A Life Lesson I'm Learning to Treasure
You’re building something.
Maybe it’s a business, or the passion project you keep growing on the side. Maybe it’s a whole life after the kids moved out and the house went quiet. Maybe it’s the next chapter after a divorce, the one you’re writing from scratch. Maybe it’s a body that moves and feels the way you want it to again. Maybe it’s just the next, truer version of you, still under construction.
Whatever you’re building, you’re pouring yourself into it with countless small efforts nobody sees. ๐ฅน
And maybe without even realizing it, you made a deal: you'll let yourself feel good about it once it's done, once there's proof. Until then? Head down. No credit. Finish line or bust.
I know that deal intimately. I keep making it too. But there’s a trap inside it, and I learned it the hard way on an actual mountain.
A while back I trained for nearly two years to bike up Mount Washington, one of the steepest bike climbs in the world. I summited it. (That whole wild story is right here.) And by dinner that very night, I’d already decided I’d gone too slow, stopped too often, basically come in last. Even though I’d just climbed uphill 4,000 feet on a bike, somehow it still wasn’t even enough. ๐คจ
If summiting a literal mountain couldn't make me proud, no finish line ever would. That's the trap.
The good feeling you keep saving for "once it's done" never actually arrives, because the moment you get there, your mind has already moved the line. ๐ฅบ
Keep that up, and a whole life can pass while you wait to feel good about it.
The mind is so powerful. It’s always doing one of two things. Either it’s working for you, generating the emotions that feel good on the way to where you’re going, or it’s quietly stealing the joy right out of your path.
What if you could wield your mind to feel good about yourself mid-climb, long before the dream destination?
That feeling, whatever you call it, is what believing in yourself feels like, and it’s fuel. With it, you’re bound to hit the moon as you reach for the stars. โจ
โฆ Self-Trust: Believing in Yourself Mid-Climb
So if the finish line can’t make you feel proud, what can?
You can. By giving yourself credit right now, before there’s a single piece of proof.
After a challenging bike ride or hike, legs shaking, instead of replaying everything I could have done better, I say it out loud to myself:
I’m proud of you, Sue. ๐
You might say something different. The words matter less than the feel-good flush of acknowledging yourself.
That's self-trust, the credit you hand yourself along the way, long before you've arrived anywhere.
I’m learning to let that “you’re a total rockstar” voice speak up more often. It's not easy, especially when the climb feels more like a faceplant and you can't find one good thing to say about yourself.
Here’s how to believe in yourself on a hard day:
Don’t try to force a feeling. Check your focus instead.
Ask yourself:
Am I focused on…
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The past, on what’s already behind me?
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The future, on what’s not yet here?
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Everything that’s not working?
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All the things I can’t control?
Then, shift your focus to…
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What’s already here?
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What’s already going right?
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One thing I can actually influence today.
Notice how that shift fills you back up with something that feels good, a little peace, a little possibility? Because….
You feel what you focus on, and those feelings are your fuel.
Believe in yourself, let that good feeling in, and it carries you up the mountain. Beat yourself up instead, and you stay stuck at the bottom, feeling terrible and going nowhere. ๐
What keeps me climbing on the genuinely hard days, when the wobble gets loud, is my unwavering focus on the woman I’m here to support. I picture her whole and healing, and how that ripples to everyone she loves.
Hurt people hurt people, and healed people heal people.
When I focus on that ripple, I feel it right in my heart, pulling me forward. Honestly, it usually leaves me a little teary (in a feel good way), because it’s my soul’s purpose to help another ease their suffering. That’s why I’m here. ๐
How about you? What could you focus on to feel even more peace, joy, possibility?
โฆ You Can Do Hard Things. This Is One of Them.
Starting the passion project, starting over after divorce, starting your next chapter after the kids move out, or starting to share an even more authentic version of you, that’s the hard stuff, and you’re doing it. You can do hard things; you’re living proof. ๐
So let yourself feel good about the unfinished, unglamorous middle. Right now. Before it turns a profit, before the body cooperates, before the new chapter looks like anything at all from the outside.
You don’t have to wait until it’s done to believe in yourself. Letting that good feeling in now, that is believing in yourself. The done version was never the point.
The real too-late is spending years with your head down, waiting to feel good about a life you were living the whole time. ๐ฅน
So just for a moment, close your eyes and picture someone who loves you wrapping you in the biggest hug, squeezing you so tight, so proud of you they can barely stand it.
And let that gorgeousness soak all the way in, no matter how unfinished you feel.
xo,
Dr. Sue
P.S. Climbing something big right now? You don't have to do it alone. Soulfull Membership is where women just like you stop beating themselves up and start believing in themselves mid-climb, together. Join us here → ๐
P.P.S. Join me live every Friday at 11:30am Eastern on Substack. This week: Stop Beating Yourself Up. Believe in Yourself Now. See you there → ๐
