On this podcast episode of That’s My Personal Business we are diving into one of my favorite reads!
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify

101 essays that will change the way you think

by Brianna Wiest

This incredible read has easily become one of my top five mindset changing books! 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think by Brianna West is truly 101 essays of some of the most captivating nuggets and insights into the human experience. I was instantly enthralled — I started on a cross-country flight, and I could not put it down.

Brianna Wiest covers such a wide range of topics.

Similar to Untamed, which you know I adore, it is a book that every human can get something out of. 101 essays is an individualistic experience for anyone who reads. I’m simply in love with books similar to this, it feels like an experience more than a read.

So consider this your sign to dive into all 101 essays. I truly believe it’s a read that everyone should dive into — but let’s summarize a few of my favorites!

Essay 12

“Moving yourself past resistance is a matter of shifting your perception of comfort. It’s altering your mindset to focus on the discomfort you will face if you don’t do the thing in front of you, as opposed to the discomfort you will face if you do.”

A favorite quote of mine from essay 12 of 101 essays that will change the way you think, followed by “If you lived today on repeat for the rest of your life, what would you have done?”

This quote was a bitch slap to the face. In this essay, Brianna dives into how resistance is essentially just this thing that we build up in our heads and we assign resistance to specific things. So if we don’t want to do something, we think about how much we don’t want to do it until the resistance keeps building. Then we think about even more how much we don’t want to do it and the resistance keeps building.

Ultimately, we just determine resistance ourselves. We find these things, they’re going to be uncomfortable, and so we just convince ourselves that it’s so hard to do them. I highly suggest this article in the book if you’re struggling to make a big decision or move yourself past fear and discomfort!

Essay 34

In this essay Brianna Wiest talks all about how our brains do not know the difference between good and bad. Our brain simply knows comfortable and uncomfortable. That in and of itself is uncomfortable!

To even process that in the first place– my brain literally just wants to stick with what’s comfortable, even if it sucks. You want what you’ve known instead of wanting what you want. That core belief is so deep-seeded into our subconscious.

I love talking about how our subconscious beliefs keep us from our dreams more often than our own capabilities. If you want to break six figures this year, but inside you’re like “Well, I’m so comfortable with earning $30,000 a year.” It’s already not happening.

We have to rewire our brain to be okay with uncomfortable. Even if you can’t rewire your subconscious right now, get started with pushing yourself into discomfort! When trying something new, you need to rethink if it feels off because it’s not a good decision (aka intuition) or if you’re just simply uncomfortable. I think about this every time I do a big launch or a big shift in my business– I try to really dissect if it’s resistance because it’s not a good idea or if it’s resistance from it just being uncomfortable.

If you are in new uncharted territory, then you’re going to be uncomfortable. You have to get your brain and your mindset comfortable with getting uncomfortable. Growth only happens in the unknown! Brianna talks about how nothing is ever certain and that the people who love life are the ones that just keep trying, the ones that keep pushing themselves outside of their comfort zone which makes this essay a MUST READ.

Essay 36

This essay is called “Why You Should thank the People Who Have Hurt You Most In Life” . Let me start by saying that if you are in the middle of a really hard life situation, this might not apply to you. And that’s okay! Hindsight is always 2020. It’s always safer. It’s always easier than it is when you’re actually in the moment. Honor that.

There have been times in my life where I really struggle to find what good I got out of those situations. They didn’t have a lot of bright sides- which is why I loved this essay so much. Wiest says “difficult relationships push you to change your behavior”– she then gives examples that really were so beautiful. She says “abused means that you can recognize compassion being used. You start recognizing your worth. Feeling stuck. You realize that there is always a choice in accepting. You realize nobody has control over the debt at the end of the day.”

I just love this because I don’t think it justifies horrible, horrible things that may have happened to you or to me, but it’s such a beautiful way to look back on your pain and realize that it was the catalyst for something. She says these people are your catalysts- “Sometimes the way light enters us is in fact, through the wound. These relationships can show you an unrevealed part of yourself, a part that was preventing you from being truly loved. These relationships can show you an unhealed part of yourself.”

This essay made me think about how the fact that when I was in these horrible situations– I didn’t think I deserved it. But I also didn’t think I deserved much better. It wasn’t until I had this moment where I was like, “this is so wrong and I deserve so much better than this” that I started to move out of that situation and I started to take my own life back.

This is a way that we can look back on really hard things or times that we’ve been really hurt is to try to find the things that they taught us. But this doesn’t mean those situations or people hold the power. We don’t have to give all the credit to the people that hurt us. We can give credit to ourselves and see what unhealed part of ourself we healed in order to truly love ourselves.

Overall – I cannot recommend 101 Essays that will change the way you think enough. It’s a brilliant read that you can find here!

Listen to our full podcast episode on this round of book club below — or come follow along on IG + TikTok for more tips and inspo!