I Never Wavered
On six weeks in, the sound of silence, and the self belief you find when you stop waiting for permission
Six weeks ago I sent my first cold email.
My finger hovered over the send button longer than I’d like to admit. Not because the email wasn’t ready. But because I wasn’t sure I was.
That’s the thing about starting something new, especially something you’re building for yourself, on your own terms, from scratch. The preparation can only take you so far. At some point you have to press send and step into the silence that follows.
I pressed send.
And then I waited.
I’ve been building a consulting practice. Six weeks in, which means I am still very much in the beginning, in that particular stretch of the journey where the vision is clear but the evidence hasn’t arrived yet. Where you are doing the work without yet having proof that the work is working.
The silence is the hardest part.
Not because I expected instant results. But because silence has a way of finding the oldest wounds. When an email goes unanswered, when nothing seems to move, when the only sign of life is one person glancing at your LinkedIn profile and moving on, the old voice shows up.
You are not enough. You will never succeed. Not on your own terms. Not like this.
I know that voice. I’ve been writing about it for months now. I know where it came from. A nine year old girl absorbing scarcity after her father died, learning without anyone saying the words that security was fragile and belonging to yourself was a luxury she hadn’t earned.
But here is what I’ve learned to do when that voice arrives:
I move.
Literally. I get up. I walk. I run. I let my body do what neuroscience has been teaching me it can do, interrupt the pattern, shake off the old wiring, come back to the present moment where the story isn’t finished yet and the evidence is still on its way.
And then I keep going.
This week I had a meeting with a vendor I’ve known since 2018. I went with intention, not to talk business, but to ask him something I needed to know. How did you start? How did you keep going? What carried you through the beginning when nothing was certain?
He has been in business for thirty years.
He told me about the early days in New York. Running out of the money his father had given him to start. Calling local restaurants, offering to deliver their food in exchange for enough money to survive. Doing whatever it took, for as long as it took, because he believed, even then, even in those moments, that it would work out. That it would just take longer than he’d hoped.
I never wavered, he said. I always believed I would succeed. You have to believe that too. And do the work.
I sat across from him and felt something settle in me.
Not because his words were new. But because I recognized them. Because somewhere between sending that first cold email six weeks ago and sitting in that meeting, something had shifted in me that I hadn’t fully named until that moment.
I wasn’t waiting for permission anymore.
I wasn’t waiting for the silence to break before I allowed myself to believe.
I already believed.
This is what the neuroscience work, the meditation, the daily practice of choosing a different story has been building toward. It’s not the absence of the old voice, but the ability to hear it and keep moving anyway. The ability to feel the fear viscerally, in my body, and get up and walk it off and come back to the desk and press send again.
Neuroplasticity isn’t just a concept I’ve been reading about. It’s something I’m living in real time, six weeks into building something that is entirely mine.
Every cold email is a new neural pathway.
Every walk that shakes off the doubt is a new neural pathway.
Every morning I sit in meditation and choose the present over the past is a new neural pathway.
I am not waiting to become someone who believes she can do this.
I already am her.
He made me realize I was already believing it. Already doing it.
The evidence will come. I know it will. And when it does, I want to remember this: the weeks of silence, the old voice showing up, the walks, the vendor who built a successful business, and the moment I sat across from him and understood that I never wavered either.
Not really.
Not where it counts. 🤍
Are you in the beginning of something right now, sending emails into silence, building without proof yet? I’d love to know. You’re not alone in it. 🤍
Thank you so much for reading. I’m so glad you’re here.
Odile
Odile, “the vision is clear, but the evidence hasn’t arrived yet” captures the exposed middle of building something before the market answers back. I appreciate how the conversation with the vendor helped you recognize that belief had already become practice through every email sent, walk taken, and return to the desk after doubt surfaced. The old voice still speaks, yet it no longer receives authority over your next action. Grateful for the honesty with which you show that beginning on your own terms can require trusting the person you are becoming before anyone else confirms the work.
One day you will look back at the difficult times and be grateful for them. It’s the difficult times that builds us to become the person we need to be in order to live the dream that feels impossible. For me neuroscience is nice, but gratitude is better.