You can choose to change your life at any moment: to live in integrity, to be honest, to stand up for yourself, to say "no, I actually don't want to do that". Your life is yours - you can create it however you want. And if you're alive to read this right now, it's not too late.

One day last December, I was really just going through my day when I scrolled past a Twitter post that said something about changing your life in 30 days: taking those 30 days to get really serious and careful with yourself. I've seen a lot of those posts over the years, but something about this one just stuck. I realized then that I wasn't giving myself the true effort, the attention, or the respect that I deserved. I didn't take myself seriously and I didn't think I was capable. The person I wanted to be felt so out of reach and so different from what I was raised to think was possible. I realized that day all the ways I was holding myself back and I began to work myself through each of them.

Growth can be scary because there can be some expectation for changes to be immediate. To wake up the next day and feel healed. But anything worth having takes time, and it takes time to build something that you want to keep. Growth happens little by little throughout each day, until you look back in 6 months and see that the things that once made you feel angry or insecure don't have an effect on you anymore. And if they do, you've developed the skills to handle them in a healthier way.

At any point in your day, you can choose to be a better version of yourself and you can implement those changes day by day, knowing that they're adding up to someone amazing. It can take months or even years to become the person you feel confident being - this isn't a race and there isn't a time limit on how quickly you can change. The only person you should be competing with is you from yesterday. The person you are today is expanding on the knowledge you had a day ago. 

There will be back-slides, there will be times you feel like saying "no" but you say "yes" to keep the peace. As long as you're still trying, no one can take that away from you. Progress is still progress, no matter how small or slow. Those little moments will add up when you look back and realize you're no longer the same person. You've created a life you're proud of.

- JS