The Un-Instagrammable Journey

Thirteen weeks into this transformation journey and I've had a revelation -- transformation is boring!

In the delusional space in my mind, I believed that it would feel like an awakening. I'd frolic through fields of flowers during the day, sit in speakeasies listening to spoken word, and in between I'd write brilliantly. All while sporting the body of a baddie and mesmerizing the creative community with my prose.

Maybe this is some mashup of Love Jones, Under the Tuscan Sun, and a Maya Angelou book. Let's not dwell on this very weird combo of references. Bottom line...the work I'm doing is invisible until it's not.

It feels like I'm shoveling myself out of mud and every jab of the shovel into wet dirt yields less and less earth because it's heavy and my arms are tired. Some days I just sit stuck in the mud because how deep am I buried in here?

Though my arms are tired I'm going to pat myself on the back. I've been pursuing transformation now for five years. The last two years have been more intentional. I have found a way to sustain momentum. There have been months of nothing and some setbacks. I did not respond well to setbacks. Tantrums were thrown. But I got back to the business of doing the work, adjusted my plan, and got myself back on track.

Nothing is more devastating than when you start working out and realize there's no endpoint. You will always have to find ways to workout and build muscle. Excuse me?? I have to keep showing up? Even after I get to my perceived goal point there's more work? Harder work? This is not sexy at all!

I also remember learning that when I finished writing my first draft the hard work was going to be the rewrite. The first draft was pretty damn hard. You say there's another level to unlock?

How we equate change with excitement and completion is where we fail. I have lived it for decades and watched others live it. There's a perception of change we aren't being honest with ourselves and each other about. It's why I rebelled so aggressively against gratitude. It was impossible for gratitude to shift my perspective when I was dealing with the absolute worst moments of my life.

I encounter this with people who are trying to cope in crisis, battling mental health challenges, burnout, and caretaking. Gratitude is not accessible. It's not motivating. If I'm stuck deep in mud, telling me to be thankful for the shovel doesn't help when my arms feel like they're about to fall off. What helps is acknowledging the reality that I'm exhausted, the work is hard, and it's okay to take a break.

Transformation lacks spectacle.

There are no montages in real life where you go from broken to brilliant in a two-hour cinematic experience. I'm starting to wonder if I will even recognize the moment when I realize I have accomplished the shift.

The real work happens in silence, in solitude, in the spaces between (brilliant) Substack posts and motivational reels. It happens when no one is watching, and it does not look sexy. Some days it's just me lying around deciding who I think I am or am trying to be. What is this audacity I have chosen? To be seen? Take up space? Transform?

The most profound changes I've made haven't come from dramatic decisions or rock-bottom moments that make for good storytelling. They've come from the mundane discipline of showing up for myself when I didn't feel like it. From writing when the words didn't flow. From setting boundaries when it would have been easier to cave. From choosing differently in moments so small they seemed insignificant.

Nobody cares.

There are no rewards for the quiet discipline of trying again after you've failed for the fifty-second time. No viral posts about how you dragged yourself to your journal, your meditation cushion, your therapy appointment. You went not because you felt inspired, but because you made a commitment to yourself.

"But what if the boring parts are actually where the magic happens", they ask.

You've heard this before, haven't you? Then you go about the practice of finding little bits of things to be grateful for and adjust your mindset to a more positive outlook so you can live in this magic.

Let's stop romanticizing this process.

The boring parts are just boring and hard. It's where the healing happens so you can live in the magic, and I have never seen anybody healing who was lying around feeling like a magical unicorn.

This is Deservitude in practice - recognizing that I deserve the full glory of my becoming, even on the days when glory feels furthest away. Especially on those days. Because those are the ones that matter most. Those are the days when I'm building the muscle of showing up for myself when nothing external motivates me to do so.

When I started this journey, I wanted transformation to feel like fireworks - bright, explosive, undeniable. Instead, I'm still picking up this damn shovel that gets heavier by the day. Uncomfortable, exhausting, sometimes maddening, and largely invisible to anyone watching from the sidelines. But when I look back at where I was five years ago, two years ago, thirteen weeks ago, I can see the distance covered, even if I can't pinpoint exactly when I crossed each milestone.

I don't need the world to celebrate my invisible work.

I can write and publish these notes on Substack all day, but you won't truly understand what I'm doing until I have arrived somewhere the world deems credible. You can't measure the courage required to sit with uncomfortable emotions instead and choose to navigate my life the way I have after all I have experienced.

I'm just over here in my quiet little corner of Substack documenting the journey and encouraging you to come along. I'm counting on living in the magic one day and want to share it with so many of you.

As we move closer to the end of these 100 Days of Deservitude, I'm already planning what follows - 100 Days of Writing as a Practice. Because that's how transformation works, isn't it? Once you've claimed your right to deserve, you must then claim the space to create. The daily (or daily-ish) discipline I'm building now isn't just about deserving more; it's preparing me to consistently show up for my craft, even when the words don't flow, even when nobody's reading, even when it feels like nothing is happening.

So here I am in Week 14. No frolicking through fields (I have allergies and an unnatural fear of bugs...this could have never worked), no spoken word lounges, no overnight transformation into a creative baddie. Just the daily-ish discipline of showing up and celebrating the unsexy work of changing my life one unremarkable moment at a time.

Boring? Absolutely. Worth it? I'm betting everything on it.

Weekly Deservitude Prompt:

Think about a change you've been trying to make that feels frustratingly slow or invisible. What expectations did you have about how this transformation "should" feel? Write this truth to yourself: "I deserve to honor the boring, invisible work of becoming."

When was the last time you abandoned a change because it wasn't happening fast enough or didn't feel exciting enough? What might have unfolded if you had continued? What small, consistent actions could you commit to now, knowing they might not yield visible results for weeks or months?

Share your thoughts on embracing boring transformation, or keep them private in your journal. Either way, you deserve to celebrate the unsexy, unglamorous work of becoming especially on the days when no one else can see it.