The Mountain is You By Brianna Wiest

My Notes

THERE IS NOTHING HOLDING you back in life more than yourself.

If there is an ongoing gap between where you are and where you want to be—and your efforts to close it are consistently met with your own resistance, pain, and discomfort—self-sabotage is almost always at work.

Your life is defined not only by what you think about it, but also what you think of yourself.

criticism comes with creating anything for the public and isn’t a reason to not do it.

We are programmed to seek what we’ve known. Even though we think we’re after happiness, we’re actually trying to find whatever we’re most used to.

What you believe about your life is what you will make true about your life.

we know we are not quite being who we want to be, and until we accept this, we are never going to find peace.

When we are in denial, we tend to go into “blame” mode. We look for anyone or anything to explain why we are the way we are. Then we start justifying.

It does not matter what your life looks like on the outside; it is how you feel about it on the inside.

The greatest act of self-love is to no longer accept a life you are unhappy with. It is to be able to state the problem plainly and in a straightforward manner.

Take a piece of paper and a pen, and write down everything you aren’t happy with. Write down, very specifically, every single problem you face.

We reach a breaking point when we finally accept that the problem isn’t how the world is; it is how we are.

“You must find the purest, purest, purest form of being fed up. Make it hurt. I literally screamed, ‘I’m not going to fucking live like this anymore!’”

most people do not actually change their lives until not changing becomes the less comfortable option.

you really want to change your life, let yourself be consumed with rage: not toward others, not with the world, but within yourself. Get angry, determined, and allow yourself to develop tunnel vision with one thing and one thing only at the end: that you will not go on as you are.

If you really want to change your life, let yourself be consumed with rage: not toward others, not with the world, but within yourself. Get angry, determined, and allow yourself to develop tunnel vision with one thing and one thing only at the end: that you will not go on as you are.

The habits and behaviors you can’t stop engaging in—no matter how destructive or limiting they may be—are intelligently designed by your subconscious to meet an unfulfilled

The habits and behaviors you can’t stop engaging in—no matter how destructive or limiting they may be—are intelligently designed by your subconscious to meet an unfulfilled need, displaced emotion, or neglected desire.

Self-sabotage is when you have two conflicting desires. One is conscious, one is unconscious. You know how you want to move your life forward, and yet you are still, for some reason, stuck.

We often feel resistance in the face of what’s going right in our lives, not what’s going wrong.

when we have something to enjoy, create, or build, we are tapping into a part of ourselves that is trying to thrive instead of just survive, and the unfamiliarity can be daunting.

In uprooting, you are not allowing yourself to blossom; you are only comfortable with the process of sprouting.

Uprooting can be a way of diverting attention from the actual problems in your life, as your attention must go toward reestablishing oneself at a new job or in a new town.

Ultimately, uprooting means you are always just beginning your new chapter but never really finishing it. Despite your efforts to keep moving on, you end up more stuck than ever before.

you need to get clear on what you really want. Sometimes, uprooting occurs because we step too quickly toward what we think we want, only to find that we didn’t think it through and don’t really want that thing very much. Clarity is key, because you’re thinking long-term now.

Remember that healing from an uprooting pattern is not about settling for something you don’t want, nor is it about staying in an unsafe or unhealthy situation because you don’t want to move again. It’s about getting clear and determined on what’s the right path for you and then making a plan for how you can thrive, not just survive.

Perfectionism isn’t actually wanting everything to be right. It’s not a good thing. In fact, it is a hindering thing, because it sets up unrealistic expectations about what we are capable of or what the outcomes of our lives could

Perfectionism isn’t actually wanting everything to be right. It’s not a good thing. In fact, it is a hindering thing, because it sets up unrealistic expectations about what we are capable of or what the outcomes of our lives could be.

Don’t worry about doing it well; just do it.

Don’t worry about failing, just keep showing up and trying. At first, all that matters is that you do what you really want to do. From there, you can learn from your mistakes and over time get to the place where you really want

Don’t worry about failing, just keep showing up and trying. At first, all that matters is that you do what you really want to do. From there, you can learn from your mistakes and over time get to the place where you really want to be.

Instead of perfection, focus on progress. Instead of having something done perfectly, focus on just getting it done. From there, you can edit, build, grow, and develop it to exactly what your vision is. But if you don’t get started, you’ll never arrive. LIMITED

Instead of perfection, focus on progress. Instead of having something done perfectly, focus on just getting it done. From there, you can edit, build, grow, and develop it to exactly what your vision is. But if you

Instead of perfection, focus on progress. Instead of having something done perfectly, focus on just getting it done. From there, you can edit, build, grow, and develop it to exactly what your vision is. But if you don’t get started, you’ll never arrive.

Healthy emotional processing looks different for everyone but generally involves these steps: • Get clear on what happened. • Validate your feelings. • Determine a course correction.

First, you need to understand why you’re upset or the reason why something is bothering you so much. Without clarity on this, you’ll continue to waste your time mulling over the details without really understanding what’s hurting you so much.

Your life is ultimately measured by your outcomes, not your intentions. It is not about what you wanted to do or would have done but didn’t have the time. It’s not about why you thought you couldn’t; it’s just whether or not you eventually did.

When we have a goal, dream, or plan, there is no measure of intent. It is only whether you did it or did not. Any other reason you offer for not showing up and doing the work is simply you stating that you prioritize that reason over your ultimate ambition, which means that it

When we have a goal, dream, or plan, there is no measure of intent. It is only whether you did it or did not. Any other reason you offer for not showing up and doing the work is simply you stating that you prioritize that reason over your ultimate ambition, which means that it will always take precedence in your life. You

When we have a goal, dream, or plan, there is no measure of intent. It is only whether you did it or did not. Any other reason you offer for not showing up and doing the work is simply you stating that you prioritize that reason over your ultimate ambition, which means that it will always take precedence in your life.

It is very hard to show up as the person you want to be when you are surrounded by an environment that makes you feel like a person you aren’t.

When we let go of what isn’t right for us, we create space to discover what is.

Practice non-judgment through non-assumption. Instead of reaching a conclusion about a person based on the limited information you have about them, consider that you’re not seeing the whole picture and don’t know the whole story.

In the end, it looks far worse to hold onto what’s wrong because you care about what others think than it is to let go because that’s what’s right for you.

money and success are tools. They buy you back time and offer you the opportunity to help, employ, influence, and change the lives of others.

There is a difference between failing because you are trying something new and daring, and failing because you are not showing up, doing the work, or being responsible for your actions.

Failure is inevitable, but you have to make sure it’s happening for the right reasons.

When we downplay our successes in life, we are either trying to make ourselves seem less impressive so others do not feel threatened and therefore like us more, or we are trying to avoid the sense that we have “made it,” because we are afraid of peaking.

You do, however, need to understand that the people you spend the most time with will shape your future irrevocably, and so you must choose them wisely.

Work on building a circle of people who support and inspire you, who have similar goals and enjoy spending time with you. You should leave a get-together feeling energized and inspired, not exhausted and angry.

If you are doing “everything you are supposed to be doing” and yet you feel empty and depressed at the end of the day, the issue is probably that you’re not really doing what you want to be doing; you’ve just adopted someone else’s script for happiness.

You can identify your core commitments by looking at the things that you struggle with most and the things you are most driven by.

You can identify your core commitments by looking at the things that you struggle with most and the things you are most driven by. If you can peel back the layers of your motivations toward each, you’ll find a root cause. When you find the same root cause for everything, you’ve found a core commitment.

once you start asking yourself what you really want, you’ll be able to stop battling the symptoms and start addressing the only issue that has ever really existed in your life, which is living out of alignment with your core needs and, therefore, your core purpose.

It is essential that you learn to take action before you feel like doing it. Taking action builds momentum and creates motivation.

anger shows us where our boundaries are. Anger also helps us identify what we find to be unjust.

other people are under no obligation to live up to our ideas of them. In fact, our only problem is that we have an unrealistic expectation that someone was meant to be exactly as we think they should or love us exactly as we imagined they would.

The truth is that most people regret what they did not do more than they ever regret what they did.

Regret isn’t actually trying to just make us feel bad that we didn’t live up to our own expectations. It is trying to motivate us to live up to them going forward.

Didn’t love someone while you had them? Regret is showing you that you should appreciate people now.

The things that are bothering you most right now are not external forces trying to torture you for the sake of it— they are your own mind identifying what in your life can be fixed, changed, and transformed.

THE WAY YOU ARE SELF-SABOTAGING: Dwelling on past relationships or continually checking up on exes. WHAT YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND MIGHT WANT YOU TO KNOW: This relationship affected you more than you are letting yourself believe. The ending hurt you more than you acknowledged, and you need to process that. Your continued interest in this person means there’s something about the relationship that is still unresolved, and it is probably some kind of closure or acceptance that you need to find for yourself.

This relationship affected you more than you are letting yourself believe. The ending hurt you more than you acknowledged, and you need to process that. Your continued interest in this person means there’s something about the relationship that is still unresolved, and it is probably some kind of closure or acceptance that you need to find for yourself.

You’re not creating the best possible work you can, and you sense it. The reason why you’re holding back is a fear of judgment, but that wouldn’t exist if you weren’t already judging yourself. You have to create things you are proud to share, and when sharing them in a positive way that helps grow your business or career feels natural and authentic, you will know that you are doing the work that is at the best of your ability or potential.

You think about yourself too often. Other people’s lives do not revolve around you, nor do their thoughts. They are busy thinking about themselves in the same way that you are thinking about yourself.

There is a world-altering difference between using social media in a healthy way versus as a coping mechanism. Mostly, it has to do with how you feel after you’re finished. If you don’t put the phone down feeling inspired or relaxed, you’re probably trying to avoid some kind of discomfort within yourself—the

when we have a “gut feeling” or an instinct that precedes logic, it is often correct. This is because the lining of our gastrointestinal system functions as a “second brain,” given how it stores a backlog of information that your conscious mind can’t recall faster than your body can sense. It is this incredible skill that makes your instinct almost always correct.

Feelings do not inform you of the right decision to make. Right decisions create the right feelings.

You begin experiencing feelings of peace and joy in your life when you condition yourself to take repeated daily actions that facilitate clarity, calmness, healthfulness, and purposefulness, not the other way around.

Your stomach and your mind are inherently connected, which is why people allude to just knowing something “deep down” or explain that when they’re upset, they’re “sick to their stomach” or had a “gut reaction” to something.

When we are so scared that we are going to lose something, we tend to push it away from ourselves first as a means of self-preservation.

We have to use our minds to practice discernment. We have to use our supreme intelligence to decide where we want to go, who we want to be, and then we have to allow our bodies to adjust over time.

What you do every single day accounts for the quality of your life and the degree of your success. It’s not whether you “feel” like putting in the work, but whether or not you do it regardless.

If you want to change your life, you need to make tiny, nearly undetectable decisions every hour of every day until those choices are habituated.

The human mind is something called antifragile, which means that it actually gets better with adversity. Like a rock that becomes a diamond under pressure or an immune system that strengthens after repeated exposure to germs, the mind requires stimulation in the form of a challenge.

If you deny and reject any kind of real challenge in your life, your brain will compensate by creating a problem to overcome. Except this time, there won’t be any reward at the end. It will just be you battling you for the rest of your life.

Your intestines are literally connected to the stem of your brain; the bacteria in your stomach respond to subconscious intelligent awareness faster than your mind can. This is why your “gut” is indeed correct on instinct.