Do It Anyway

I’ve loved the audio of Rob Dial Jr. from The Mindset Mentor talking about changing your life with four words: “I do it anyways.” Colloquially cute but grammatically incorrect? Sure. Effective? Extremely.

And honestly, I needed that.

I had a hard year. I lost my dad, my marriage, and a lot of the identities tied to both. I lost the house, the companionship, the advice, the stability…everything those roles had quietly come to mean to me. And, if I’m being fully honest, I lost a whole lot of dignity in the aftermath too.

I have a lot of compassion for myself for what I went through, not because I think self-pity is helpful, but because, objectively, it was a lot.

And I did most of it on national television.

I’m on a reality show, and that was my reality. I didn’t do it for the show, but I let the show follow a lot of it, (and more of that is coming this upcoming season) which meant that I, my mess, and my follies became available for public consumption, assessment, and degradation. No sympathy needed. It’s part of the deal. But it was still a lot.

And how did I handle it all?

See above where I mentioned losing self-respect and dignity. Ha, but really.

At first, I ran. Far and wide. Literally, mentally, emotionally, financially, you name it. I traveled. I spent money. I jumped into not-especially-well-thought-out relationships—cough, sorry, situationships—and kept the volume of my life turned all the way up. Loud enough, I hoped, that the sads couldn’t find me. If I was on a plane, exhausted, distracted, busy, overbooked, or dancing in a club, surely grief couldn’t catch up.

False.

At some point, I was joking around with a friends-with-benefits situation, he said something unexpectedly sweet in response to my snark, and I started full-on sobbing. Not tearing up. Not gracefully blinking back emotion. Sobbing. The moment of closeness and compassion cracked something open, and out came a well I had clearly been trying to outrun.

Which I probably needed.

But also: who cries to their FWB?

That was a turning point. The moment I had to admit that the things I wasn’t facing were not, in fact, going to go away.

Because guess what met me at every gate, in every hotel room, in every quiet 2 a.m. moment, in the shower, and sometimes mid-bite when I least expected it? Grief. Fear. Sadness. Anxiety. Worry.

There was no outrunning it. No drowning it out. No amount of chaos I could create for myself that would make it all disappear. I was going to have to face myself. And, while I was at it, face how childishly I’d been handling myself.

Which is always the rude part, isn’t it? Realizing that the messes we make trying not to feel something usually hurt us more than the original thing.

So, in a turn of events shocking to absolutely no one, everywhere I went, I found myself. My same old issues. My same old maladaptive coping strategies. My same old fears, wants, wounds, and habits. It was time to face all of it.

That part was embarrassing.

So naturally, I told everyone.

I let cameras document it. I talked about it too much. I narrated my own bad behavior in real time. I became extremely self-aware about how dumb I was being and thought maybe that counted as growth.

It does not. Let’s just call that sophisticated stagnation.

Knowing yourself, exposing yourself, intellectualizing yourself—those are starts. But they are not the work. The work is catching yourself in the act, interrupting the pattern, starting again, and doing that over and over until you slowly rewire your own programming.

I kept trying to figure out how to fix myself and my life. I had accepted that I couldn’t run, couldn’t hide, and now had multiple messes to clean up, truths to face, and habits to break. But how?

I read a lot about grief, healing, getting your spark back, and finding your way forward. And while so much of it was beautiful, not much of it told me specifically how. So, as your friend in this, if you’re going through any version of your own hard season, I’m not gatekeeping.

I’m going to tell you what has actually helped me.

Some of it is deep. Some of it is silly. Some of it won’t work for you. Some of it will make you laugh. But being cringe is one of my suggestions, so laugh away.

It all started with one idea:

Tired? I do it anyways.
No support? I do it anyways.
Scared shitless? I do it anyways.
Afraid of failure? I do it anyways.
Fear of rejection? I do it anyways.

And let’s add a few more:

Worried? I do it anyways.
Anxious? I do it anyways.
Alone? I do it anyways.
Embarrassed? I do it anyways.
Unsure? I do it anyways.

The truth is, we don’t give ourselves enough credit for how often we already do this. We show up anyway. We laugh anyway. We survive anyway. We struggle, and then one day we look around and realize we’re not just surviving anymore—we’re thriving again.

Realizing I was already doing some of it made me more open to trying the rest.

And here’s what’s helped.

Be honest.

I tell the truth… to myself and to other people.

When someone asks how I am, I try to say the real thing: scared, tired, hopeful, excited, angry, confused. We’re all so trained to say “good” or “fine,” when most of the time we are literally neither of those things. Naming what you feel matters. It lets people in. It reduces shame. It tells your body and your brain that you’re actually paying attention.

I also try to speak honestly to myself.

This sucks.
This is hard.
I didn’t deserve this.
Or, in some cases: babe, you absolutely contributed to this.

But also:

I will be okay.
This will pass.
I am strong enough for this.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I can handle whatever it is.

That last part matters. Honesty without hope is just spiraling. I’m not interested in that.

Say it.

A subset of honesty is this: just say it.

If I don’t want to go to the restaurant, I say so. Kindly, not selfishly, but directly. Why am I 40 years old and still going somewhere I hate if I don’t have to? If I disagree with something, I try to talk it through. If something hurt me, I say that too.

Holding everything back teaches both you and the people around you that your needs don’t matter. They do.

And I say the bigger things too, to trusted friends and to a great therapist. I cannot overstate how vital good therapy has been for me. If you think you might benefit, find one. Beg, borrow, research, ask around, figure out the resources. It matters.

Set a timer.

Feelings pass. They just do.

For years I’ve told my daughter: you can feel whatever you feel, but you can’t always act on it, and you definitely shouldn’t always believe it.

So when my feelings are particularly spicy, I set a literal or figurative timer, five minutes, ten minutes, thirty if I’m really in it, and I let myself feel the feeling.

I cry. I rage. I panic. I sulk. I stare dramatically into the middle distance. Whatever.

A few years ago I learned to surf, found so much peace in learning about the waves. How a surfer learns to swim out over, under or through them. Learning to sit on your board and allow the waves to come to you as they are. Some we let pass us and we feel them come and go, others are the right ones for us to paddle into and ride and of those some we ride halfway, all the way, or even for just a second. Some wash over us, pull us under or kick our butt, humble us, but all are coming when we put ourselves in the water. We don’t have to understand the waves, and we cannot control them, but we can learn to appreciate them and ride the ones we are hope are for us.

That’s how I think about feelings now. I don’t have to understand every wave. I don’t have to stop it. I just have to stop acting like it will kill me if I let it come through.

Usually, I don’t even need the whole timer. Once I stop resisting the feeling and actually let myself sit in it, it moves faster than I think it will. And every time it passes, it reminds me of something important:

I will not feel this way forever.

There is space between a feeling and an action. That space is where your power is.

Dance.

I love music, so I use it.

In my house. In the car. In my AirPods while I’m walking, getting ready, spiraling less, living more. And yes, I dance. Why would I deny myself an easy joy? It’s very hard to stay committed to your despair while dancing to a song you love.

Music reminds me not to be so rigid. It loosens me up. It gives me confidence, energy, swagger, and occasionally a reason to dramatically lip-sync through a parking lot like I’m in a music video no one asked for.

Highly recommend.

Move your body.

This leads me to movement in general.

I hate working out in the traditional sense. Hate it. But I love surfing. I love walking my dogs. I love walking in a city. I love yoga with an instructor who sneaks a life sermon into the middle of stretching. I run when things are hard.

Find the movement that feels like yours and do that.

Movement brings endorphins and we all know how Elle Woods feels about endorphins. Get yourself some.

Embrace the cringe.

I’m serious.

I dance in airports. I walk around vibing in my headphones. I try things I might fail at. I start over publicly. I make mistakes people get to watch in real time. Fine.

Maybe I’m embarrassing. Maybe I’m cringe. Maybe I’m trying and someone sees me trying.

So what?

I’d rather be a little embarrassing than emotionally constipated and frozen in place.

I also laugh a lot, especially at myself. At how often I still try to control things I cannot control. At my spectacular failures. At how absurd life can be. Humor makes it easier to start over. It softens the shame. It reminds me that not every misstep needs to become a character indictment.

Sometimes it’s just a funny story.

Look outward.

One thing I’ve had to reframe is the fact that I’m often the initiator in my relationships. I’m the one who texts, invites, checks in, hosts, remembers.

That used to make me feel unseen or unloved. Now I’m trying to see it differently.

What if that’s not a burden? What if it’s a gift?

What if I’m the person who remembers to reach out, who gathers people, who makes sure love is expressed because I’m good at it?

And more importantly: when I focus on other people: on checking in, loving them well, seeing what they need, I get out of my own head. I stop orbiting my own pain for a minute.

Reach out. Love people. Los yourself and get out of your spiral by getting into someone else’s business. Ten out of ten recommend clocking in at work at the other people’s business nosiness factory.

Release control.

I did not choose the easygoing life. It was forced upon me by repeated evidence that my control issues do not, in fact, control anything.

I am a Virgo. A lunatic. A control freak. I’ve tried gripping life tightly. I’ve tried over-managing outcomes, people, love, jobs, timing, all of it.

It doesn’t work.

You cannot hold life so tightly that it behaves. You cannot squeeze certainty out of uncertainty. And often, trying too hard is exactly how we suffocate the very thing we’re desperate to keep.

So I’m learning to say something I never thought I’d mean:

I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Not because I’m suddenly chill, but because I’m finally understanding that peace lives in letting life unfold without trying to wrestle it into submission.

You still have to show up. You still have to try. You still have to make the call, send the email, go to therapy, take the walk, have the hard conversation.

But after that? Let what is meant for you come to you. Let it stay as long as it stays. Let it leave if it leaves. Stop acting like your anxiety can alter timing.

It can’t.

Read.

I read constantly.

Books, essays, interviews, history, psychology, poetry, random rabbit holes on subjects I didn’t know I cared about until twenty minutes earlier. I write down what matters to me. Quotes, ideas, facts, sentences that knock the wind out of me.

Reading pulls me out of self-obsession. It reminds me that there are entire worlds beyond my own immediate drama. It gives me language for things I couldn’t name before. It makes me curious again, and curiosity is one of the fastest ways I know to interrupt despair.

You have to take an interest to develop an interest. I work at that. Everyday.

Joy.

I’m trying to become someone who looks for joy with intention.

When I don’t get what I want, I force myself to ask what came instead. Maybe it’s wisdom. Maybe it’s patience. Maybe it’s redirection. Maybe it’s just proof that I can survive disappointment and still be okay.

Sometimes I reward myself in tiny ways. If I sit with my feelings instead of texting the guy I absolutely should not text for a quick validation hit, maybe I get frozen yogurt on my walk. If I do the brave thing, I acknowledge it. If I catch myself in an old pattern faster than I used to, I celebrate that too.

I congratulate myself for trying. For being brave. For showing up. For doing something differently than I did before.

That counts.

So does laughing at the fact that an imperfect version of me continues to stumble her way across television and social media in front of a live audience. If it teaches me something (and maybe teaches someone else something too) then it has value. And if nothing else, some of my swings and misses really are objectively funny.

I talk to myself.

Lastly—for now—I talk to myself. A lot.

And I’m trying to make what I say better.

I remind myself that I have joy because I seek it. That my life has magic because I make some of it myself. That I go beautiful places because I get up and go. That I have fun because I am fun. That good things keep happening because I keep participating in my own life.

More importantly, I’m learning to catch old narratives before they harden into truth.

“I’m not cut out for this” becomes “I’m scared, or I’m new at this, and I’m having a thought about failing.”

That shift matters. It separates the feeling from the identity.

Then I get curious. Where did that thought come from? Fear? History? Someone else’s voice? An old wound? A story I’ve repeated so many times I forgot it wasn’t fact?

And once I see it for what it is (a story)I can write a different one. Come on, I grew up in the era of choose your own adventure books. Let’s choose a better one.

look for evidence that contradicts the old narrative. Times I have handled hard things. Times I learned. Times I showed up. Times I survived something I was sure would flatten me.

Then I remind myself: whatever happens, I gain something. I succeed, I learn, I grow, I get braver, I become someone I can trust.

And then I do it anyways.

Doing it anyways is the way through.

Not perfectly. Not elegantly. Not without tears in deeply inconvenient places. But through.

Rest matters. Self-care matters. Grief matters. Therapy matters. Reflection matters. But at some point, healing also requires motion. It requires getting up, telling the truth, feeling the feeling, sending the text, taking the walk, trying the thing, risking the embarrassment, and showing up for your own life before you feel fully ready.

That’s how you learn you can trust yourself.

That’s how you become someone you can count on.

That’s how you stop waiting to become a new person and remember that maybe the goal was never to find yourself at all—just to have the courage to be who you already are.

So if you’re in a hard season, this is my reminder to both of us:

Do it scared.
Do it sad.
Do it embarrassed.
Do it uncertain.
Do it while healing.
Do it while grieving.
Do it badly if you have to.

Just do it anyways.

What has helped you get through hard times?

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