Braving Beautiful Tactic: Start where you are, use what you have.

Article written by Amanda Beedle 9/2/26

Here within Braving Beautiful Community, we tackle the difficulties, despair, and challenges in life by Braving Beautiful. For this particular post, I want to discuss actual tactics with you. One part of my own journey is the reality of medical expenses. It is difficult. Like many caregivers, I struggle to keep everything afloat. I also recognize that, unlike many other women, I have the ability to help care for my children by using my nursing license, and more importantly, I have an incredible husband willing to work and help provide for us. Not every person has that. Regardless of whether you have far less support than I do, or even far more, the tactic is that you can use it every day: you do not need to stay stuck, and even in what seems like the most helpless of circumstances, you can help yourself rise and learn a way forward. This post speaks significantly to creating a sustainable work-and-life balance going forward. The tactic that I am employing here and that I am going to teach you here is “Start where you are, use what you have.” I am not yet certain who first gets the credit for developing this concept. I do not. However, this tactic has been revolutionary for me in my own life, and I want to share a bit as a guide on how I have implemented this in my own life and how you also can find a way to implement this method in your life today too.

Start where you are.

Use what you have.

I am not sure who coined this concept, but implementing it in my life has been revolutionary.

It is easy to get distracted by wanting a perfect set of circumstances or certain challenges taken off my plate. That is not how life works. So instead, I brace myself to brave the beauty and refuse to accept that bad situations have happened in my life and that I am doomed to a hopeless lot in life. And with that, my own company, Braving Beautiful, has been born.

How have I implemented this tactic in my own life? This will look different for each person. For me, I knew that I needed to generate work and income that was from home, consistent, and my authentically mine. I hadn’t seen myself as much of a blogger before this, but blogging and creating have proven a sustainable way forward. I do not identify as an “influencer” but more of a guide in a lifestyle very few people understand. I have used the existing life, home, and circumstance I am in to create this work.

Furthermore, I have already held a nursing degree for some time. Going out and getting a nursing degree may or may not be the best thing for you; however, for myself I wanted to build upon it. It is a joy and honor to care for my daughters at home. I recognize that paid caregiver programs often have stability with a format by the hour. With this existing degree, I decided to take the next step and advance to a graduate degree in nursing research and specialty populations. Going back to school may not be the best decision for everyone, but this is largely how I have implemented the concept of using what I already have and starting where I am.

How can you get started too? No matter how bleak and discouraged you feel, there are tools at your disposal. Take a look around. In all the trouble, what is it that is working for you?

“What do you have on the spacecraft that is good?” I fondly remember the Apollo lunar missions. I have long been fascinated by them. In the Apollo 13 mission, Flight Director Gene Kranz was directly quoted after the explosion of Apollo 13, as all alarms and buzzers were sounding and the spacecraft was not immediately stabilized, that he asked his ground crew to take inventory. The problems were being reported to him. Big problems. Severe problems. Not least of which was the O2 tanks bleeding out liquid oxygen into space. In this moment, you can hear the voices around him reporting the multiple problems from the explosion. Kranz asks an assessment question: “What do you think we have on the spacecraft that’s good?” He is not focused on the many problems. He immediately takes inventory of what they DO have, and then he works with that. Without that mentality, I am not sure how the Apollo 13 crew could have ever made it home.

Reflection question: What is working in your life that you can use right now? Big or little things. Leave that down in the comments below.

References

Apollo 13 Flight Director Loop. The Gene Krantz quote can be found at timestamp 16:18