It's a chapter in everyone's journey that no one talks about

It's not the part where you're winning

It's not the part when you're motivated

It's that in between stage when you're grinding you're growing and nobody sees that I call it the lonely chapter

It's that point in your life when you start changing your habits your mindset your goals but the world around you just hasn't caught up yet

You're growing out of your old circles but you're not deep enough into your new ones that you feel at home either right

So you're in this limbo stage of loneliness

You start noticing that the people you used to hang out with you don't connect the same with anymore

The conversations feel different the energy feels off

It's not that anyone did anything wrong it's just that you're evolving and evolution

It's lonely

You might be in the gym every morning pushing yourself but nobody's clapping

You might be working 12 hour days building your business while everybody else is having fun

You might be in a relationship that's being tested because you're changing and learning things about yourself that you didn't know there were there

It's like that Rocky montage except it doesn't last two minutes with a song in the background

It lasts months sometimes even years

And there's no crowd watching no music just you showing up day after day night after night

And that is the prize of entry loneliness solitude self doubt

People talk about glow up the success the new life but the truth is before you grow up you break down to the ground before you find peace you sit in silence

Before you become confident you go through the seasons of questioning everything absolutely everything

And this is where most people quit because it's hard to believe in yourself when no one is watching

There's no validation when all you have is your own voice telling you keep going

And that's where self belief really matters when it's just you your thoughts and the work when conviction doesn't slip

Chris Williams has something that stuck with me uh back when I went to go watch the show in New York he said all the intelligent people are full of doubt while the dumb ones are full of confidence

And the moment he said this I kind of just stood and I was like fuck man

Like and it's true

The more self aware you become the more you see how much you don't know

But that's also how you grow

You can't fake bravery

You can't fake conviction doing the thing even when you're scared

That's bravery

Doing the thing when you don't feel motivated

That's discipline that's conviction

And what's crazy is you don't just go through the lonely chapter once

You go through it over and over again

Each time you do that in order to grow into the next version of yourself

Every time you level up whether it's in business relationships health or in your own mindset there's another lonely chapter waiting for you on the other side

Because every time you grow you all grow something in the past

And every time you outgrow something you're forced into solitude again because now you're evolving to this new version of yourself

So therefore everything that was there beforehand is no longer gonna serve you the same as the ones in the new version of yourself

So you're gonna be stuck again in this little sliver of loneliness

And that's the cost of being a lifelong learner

That's the cost of never settling

You have to die to who you were to become who you want to be

And I get it honestly

I mean it's not easy

There are nights when you question if it's all worth it

There are mornings when you wake up tired not physically necessarily but mentally from just doing everything holding everything together

You pray for a sign for some kind of confirmation that you're not wasting your time and then something is gonna go right eventually

But here's the thing

God doesn't build in comfort he built in silence he built in solitude he strips away distractions he takes people out of your life he closes doors not to punish you but to prepare you for what he has in store for you

You might not understand it right now but this season is necessary because if he gave you everything you're praying for today you wouldn't be able to carry it

You would not be ready for it you wouldn't know how to handle it

Right if you're praying for wealth and you were to get that right now in this moment you would most likely go broke within a couple months because you haven't built the skill of handling wealth you haven't built the skill of handling a partner you haven't built the skill of handling and maintaining a good physique so therefore you have to go through all that dirty work in order to get what you're praying for

And honestly this is where she's teaching you how to be alone without being lonely necessarily

How to trust when you can't see how to believe when there's no evidence yet

The lonely chapter is where faith is built

And this is where a lot of people start turning into god in their lowest moments

In this lonely chapter where discipline replaces motivation when you stop chasing validation and start building conviction it's not necessarily a punishment

It's more of preparation

It's where the foundation gets poured and settled where it hardens

It's where your character catches up to your calling

So if you're in that season right now just keep going

I know it's hard

I've been there

I mean man I know how it feels

It feels endless

Honestly it kind of feels like I'm still going through that

But this is the work that no one sees

And that's why it matters

One day you're gonna look back and you're gonna realize that this was part of that change that you've been wanting

And this was the moment that absolutely pivoted your life and changed everything

Not necessarily the winds not the highlights of your life but this this lonely chapter was the part that made you you everything you're looking for praying for asking for working towards the peace the people the success the sense of purpose

It's all waiting on the other side of this version of you right

All that you're asking for is waiting on the other side of the hard work

If you're not willing to do the hard work the lonely work the doubtful work of pushing through all of this trash all of this just mess of problems that you have not addressed yet

And you don't do the necessary work of forgetting how it is that you were thinking beforehand introducing new ideas and adapting them to become the person you wanna be then what's the point

What are you doing all this for right

Like if you're voluntarily putting yourself in a state of pain with the objective of change and you are not willing to do the change then dude what do you like

You like pain

Like is that what you like

Honestly it's weird because I found myself at a point where there was a specific part of myself that I was not willing to change because it was either um just something that I was used to was like comfortable or maybe I was just denying myself the fact that I could change

And things that were happening in my life kept bumping up against that little character trait that little thing

And I found myself kind of stuck saying like man I guess like this is it like this is as far as I go

But then you realize like dude you just gotta you gotta keep your head down man

Like you gotta keep your head down keep your heart right keep building because this lonely chapter it doesn't last forever but who you become that person on the other side that version of you that you're working towards that's the version that lasts you a lifetime

That is who your kids are gonna look up to who your wife is gonna love who your mother's gonna be proud of who your dad's gonna say hey son you made it who your friends are gonna use for motivation

Everyone else that's looking at you is gonna look at you and be like man fuck she did it

And this is not necessarily again it's not necessarily about validation

It's about doing what you say you were gonna do

And there's a very specific sense of satisfaction from that that no other reward in life uh gives you

So the lonely chapter you know the funny thing about the lonely chapter is that it doesn't end with a big moment

It ends quietly

One day you kind of just wake up and you realize that you're not who you used to be

That pain that used to sting doesn't sting the same

That silence that used to hurt you now feels more like peace

And you start to see yourself differently

And that's when the next stage begins

Because once the loneliness shapes you you reach that point where there's nowhere left to run no distractions no noise no validation

Just you

And when it's just you you have to look in the mirror and face everything you've become all the good that you've turned from that bad and all that bad that sadly has kind of stayed

You just have to face everything

Look at yourself in the mirror and understand that that's part of you and you still have a long way to go but you've come that far

That's the mirror stage

It's not about grinding anymore necessarily

It's not about working harder

It's about understanding

It's about taking a hard look at yourself your patterns your fears your truth and deciding what stays and what goes right

You've already done the work to change into the person that you need to be in order to fulfill your goals

Now you need to decide okay we need to trim up this fat we need to figure this out

That lonely chapter builds your strength

That mirror stage builds your awareness

So if you're still in that lonely season understand that it's leading somewhere

It's not just endless void because when the science starts to settle the reflection starts to speak

That's when you finally meet that person that all this pain was preparing you to become

So now the mirror stage thank you so much for listening and for watching

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