Have Faith In Your Personal Growth Journey 🌱

'Growth doesn’t always look the way you think it should.'

Welcome to the Collective World X Thought Catalog Newsletter. Collective World is a one-of-a-kind creative network powered by the minds and voices behind The Thought & Expression Company. We’re so glad you’re here.

---

Growth doesn’t always look the way you think it should.

It’s not always waking up early or going to bed on time. It’s not always deleting all your dating apps and choosing to stay single. It’s not always burning bridges or rearranging your life into a better version of itself. There will be some days—many days, even—where you won’t notice anything is different at all.

But that doesn’t mean you aren’t growing. Sometimes growth is subtle, almost imperceptible. 

mghughesauthor

A post shared by @mghughesauthor

Growth can be choosing not to pick up a late-night phone call from someone you know is not good for you. It can be admitting a vulnerable truth instead of covering it up with another white lie. It can be scheduling that doctor’s appointment you’ve been too anxious to think about. It can be voicing the opinion you’ve swallowed back for too long. As Meredith Wadsworth so eloquently puts it, “Growth is a shedding, an undoing, a rediscovery, a letting go, and an allowing.”

Sometimes growth isn’t an action but an idea. It’s allowing yourself to see the ways you may have sabotaged yourself. It’s realizing that something no longer serves you. It’s making the decision to change not now, but next time. And maybe you’ll go through with it. Maybe you won’t. Growth isn’t always as straightforward as we’d like it to be.

mghughesauthor

A post shared by @mghughesauthor

Just don’t expect yourself to transform on the spot. It took years, even decades, to become who you are now. You can’t unlearn every bad habit and coping mechanism overnight. All you can do is plant the seed and give it the time to blossom—whether that takes weeks, months, even years. As Samira Vivette wrote, “You are growing stronger day by day, and you might not even realize it, darling.” But trust that you are.

You may not feel changed, but you’re getting there. Sometimes the most gracious gift you can give to yourself is the patience to move at your own pace. Even small steps will get you to where you need to be. Just keep going.

---

What We’re Reading This Week 📖💛

• “The more comfortable you are with your own ‘human-ness’ the more comfortable you are with someone else’s.” — Dr. Nicole LePera

• “Self-love is choosing to go through the uncomfortable growth instead of giving into instant gratification.” — Taylor Gibbons

• "The outside world is always a great source of beauty—flowers and trees and houses with people in them. But nothing brings me as much joy and meaning as long meandering conversations with the people I love.” — Sally Rooney

• “And that was the moment I realized: when the world felt dark and scary, love could whisk you off to go dancing; laughter could take some of the pain away; beauty could punch holes in your fear.” — Emily Henry

• “I spent a lot of my younger years not feeling beautiful. When I look back at my pictures now as a kid, I’m like, ‘Damn, you were actually beautiful.’ I couldn’t see it back then.” — Michael K. Williams

• “I just try to be truthful about what I feel about my body, and always return back to honoring it for what it’s doing—and also honoring it even if it never did any of that, because it’s still my body and therefore still deserves honor.” — Da’Shaun Harrison

• “There’s something soul-nourishing about caring about how you’re nourishing your body.” — Alexis Nicole Nelson

• “View rejection as part of the process, not as an indictment of your character.” — Molly Burford

For more reading recommendations, follow Quote Catalog, where we find and file the best things to read every single day.

---

Let us leave you with this:

“unlearning
can burn
can loosen
can terminate
can also be
a sunflower
looking down
at its scorched petals
and choosing
not to follow the sun” — M.G. Hughes

Have faith in your journey—have faith in yourself. ✨

To read more like this, visit Collective World, our digital community dedicated to self-expression and thoughtful storytelling.