She Needed A Hero, So That's What She Became

There's a reason fairy tales are so popular. It's tempting to hope that you'll be rescued from all the things you don't feel prepared to conquer — that some Prince Charming (or Princess Charming if that's your style) is going to come along and whisk you away from your miserable circumstances, or give you all the answers to your problems, or handle your finances and bake you cookies every day for the rest of your life.

But it's also incredibly unempowering to believe that you need to be saved by someone else.

Fun fact: You can do it yourself. And the biggest secret to being your own hero is that you don't need confidence, knowledge, or fearlessness to do it. You just have to desire a better life for yourself.

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That's it. No, really.

Look, I'm the laziest, neediest person I know, and somehow I saved myself. I spent almost two decades begging for help with a mental illness that nobody could adequately diagnose. I saw doctors weekly for 12 years and my health only grew worse with each new method.

Finally, one day a couple years ago, I said, "OK, this isn't working. What if you DIY'ed it?” So I went off-script and gradually built my own recovery plan from the ground up by listening to my personal needs in each phase, researching what I could do to move forward a little more, and moving at my own pace.

Over time, I saw evidence I was healing. These days, I'm healthier than I've been since I was a kid.

I had no confidence in any part of myself when I decided to start over, by the way. I was scared, clueless, hopeless and exhausted. I dramatically changed my life, powered only by my desperation for a better lifestyle.

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You don't need motivational memes. You don't need any one of the thousands of self-help books out there written by other people who want you to believe they know how to live life better than you. You don't need permission or approval from anyone else — and you certainly don't need to depend on someone else to make you better than you already are.

There's already a voice in you that knows how to navigate your life to give you what you really want. That voice is your hero. It was put there to rescue you from a mediocre life if you just give it a chance to speak up.

Give it a trial run if the idea of suddenly cutting out everyone else's input scares you. But be forewarned: Surprising yourself with your own strength is wildly addictive.