30 Days of Radical Honesty Journalling Challenge – Day 21: What Makes Me Feel Powerful—And What Makes Me Feel Small?

I feel powerful when I face a problem head-on and conquer it—not by avoiding, not by sidestepping, but by running into it full-force. When I see the wall, and instead of shrinking, I brace myself and push until it cracks. Until I break through. And when I step through that splintered space, breathless and steady, I feel something I wish I could bottle: capability. Competence. The proof that my hands can do. That my mind can solve. That I can rely on myself to keep going.

It’s not a power over others. It’s not loud or showy. It’s quiet and deeply personal. It’s that internal spark that whispers, see? you’ve got this. Because I so often feel the opposite. I carry a shadow of self-doubt, the lingering fear that I am not enough, not capable, not competent—that I’ll never quite reach the bar. So when I prove that voice wrong, when I do the thing I feared I couldn’t, I feel powerful. Like I belong to myself again.

But I feel small when I hurt someone.

Not because I meant to—because I never mean to. I move through the world with an earnest desire to be kind. To be soft. To be joy, or at the very least, not harm. I want to be a light in people’s lives, a soft space to land, someone who adds and never takes. So when I learn that I’ve hurt someone, even unintentionally, it feels like the ground has opened beneath me. I want to fold into myself. I want to disappear.

I hold myself to an impossible standard. I know this. I know that the bar I set for who I want to be to the people in my life is unreachable. But I still keep reaching. Still stretching. Still trying to close the gap between who I am and who I hope to be. And that reach comes with inevitable stumbles—moments when I don’t measure up. Moments when I miss a cue, misunderstand a need, step on a toe I didn’t see.

Those are the moments when my head drops. When my eyes fall. When the voice inside me whispers, you failed them.

But I also know this: I’m growing. I’m getting better. Every misstep becomes a lesson. Every pang of regret becomes a promise—to pay better attention. To listen more. To love more fully. The fact that I care so deeply? That’s not weakness. That’s not smallness. That’s what makes me real.

And maybe power isn’t the absence of failure. Maybe it’s the willingness to keep showing up anyway.

Peace, Love, and Inspiration,
~Britt Wolfe💚