Rattle the stars

Hundreds and hundreds of books overflowing from my bookcases show that I’ve always been a big reader. You can usually find me in the middle of reading something. I find it to be incredibly safe and familiar with my head in a book. The fact that I can escape to other worlds, kingdoms and stories through books is so important to me. I have a never ending admiration for the power that words and stories can have and I love it when I come across words that really touch me. I recently stumbled upon a quote in a book I was reading, and it really stuck with me:

‘You could rattle the stars. You could do anything, if only you dared. And deep down, you know it, too. That’s what scares you the most.’ – Sarah J. Maas

When I read this quote, it immediately resonated in me that the vastness of what I could do is what scares me the most. One of the things that I find myself the most anxious about is change. The fear of the unknown. I find the future scary because I don’t know what it holds, and I can’t always predict how things are going to work out when there is change. (I’ve written about tackling this perceived need for control and fear of change, which you can check out here). So I found this quote particularly fitting for me, as I don’t really know what I want to do in life and so the huge world of opportunity open to me is incredibly daunting and sometimes makes me want to crawl under my covers and curl up into a ball. Finding the courage to reach for what you want can be hard. The prospect of failing is sometimes enough to make us question whether it’s worth it… But I’ll let you in on a little secret: it’s always worth it. 

What would it look like if you were to rattle the stars?

I want to rattle the stars, no matter what it is I end up doing. As long as we are doing what we truly want to do, in my eyes we are all rattling the stars. We just have to dare. I’ve thought a lot about what this quote means to me since I read it. I’ve come to the conclusion that ‘rattling the stars’ doesn’t have to be doing something necessarily huge. It can be whatever we deem it to be. My aims and priorities aren’t necessarily the same as everyone else’s, so my stars aren’t either. Whatever I do to rattle the stars might not be the same as what someone else might be doing to rattle their stars, but that doesn’t make it any more or less fulfilling and valid. As long as I’m working on something that I am happy about and that I want to be doing, that is me daring to do anything.

Accepting failure is a stepping stone to success

To me, to rattle the stars looks like reaching for my dream. I’ve always aspired to be an author, or at the very least be doing something within the writing world, and to be quite honest it sometimes feels a million miles away. I’ll be sat at my laptop writing an idea and then halfway through I’ll lose all inspiration and passion about the idea, and in those moments it’s very easy to fall into a hole of self doubt. In those moments, it feels like I’m dreaming of something impossible and like I should just give up, and it can be really hard to get out of that slump. I’ve learnt that in those moments, I just need to write whatever comes to my head until things start to look better again- clearing out the mist so things can once again become clear.

I know that it is going to take a lot of hard work and practice. It’ll most likely experience a lot of failure, before I get to where I aim to be. JK Rowling got rejected 12 times before Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published. Harry Potter has become one of the biggest franchises in the world! What does it mean for us if JK Rowling can get rejected that many times and still succeed? We know that even when things don’t seem to be looking all that great, we just need to keep trying. We need to keep working for what we believe in and love. It’ll help us all to remember that failure is nothing more than feedback. Failure is just another step on the road to success. 

You could do anything, if only you dared. And deep down, you know it, too. That’s what scares you the most.’ – Sarah J. Maas

This quote really inspires me to keep working for the things that I want in life, no matter how far away or impossible they may seem. It might take a lot of hard work and determination, failure and bouncing back, but if we truly want something, if we truly dare, we can do anything. We can rattle the stars. I’d love to hear which quotes inspire you, whether they’re quotes from books, song lyrics or lines from movies, so please leave them in the comments to spread the inspiration!

If you’re ready to stretch your comfort zone and reach for the stars in your own gentle way at your own pace, you might enjoy the comfort zone stretch guide available here. quietconnections.co.uk/workbook