For the rebel woman who keeps knowing what to do, then talking herself out of it. Pulled from the past 10 years and a lifetime of being dragged back to myself the hard way.

Shouldville is Giving You Clues.

Do the thing you think you should do, especially when your mind keeps pulling you toward it while you’re trying to force something else. Shouldville is not always the villain. Sometimes it’s your own voice telling you how to get your mental and emotional energy back.

Less is more. Less stuff. Less people. Less explaining. Less proving. Eliminate. Evict. Edit. Seems so obvious. Like a b-slap you asked for. Yet we keep adding to our plates like it’s the final Thanksgiving our favorite grandma cooked up.

Book the plane ticket. Then plan the trip. Otherwise, it’ll be this time next year and you’ll be talking about it. Again. Hit Book Now.

Get a Gordon Ramsay in your life. A friend, mentor, advisor, coach, or counselor who will not keep living the same bullshit stories.

If you don’t do the surgery in your life, the pain will keep coming back. Get that shit removed before it kills you.

You are not becoming. You are returning to yourself.

Every emotion is a skill you can train, develop, and condition. Self- Mastery is an underrated trait we’re forgetting to put at the top of our life resumes.

Feed yourself first. Otherwise, everyone else gets your cold, stale leftovers. Yuck.

Pet the cat. Talk to the squirrels. Listen to the birds.

Treat yourself better.

Ask yourself hard questions and answer them in the raw.

You can’t lie yourself into a new life. You and your lies go with it. Fess up to yourself.

Rip the Band-Aid off. I’d argue first.

Worry never wins.

Slow your roll.

Pick up your pace.

If you think you can do more with what you have. Dig deeper. Muster up buttercup.

The fear of not getting yours is usually the problem.

Think from where you want to be, not from where you are currently standing.

Plan B is to fully execute Plan A.

Purge to proceed.

Fairy tales exist, but you must fight for it.

Feed the animals.

Change the sheets every Friday.

And never give up on the one thing you think you should do. Go do a little bit of it today.

Robyn Lynn Tanner is the creator of I Changed the Sheets Today, a weekly essay series for high-capacity rebel women in the strange space between who they survived and who they’re returning to. She is the author of The Machete Mentality, founder of The Edit, and creator of the 500 by 50 Mission. She writes about identity, faith, self-abandonment, decision, and the deeply inconvenient work of telling the truth.