Tabitha Brown exudes joy, faithfulness, and hope, so much so that many people wonder how she can remain positive during turbulent situations and less-than-happy experiences. Brown isn’t fearful about the unknown due to immense confidence in her and her abilities. Confidence for Brown means trusting the process, learning, and experiencing new things to enrich her life. Years ago, Brown started a 30-day personal challenge that she called “I Did a New Thing!” The concept was pretty simple.
Every day she would do something she’d never done before. Sometimes, it was something small like trying a new food; other times, she’d step it up a bit and speak to someone new or try a different activity. Still, other times, she’d do the hard thing—facing a fear that she had, like having that tough conversation with a friend or working up the courage to go get a mammogram. Despite the perceived challenges and nervousness of trying new things, Brown decided to take a leap of faith and watch God open up a new lane for her. One of the “new things” she tried was a vegan challenge. She’d been struggling with illness for nearly a year and was desperately searching for healing. She challenged herself to eat vegan every day for thirty days, and six years later, her life has never been the same—all because she decided to do a new thing.
In I Did a New Thing, Tab shares her own stories and those of others, alongside gentle guidance and encouragement to create these incredible changes for yourself and see what good can come from them. Whether that means having hard conversations trying for a promotion, simply wearing something different, or doing something kind for someone else. Brown presents a new approach: Try one new thing every single day for thirty days. According to Brown, you don’t have to wait until Monday or the beginning of a new month or year to get started. There’s no set time and place or any extra preparation required. All you have to do is show up for yourself, and Brown inspires us to do that daily. ESSENCE spoke to Brown about why she decided to share her 30-day challenge concept with her supporters, how to incorporate self-care and wellness daily, and how to lead a positive life without fear.
ESSENCE: So why did you decide to write this book?
Tabitha Brown: I started on this challenge journey back in 2014, to try new things and to see how it would make me feel. When I first started doing the challenge, I realized I wasn’t my completely free self. Even though I was in search of myself, I was still afraid to be completely my full self. In the last few years, whenever the “I Do The New Thing” challenge, I’ve noticed how different of an experience it is for me now. I wanted to write about it to encourage other people to find their own freedom and understand more about what they love and don’t like. The only way that we can do this is by doing something new and trying. So while I was writing this book, I documented a new thing in my life or when I decided to try something different.
It was my hope to encourage other people to start something new. Self-discovery is what it’s all about.
So what did you discover about yourself? This year’s challenge is different from the 2014 one.
So much has changed in my life. What I found different is that I have been truly working on myself. I recognize my healing. And I talked about this in the book when I had my first mammogram and the doctor found a mass while doing this challenge. The old Tabitha would’ve freaked out. When they found it, I said, “Oh, my God, what does that mean?” The old me would have gone online to research and stressed myself out completely. But in this season of my life, I realized I was waiting to be checked by a professional because I have been through sickness, and it’s triggering for me. I had to tell myself, “You’ve done all this work on yourself. Don’t allow this moment to create all these thoughts in your head. And we don’t even know what it is yet.” Thankfully, after going back and getting the biopsy, it proved to be nothing. I was so glad I didn’t give so much negative energy to myself, in negative thoughts to myself, even though I had a little bit of fear.
Fear is natural, but I also addressed it. I was just so thankful for the growth and seeing how much I’ve grown by doing the necessary healing work.
When reading the book, I noticed that you challenged yourself to do a vegan diet, and that has led to your massive success. I’m wondering, how else has this challenge propelled you forward in your life personally and professionally?
It’s so crazy that the 30-Day Vegan challenge was something completely different. But during that time, I had nothing else to lose. I had tried everything the doctors had prescribed me, including medication. So I thought to myself, I deserve at least 30 days to give myself a try and see if this will heal me. Going vegan healed and changed my life in the biggest ways I could ever imagine. So with that, I think I always take that into account – I deserve at least 30 days to try something.
Sometimes when we are comfortable in life, we want to kind of stick to what we know. We don’t tend to challenge ourselves. So what made you just want to do something different to challenge yourself further, even when you found continuous success?
Because I’m still alive! We’re still alive, so that means we have more work to do. We’re still growing; there’s still more to learn about myself. We are all changing every single day. What I liked yesterday, I might not like tomorrow. So, as I’m always changing, I feel like I owe it to myself to try new things. No matter how successful I am, there’s still more to come. I still don’t know who I’m going to be yet.
In the book, you also speak about the importance of harnessing our inner child as adults. So how can black women do that or begin that journey?
I think there’s sometimes we have to do a little self-reflecting and go back to before the world or adults got into our minds to instill fear and doubt, which is harnessing our childlike energy. When we go back to those thoughts and think about what we loved to do as kids, we can open up our childlike energy.
What do you hope this book will teach your readers and your supporters, especially going into this new year?
To try something new, you deserve that. You deserve 30 days to give yourself an opportunity to grow even more and figure out what you don’t like and what you’re willing to give yourself. Thirty days, we are all worthy.
Can you give us a snapshot of the new things that you’re trying out this month and possibly the entire year?
I visited Puerto Rico this month which was super exciting. I’m going to wear my hair (Donna) in different ways as well as openly talking about perimenopause. Also, I’ll be working out more this year. I recently had problems with my hip and back, so I’m trying to get better. I’m trying to do more things that are going to make me feel well but also open up my horizons, like hosting and traveling to places I’ve never been before. I’m always open to going somewhere new and learning something new.
