Post by @heybrookerose

“I feel like I’m not making any progress.” I’ve told myself this more times than I can count. And when you have a house full of unfinished projects,or a life full of things you started and never finished,it’s really easy to turn that into evidence about who you are. I must not be disciplined enough. I lose motivation. I never follow through. I abandon everything. But after spending the last 53 days finishing everything I abandoned, I’m starting to wonder if we’ve gotten this whole conversation wrong. Because I don’t think I ever had a motivation problem. I wanted these things finished. And I definitely wasn’t lacking discipline. For six years, when our financial circumstances changed and we couldn’t afford to finish our house, I kept trying. I sold things. DoorDashed with my kids. Built a career creating content. Took opportunities when they came. Nick worked and grew in his career. When we had extra money, we moved something forward. And when we couldn’t? We lived. We raised our babies. We paid bills. We got through hard months. We loved each other in the middle of a house that still wasn’t finished. I was motivated. I was disciplined. And six years of getting back up and trying again tells me I was pretty damn resilient, too. The problem was that none of those things gave me control. No amount of motivation could make money appear overnight. No amount of discipline could make our circumstances change faster. No amount of resilience could guarantee the timeline I wanted. And I think THAT is the part so much motivation advice leaves out. We’re taught: Want it badly enough. Be disciplined. Stay consistent. Don’t quit. And those things matter. But so do circumstances. So does capacity. So do resources. So does timing. So does having kids and jobs and bills and an actual life happening while you’re trying to build another one. Social media can make it look like everyone else finishes the room in a weekend, changes their life in 30 days, builds the business in a year. But that’s a choice. It’s not a requirement for progress. Sometimes progress is huge. Sometimes it’s $100. One drawer. One unfinished thing at a time. It all counts 💛