I lost the weight.
But apparently, my beliefs didn’t get the memo.
They were still sitting at the same desk, drinking the same coffee, clocked in like nothing had changed.
My body changed.
But I was still me.
Eventually, I lost 115 pounds. I became stronger. I moved differently. I taught cycling. There was visible evidence that something had changed.
The scale could prove it.
My clothes could prove it.
Pictures could prove it.
My physical ability could prove it.
But there were things the scale could not measure.
The way I thought about myself.
The things I believed about what I could and could not do.
The conclusions I had already made about who I was.
Maybe the body wasn’t the only thing I needed to pay attention to.
The Woman Who Took Care of Everybody
I knew how to work.
I knew how to organize.
I knew how to prepare.
I knew how to make things happen.
I knew how to keep going.
I knew how to figure things out.
My responsibilities didn’t disappear because I was tired.
People still needed me.
Things still had to get done.
And somehow, I found a way.
So eventually I had to ask myself a question:
Did I actually lack discipline?
Because the evidence didn’t say that.
The evidence said I had discipline.
I had persistence.
I knew how to prepare.
I knew how to follow through.
The problem was not that those things were absent from my life.
The problem was that so much of that capacity had been directed everywhere else.
The Capacity Wasn’t the Problem
Sometimes we describe ourselves based on one area of struggle while ignoring evidence from the rest of our lives.
You say you’re not disciplined, but you get up and go to work when you don’t feel like it.
You say you can’t follow through, but people depend on you because they know you will.
That doesn’t mean everything is fine.
There may still be areas where you need support.
There may be things you need to correct.
There may be places where you need more preparation, more information, or a different approach.
But that is different from saying you have nothing to work with.
The capacity may already be there. The direction may be the issue.
But what if I didn’t need to become somebody else before I could begin?
What if some of what I needed had already been demonstrated in my own life?
What if the first step wasn’t:
Become more capable.
What if the first step was:
Recognize the capacity you already have and begin directing some of it toward you?
Now we’re getting somewhere.
You May Already Know How to Do Hard Things Sometimes we are so familiar with our own strength that we stop recognizing it as strength.
We call it:
“That’s just what I had to do.”
“That’s what mothers do.”
“That’s what fathers do.”
“That’s my job.”
“Somebody had to handle it.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
Maybe.
But you still did it.
I’m not asking you to romanticize hard seasons.
I’m not asking you to pretend carrying too much was good for you.
I’m asking you to look at the evidence of who showed up inside those seasons.
What did you learn how to do?
What strengths did you demonstrate?
What capacity did you build?
Maybe you learned how to prepare.
Maybe you became resourceful.
Maybe you learned how to advocate.
Maybe you learned how to show up even when you didn’t feel like showing up.
That’s evidence.
And we’re going to use it.
Because I don’t want to build your next chapter on the assumption that you’re incapable.
I want to build it on evidence.
Find Your Strength™ So we’re going to do something simple.
Not easy.
Simple.
I want you to find your strength.
Not the strength you wish you had.
Not the strength somebody told you that you need.
Not the strength you saw somebody demonstrating online.
Yours.
The one for which your life can produce receipts.
1. SEE IT
Look at the life you already live.
Where do you consistently show up?
Where do people depend on you?
What do you prepare for?
What problems have you learned how to solve?
Where do you follow through even when you don’t feel like it?
Where have you recovered after something didn’t go according to plan?
Don’t choose something because it sounds good.
Find the receipt.
Write down one specific example from your real life.
REFLECTION
My evidence:
2. NAME IT Now look at the evidence you wrote down.
What strength does it reveal?
For example:
“I make sure everybody has what they need before we leave the house.”
That may be preparation.
“When money got tight, I figured out how to keep the household functioning.”
That may be resourcefulness or problem-solving.
Now name what your evidence shows.
The strength I see in myself is:
And before you minimize it, explain it away, or say,
“That’s just what I do,” I want you to leave it right there.
You did it.
That’s the receipt.
3. REDIRECT IT Now we get to the part that matters.
Where could some of that same strength be directed toward your wellbeing?
Not your whole life.
Not twenty-seven new habits by Monday.
One place.
If your strength is preparation, maybe you use that preparation to make one thing easier for yourself this week.
If your strength is persistence, maybe you stop using persistence only to push through and begin using it to return when something doesn’t go according to plan.
If your strength is follow-through, maybe you make one small commitment to yourself and treat it with the same respect you give commitments you make to other people.
You do not have to redirect everything today.
Choose one.
The strength I’m choosing to redirect is:
One way I can direct it toward my wellbeing is:
The next useful action I can take is:
That’s it.
One strength.
One redirection.
One action.
You’re Not Starting From Zero I want you to look at what you just wrote.
Those are receipts.
We are not pretending nothing needs work.
There are things we will examine.
There are things we may need to change.
But we are not going to begin this work by erasing every strength you’ve already demonstrated.
You are not a blank page.
You are not starting from zero.
Ready to put this chapter to work?