That comparison will poison the whole experience if you let it.

So now I’m calling it what it is.

Comparison.Complaining.Criticizing.

The three C’s of cancer.

None of that is healthy. None of that creates anything good. None of that helps me stay connected to myself.

So I’m done chasing the polished version. I’m done chasing the version that looks better on paper. I’m done making myself wrong because my path has had a thousand turns in it.

This year, I’m committing.

Not in some dramatic, performative way.Not because I suddenly have every answer.Not because I finally cracked the code.

I’m committing because I can finally see that I kept quitting before I had enough reps to know what something could become.

I’d stop because it got hard.I’d stop because nobody responded.I’d stop because I got in my head.I’d stop because I was comparing.I’d stop because life got loud.

And I’m not judging that version of me. She was carrying a lot.

But I can see her now.

I can see the pattern.

And once you see the pattern, it gets harder to keep calling it confusion when it’s really fear. Or self-doubt. Or wanting guaranteed proof before you give your heart to something.

So I’m making a decision to stay.

To stay with the podcast.To stay with these honest conversations.To stay with being vulnerable.To stay with creating from what is actually true for me.

Even if it’s messy.Even if I say “um” fifty times.Even if it’s not polished.Even if it grows slowly.Even if people don’t get it right away.

I’m not doing this to look impressive.

I’m doing this because I want to sound like a real person again.

And honestly, I think we need more of that. More people telling the truth without packaging every damn thing into some polished, AI-smoothed, perfect little performance. More people sounding like they actually live on this planet and have been through some s**t.

I was a damn good therapist. I know that.

But this right here? This is different.

This is me without the polished frame. This is me speaking from the middle of my own life instead of pretending I’m standing above it with a neat little lesson tied up in a bow. And I think there’s healing in that too. Not because I’m trying to teach it like therapy. Just because honesty does something. Shared experience does something. It reminds people they are not crazy and they are not alone.

That matters to me.

I’m in a season of awareness now. Real awareness. The kind where you can step back and actually see what’s happening in your own life. The kind where you notice your old patterns without instantly becoming them. The kind where you start accepting yourself instead of constantly trying to fix, edit, or outperform who you are.

And I feel grateful for that.

I feel grateful that I’m becoming more okay with being me.I feel grateful that I love me more now.I feel grateful that I care less and less about how it looks to somebody else.

That freedom feels good.

So yeah, this is my commitment.

To do what makes my heart smile.To stay with what naturally flows.To honor the gifts God gave me instead of trying to turn myself into somebody else.To keep showing up.To keep talking.To keep letting this be simple.

And if you’re in your own season of trying to figure it out, maybe that’s the invitation.

Not to force some giant answer.Not to build a whole fake life because you think you’re supposed to.Not to compare your beginning to somebody else’s middle.

Just commit.

Commit to the thing that feels honest.Commit to the thing that lets your body exhale.Commit to the thing that you know you keep circling back to.

Put in the reps.Stay long enough to actually meet yourself there.

That’s what I’m doing.

And if any part of this hit home for you, stay with me.

Subscribe. Listen. Walk with me while I walk this out too.

I do not have all the answers.I’m not pretending to.

But I do believe we can help each other. I do believe healing happens in shared truth. And I damn sure love hearing about people’s wins, so bring those too.

We’re figuring it out.And that counts for something.

Thanks for being here.

If these words found you at the right moment, you’re welcome to subscribe and keep the conversation going.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit consciousandcomposed.substack.com