How long will you keep chasing the life you want before you realize that becoming it begins long before you arrive?
Psychologically, we often live in a state of “not yet.”
Not successful yet. Not healed yet. Not confident yet. Not happy yet.
And when we continually tell our minds that the life we desire exists somewhere in the future, we can unconsciously organize our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors around waiting instead of becoming.
The deeper transformation happens when you begin to psychologically inhabit the person you are becoming before the external evidence has fully arrived. You don’t deny reality—you change your relationship with it.
You begin asking:
“If I were already living from the strength, peace, confidence, and purpose I desire, how would I think? How would I respond? What would I no longer tolerate? What would I finally believe about myself?”
Then you practice living those answers.
Your brain learns through repetition. Your identity is strengthened by the choices you repeatedly make. And over time, what once felt like an aspiration begins to feel like who you are.
Don’t spend your entire life waiting for permission from circumstances to become the person you were capable of becoming.
Sometimes the goal isn’t to finally arrive at a new life.
It is to become the person who can live that life—and to begin becoming her today.
— Dr. Kathie Mathis, Psy.D.