If you’re playing small, you’re settling, sis.

The Gut Check

Too many times I’ve betrayed my own potential. That’s what I keep thinking about tonight as I sit in my Versace robe, drinking my lemongrass tea with a Bath & Body Works candle burning and Olivia Dean playing in the background. I randomly got a gut check from my future self, as if she were warning me: “If you don’t get your relationship with wants together, you’ll never reach what God has for you.”

The Uncomfortable Truth

I got irritated because I realized I had settled in life more than I thought. And it was because I was tired of being labeled as “too much,” and the fear of being viewed differently from the people I loved the most.

These thoughts clouded my judgment, especially as a woman of God who battled tension between: “Am I being greedy and ungrateful?” or “Is this actually my birthright?”

Then I remembered something my pastor said during the vision series, “Being selective doesn’t make you ungodly.”

The Lesson

That line really stuck with me because I have a big heart and a big mind, and sometimes those two clash. Part of me felt guilty wanting more when the world is in chaos or when people around me are struggling. But another part of me knows that shrinking myself doesn’t serve anybody…and it definitely doesn’t serve God’s vision for my life.

In that moment, I understood what my next growth focus needed to be to move to my next level: changing my relationship with desire.

The New Perspective

After sitting with this realization, I had to remind myself that:

I’m not built to dilute myself.
Squeeze into someone else’s definition of “enough.”

Yes, I am a high-achieving woman who wants more for myself, but that does not make me “too masculine,” “hard to love,” or “over the top.” It simply means I value vision, want to meet the best version of myself, and experience the full promise that God has in store for me. I want what I want, and that doesn’t make me difficult. It makes me ambitious.

The Shift I’m Making

For years, I let others gaslight me into believing my dreams were unrealistic or a delusion. I’m disappointed at how easily fear disguised itself as “realistic thinking.”

I let the insecurities of others shift me from “anything is possible” to “what if it’s not? That mindset blurred my vision and slowed down my success in ways I did not see at the time.

It’s interesting because now I see that small thinking is the real delusion. Everything I want is possible, and I don’t owe anyone an apology for believing that. So now I’m unlearning everything culture, society, and even my own doubts taught me about wanting more.

When I see a locked door, I’m kicking it open. When someone hints I should dim my light, I’m turning it up. I’m becoming who I am, how I want, and when I want. I am having my cake and eating it too, and I hope you do the same because you were never meant to settle.

What I Hope You Walk Away With

You are worthy of everything you dream and more.
You are allowed to want more.
Being ambitious is not a flaw or wrong.

Journal Prompt)

Ask yourself, “where have you been settling without realizing it?”

[Growing alone is boring. Let’s evolve together. - Love Briana]

You Were Not Created to Settle.