Why Your Next Level Requires Zero Outside Validation

RACHEL LAFORCE
Nov 26
3 min read

There’s something deliciously chaotic about a Thanksgiving-week identity crisis. The turkey is brining, the family group text is spiraling, and meanwhile, your soul is still quietly whispering, “it’s time.”

The frequency of 2026 is already swirling around us, and many of us have been unknowingly preparing for five straight years.

The shedding. The sitting with feelings. The letting go of people you thought you could never live without. The dissolving of old selves. The “why am I crying in a Target parking lot - again?” Trying new things. The wrong turns. All of it. All of it is finally finished. And the payoff is here.

The moment you stop waiting to be discovered, validated, or knighted…and instead decide, “Yeah. I am the winner, motherf—er" is the identity shift you can’t ignore. Your future self has landed. There is nothing left to do now but move forward.

March will solidify the new version of you, but the shift has already begun. It’s happening. That’s why everything feels off - but in a good way. It's very aligned but also a little surreal. You thought you’d get here and the skies would open up and call your name and yet it all looks the same. That’s because the world won’t claim you until you claim you. Your next level will not introduce itself. You have to walk toward it. SO - hear me when I say: No more waiting for signs. No more checking the cosmic tracking number. No more outsourcing your courage to people who barely understand their own lives.

From 2020 to now, your entire system has been rewired:

shedding old identities
letting go of roles that were too small
learning to trust your intuition
sitting in feelings that were previously “nope”

That’s not stalling. That’s preparation. And December? She’s fast. She’s feisty. She’s done with your hesitation, so lock it in. You’ve been warned, because once you lock in, it’s done. You become the dragon slayer of your own life. This is the moment you stop proving yourself and start being yourself. It’s Mariah-Carey-level unhinged confidence: “I am the main character. I am the plot line. I am the soundtrack.”

Because if you can sit in your own power without trying to convince anyone, imagine what happens when you actually use that power.

Takeaways:

You’re the winner. Act like it.
Waiting for signs keeps you stuck.
Your work from 2020–2024 was not for nothing.
December accelerates what you’ve already been building.
Lock in. Your life expands the moment you do.

Journal Prompts for This Transition:

Where am I still waiting for permission to be who I already am?
What identity have I outgrown—but haven’t released yet?
What is the “winner version” of me choosing this month?
What have the last five years prepared me for that I’m finally ready to claim?
Who am I when I stop trying to prove anything?

As always, tune out, tune in. Love you, mean it.

Rachel

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