Brianna Wiest’s Newest Book ‘The Pivot Year’
Over the past 10+ years, international best-selling author and writer Brianna Wiest has inspired millions of people around the world to change their thoughts and, in turn, change their lives. In March 2023, Wiest is back with The Pivot Year, 365 daily meditations for anyone in the midst of their pivot period, the space between where they currently stand and where they want to be.
In her own words, here is Brianna Wiest on everything you need to know about her latest release, The Pivot Year.
First, tell us a little about The Pivot Year. What can readers expect from this upcoming release?
I know that so many people have such busy schedules and hectic lives, carving out time for self-reflection is hard to do. I wanted to create something that would give readers a daily message that could either be something to meditate on or use as a thought exercise, to stretch their perceptions and hopefully begin to plant seeds for deeper and greater revelations to come.
What inspired you to write The Pivot Year? Was it your own pivot period? Was it the insights you’ve gained throughout your years as a writer? A combination of the two? Give me the tea.
I would have to say that it’s more about a culmination of the self-work I have been doing for the past ten years. I tried to distill all of the ideas that I found to be helpful or expansive into something that is poetic, inspiring and easy to access each day.
Over the years, your work has been primarily focused on personal transformation and change. For example, 101 Essays is about changing the way we think, and The Mountain Is You is about changing our self-sabotaging behaviors. The Pivot Year, however, is a little different as the premise is based on the idea that who we are meant to be is already inside of us; it’s just a matter of inviting our true selves to come out of hiding. With all of that said, why do you think so many people, myself included, struggle with being their most authentic selves?
I hope that a common thread through all of my work is the idea that our potential is always dormant within us. It’s a matter of if, and how, we activate it. I believe this is a layered process — changing the way we think, and then behave, consistently.
There are many reasons why it can feel hard to be your authentic self. First, our authentic selves are our most vulnerable selves. It’s not as painful to have someone reject a version of you that isn’t who you really are. Second, we adopt a lot of our identity through osmosis. Human beings are so incredibly suggestible and adaptable, and this is especially true if we see external consistencies — we begin to believe that is the only way people can be. This is why it’s so crucial to expand your perimeter, your circle, your environment. It normalizes differences in a way that makes authenticity feel safer.
Last, we sometimes have a hard time finding ourselves because our authentic selves are not a product of our stream of consciousness. They are not who we are when we follow every want, interest or desire on a whim. They are the people we become when we learn to live in accordance with our truest values and ideals. They are the people we become when we begin to hold ourselves to our own standards, and to have more integrity.
What are the biggest takeaways you hope your readers will glean from The Pivot Year?
I genuinely hope that there will be days where readers have the words of the day echoing through their minds as a kind of landing place that they can keep returning to. In down-time, or on their commute, or before bed, I would love for them to be able to think about what they read that day and I hope it evokes more self-realization and epiphanies about how to bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to be.
What is your favorite quote from The Pivot Year?
“Life will bring you to your knees. Sometimes with pain, sometimes with beauty, sometimes with both at once. It will weather down your defenses and it will give you opportunities to love. It will disguise miracles in the most ordinary moments. It will bruise your heart until it breaks open. It will teach you, slowly, that it’s not out there, it’s inside. It’s all inside. It will go more slowly than you can bear and more quickly than you can imagine. It will lead you down unexpected turns that twist into destiny, and you will learn to trust. You will learn to believe in the releasing of the layers of illusion that stand between you and the realization of your soul’s deepest desires.”
The Pivot Year is in store and online now
- Written by Molly Burford for Thought Catalog
