Not a normal list. A long one. Everything I could think of that still needed handling before I stepped away went on it. Emails I had not gotten to. Loose ends from the week. And then I would push myself to get through every line of it.

Working later than I meant to, on my last working day before vacation started. Staying at my desk past the point I had already told myself I would leave. Trying to check every box, one more, one more, until I got through a good chunk of the list.

And even on the times I finished the whole list, walking out that door never felt the way I thought it would. I expected relief. What I actually felt was tired in a way rest was not going to fix right away.

No matter how much I got done, there was always a reason to keep going. One more email that could still be answered before I logged off. One more task that felt important in that exact moment, even if it had not felt important an hour before. One more thing I told myself I could squeeze in, just this once, before I let myself leave.

It was not really about the list. Lists end, eventually, one way or another. This did not.

It was about how I was making decisions in that moment. Everything felt urgent. Everything felt like it needed me right then, before I could possibly step away and leave it alone for a week.

I know part of where that comes from. I have spent most of my career being the one who follows through. The one who handles things. The one people can count on to make sure it actually gets done. I am not saying that like a complaint. Most of it, I am proud of. But it also means I learned how to keep going long before I ever learned how to ask myself whether I needed to.

The Question I Started Asking

At some point, I had to stop and ask myself something more honest than whether I had finished the list.

Is this actually urgent? Or is this just how I have trained myself to respond?

Because the truth is, no matter how much I got through, there was always something else waiting behind it. Something else I could have added. Something else that could have been wrapped up if I had just stayed one more hour.

The list was never actually going to run out. I was going to run out first.

And I think that is the part that is easy to miss when you are the one who always follows through. You start to believe the urgency is coming from the work. Some of the time, it is coming from you.

Not Just a Vacation Problem

I do not think this is only a vacation problem. I think it is a low hum underneath a lot of ordinary days, for a lot of us.

You do not need my particular circumstances to know this feeling. You just need a life that is full enough, in whatever shape that takes for you, that most things start to feel like they cannot wait. That is most of us, more days than we would like to admit.

It is rarely about the list itself. It is about how many things have learned to speak in that same urgent voice, until we stop trusting ourselves to tell which ones actually mean it.

So I made a different decision. I still make the list. I do not think I will ever stop doing that, and I do not think I need to.

But now I actually look at it before I start working through it, instead of starting at the top and pushing until I run out of time. I ask myself which of these things actually needs to happen before I leave, and which of them just feels like it does because it has been sitting on the page long enough to seem important. And then I leave the rest there. On purpose. Without finishing it first.

That part is still not easy for me, even now. Some of what I leave on the list still nags at me a little, even once I have already decided to leave it there. But nagging is not the same as necessary, and I am learning to tell the difference.

Because here is what I finally let myself believe. The work will still be there when I get back. It always is. But my energy is not going to just be there waiting, however I happened to spend it. That is something I have to lead. On purpose, not by accident, and not because a list told me it mattered.

I still feel the pull some days. The one more email. The one more thing. I do not think that voice goes away completely, and I have stopped expecting it to.

What is different is that I do not automatically believe it anymore.

What is on your list right now that feels urgent, even though it might not be? And what would it actually cost you to leave it there, just this once?

In the first post, I wrote about the weight of holding two callings at once. The arithmetic that never quite worked. The mornings I kept redesigning that never actually held. In the second, I wrote about what the “and” produces, about a June workshop where twenty five years of nonprofit leadership and everything I have built through Mission ENSPIRE met in one room and made something neither one could have made alone. In the third, I wrote about how uneven that “and” actually is, and how I am learning that uneven does not mean unequal, that a slower season is information and not a verdict.

Four posts is longer than I usually stay with one idea. This one would not let me go until I had said the whole thing, and I think that is because I was not only writing about the “and” this summer. I was living inside it while I wrote.

So here is where all of it has brought me, and where I want to leave you before I close this series.

What I Know Now That I Did Not Know in June

I started this series thinking I needed to explain myself. To account for the hours that do not divide evenly between my full-time work and Mission ENSPIRE, to justify why one calling gets Saturday afternoons and stolen evenings while the other gets a whole calendar built around it. Somewhere underneath that instinct was a fear that if I could not make the math work, I had no business calling both of them real.

What I know now is that the math was never going to work, and it was never supposed to. Both callings are real. Neither one is the thing I am doing while I wait to do the other thing. And wholeness, the word I used back in post two, does not mean equal. It means I get to stop treating the quieter calling as evidence against myself, and start treating the unevenness as the actual shape of this season instead of a problem I still have not solved.

I also learned something about returning, the thing I wrote about in the very first post. Consistency, at least in this season, was never going to look like rhythm for me. It looks like coming back to Mission ENSPIRE again and again, in whatever hour I can find, without needing that hour to resemble anyone else’s business hours. That is the truest thing this series taught me. I did not arrive at it by figuring something out. I arrived at it by staying honest long enough, post after post, to let it become true.

One Thing Is Necessary

There is a passage in the Gospel of Luke I have found myself returning to more than once this summer. Martha is doing what needs to be done in the kitchen while her sister Mary sits and listens, and Martha finally says what so many of us have felt, tell her to help me. Jesus does not tell Martha that her work does not matter. He tells her she is anxious about many things, and only one thing is necessary.

I used to read that story as a lesson about priorities, choose the better thing over the lesser one. I read it differently now. I think it might be a lesson about seasons. Not every good thing gets to be the one thing at the same time. Some of what matters to you is allowed to wait its turn without becoming less true while it waits.

That is the practical piece underneath everything I have written in this series. If your “and” is uneven right now, the question is not which calling deserves more of you. The question is what this particular season is actually asking you to give your full attention to, and whether you can let the rest of what matters stay real without demanding equal time to prove it.

Maybe your “and” does not look like mine. Maybe it is a job and a marriage that both need you fully present. Maybe it is a caregiving season and a dream you have not put down. Whatever your version looks like, the season itself usually already knows which one needs your full attention right now. The work is trusting that knowing, instead of arguing with it.

What I Am Protecting This Season

For me, right now, that one thing is a self-paced course built out of something I did not expect, talks I have already given.

Since last July, I have shown up again and again in virtual rooms, speaker showcases, summits, sessions, and spoken about worth, confidence, boundaries, courage, more times than I expected to when I started. Somewhere in the middle of this season, I went back through those recordings and realized the teaching I needed to build was already there. What it needed was structure, sequencing, a way to guide a woman all the way through it on her own.

So, I built it that way. I recorded a new opening to welcome you in and a new closing to help you leave with something to carry, and everything in between draws on talks I have given since July, to women I never met in person but still watched recognize themselves in real time, in a chat window, in a room I could not see but could feel. Five lessons, moving from reclaiming your own story to building a rooted kind of confidence, to protecting your energy without guilt, to naming the perfectionism that keeps capable women stuck, and ending with something simple and repeatable to carry forward.

That is part of why I am proud of it in a way that surprises me a little. It is not a course I built from nothing under a deadline. It is a course made of everything I said out loud this year, every virtual room I showed up to and told the truth in. Both callings built it, honestly. The years in leadership taught me what a woman actually needs to hear to move. Mission ENSPIRE gave me the rooms, virtual as they were, to say it in.

It is not ready to sell yet. There are still pieces standing between what exists and you being able to walk through it, and I am not going to rush past that just because I am proud of it. But I wanted you to know it exists, that it is real, that it is the one thing I am protecting on my calendar for the rest of this year, and that when it is ready, you will be some of the first to hear its name.

I did not set out four posts ago to find a system. I do not think I even believed one existed. What I was looking for, without fully naming it, was permission to stop treating the unevenness as a problem I still had not solved.

What I have instead is something I trust more than a system. The “and” does not get lighter because you finally understand it. It gets sustainable when you stop requiring it to be even, choose the one thing this season is actually asking of you, and trust that everything else you carry is not gone just because it is waiting.

That is the whole series, really. Not a formula for holding two callings well. Just permission, the kind you give yourself, to hold them honestly, protect what this season can actually carry, and trust the returning.

What is the one thing you are choosing to protect this season, and what are you letting wait without deciding it matters less?

In the first post, I wrote about the weight of holding two callings at once. The arithmetic that never quite works. The mornings that do not hold. The work of building something meaningful in the margins of a life that is already full.

In the second, I wrote about what the “and” produces. I shared how twenty-five years of nonprofit leadership and the visibility I have built through Mission ENSPIRE met in one room, strengthened one another and created something neither could have produced alone. That post ended with a realization: I did not walk out of the room as a divided person trying to serve two separate worlds. I walked out as a whole person, drawing from everything I had built.

I have continued thinking about what it actually means to live as that whole person, because wholeness does not mean everything receives the same amount of time. It does not mean every calling moves at the same pace, every goal is pursued simultaneously or every part of your life produces visible results at the same moment.

Sometimes the “and” is deeply uneven.

Looking at What Was Built

As I reviewed the first half of 2026 for Mission ENSPIRE, I could see a lot that had happened. I spoke to more than 200 women on a global stage. I delivered workshops and leadership sessions. I launched a newsletter, grew my email community and completed the content for a self-paced course, including the videos, workbook and supporting materials.

There was real progress. There were also things that did not happen as planned. The course was built, but the technology required to launch it was not complete. Some of the visibility I worked hard to create did not translate into sales. A social media schedule that worked well in May fell apart in June when a workshop, course development, vacation preparation and the rest of life began competing for the same limited space.

The record of the first half held both accomplishment and unfinished work. It would have been easy to look only at what remained incomplete and decide I had not done enough. It would have been just as easy to focus only on what went well and avoid asking harder questions about what the business needs next.

Neither response would have told the whole truth.

The fuller truth is that Mission ENSPIRE was growing, but it was growing inside a season that did not have unlimited room for it.

Both Does Not Always Mean Equal

My full-time role receives the largest share of my working hours. That is not an accident, and it is not an inconvenience standing between me and my real work. It is real work that asks for leadership, strategy, judgment, presence and responsibility. It allows me to contribute to communities, organizations and leaders doing meaningful work across Illinois, and it continues to deepen the experience I bring into every Mission ENSPIRE session.

Mission ENSPIRE is also real work, but it is built differently. It is built on Saturday afternoons, in stolen evenings and in deadline-driven bursts. Sometimes I have an uninterrupted block. More often, I return to it in pieces. For a long time, I treated that unevenness as a problem I needed to solve. Surely, I thought, the right morning routine would create the hours. A better calendar would make everything fit. More discipline would turn unpredictable pockets of time into a reliable rhythm.

But I am beginning to understand that the unevenness is not necessarily evidence that something is wrong. It may simply be the actual shape of this season. Choosing both does not guarantee that both will receive equal time. It does not mean they will produce equal results or require the same kind of energy. It does not mean the balance will remain the same from one month to the next. Equal importance does not require equal expression.

That has been an important distinction for me because when one calling receives more hours, it can be tempting to believe the other must not matter as much. When progress is slower than expected, we can begin questioning our commitment. When a plan moves into another season, we may interpret the delay as fear, failure or evidence that we were never serious.

Sometimes those conclusions are worth examining. We can use the language of capacity to avoid action just as easily as we can use ambition to ignore our limits. But a slower pace is not automatically avoidance, and a quieter season is not the same as abandonment. Uneven progress does not necessarily mean unequal commitment.

A Plan that Fits this Season

My original plans for the second half of this year held several significant offers and ideas. The revised plan holds one central offer. A group program I hoped to launch this year has moved to 2027. So has the retreat I have been envisioning. My social media plans will be lighter during the course launch, while the blog and newsletter remain protected. Instead of trying to force several major goals into the same limited space, I am choosing one primary focus and allowing the rest to wait.

On paper, the plan became smaller. In practice, it became a better fit for the season I am actually living. Those decisions do not mean I no longer believe in the strategies that I moved. They do not mean I am less ambitious or less committed to the vision. They mean I am making decisions that reflect my actual capacity instead of the capacity I wish I had.

There is a difference between giving up on an idea and giving it the time it deserves. There is a difference between shrinking a vision and refusing to build it under conditions that would require depletion. There is also a difference between moving slowly and standing still.

I am learning to treat slow seasons as information, not a verdict.

The information from the first half of the year was clear. I can create meaningful work. I can build visibility. I can speak, facilitate, write and develop programs while continuing to lead in my full-time role. I cannot do every version of all those things at once, and I do not need to.

Wholeness Is Not Sameness

When I wrote about leaving the June workshop as a whole person, I was not describing a perfect merger in which every part of my life finally fit together neatly. Wholeness is not uniformity, and it does not require every part of me to speak at the same volume. It means I no longer have to dismiss the quieter parts simply because something else is louder. I do not have to treat my nonprofit leadership as separate from the coach, facilitator and entrepreneur I am continuing to grow into. I do not have to devalue Mission ENSPIRE because it currently receives fewer hours than my full-time work.

Both are shaping me. Both are drawing from the same values, experience and desire to support people as they move forward. Both belong to me, even when the calendar does not divide itself evenly between them. Maybe your “and” looks different from mine. Maybe you are growing a business while building a career. Maybe you are leading professionally while caring for family. Maybe you are holding a present responsibility alongside a future you can already see but cannot fully enter yet. Perhaps one part of your life is moving quickly while another is barely moving at all.

You may not need to make a permanent decision based on a temporary imbalance. You may simply need to recognize the season you are in, decide what can be carried well right now and allow what matters to move at a pace that does not require you to disappear in order to sustain it. I still do not have an even calendar. Mission ENSPIRE is still being built in the margins. Some goals are moving into another year, and some completed work is still waiting for the conditions that will allow it to be released. None of that makes the calling less real.

This is what I understand now that I did not fully understand when I began this series: the “and” does not become sustainable when the math finally evens out. It becomes sustainable when we stop requiring evenness as proof of commitment.

What would it look like to let something important move at the pace this season can hold, without deciding that it matters less?

The room was already beautiful when I walked in.

White roses on black tablecloths. Quote cards in wooden stands. Branded tote bags at every seat. The kind of care in the setup that tells you immediately this is not a standard professional development session. The ERG leaders had built something before I ever arrived, and I walked into it carrying my workbooks, my slide deck, my handouts, and twenty-five years of accumulated experience that I was about to find out still knew exactly what to do.

I had been invited to lead this workshop by a woman I met through the Women Thrive Summit. We had both spoken there, connected across the virtual space the way you do when you recognize someone doing work that resonates with yours, and eventually she reached out. Her ERG was planning a gathering called Rooted and Rising. They were looking for someone to lead a session. Would I be interested?

I sent a proposal with three options. They chose the one that became Leading From the Inside Out: Strengthening Mindset, Boundaries and Self-Trust. Then came a few months of email exchanges, one planning call, and then June 18th.

This was our first time meeting in person.

I want to hold that detail for a moment because it matters to what this post is actually about. The door to that room opened because of Mission ENSPIRE. Because I had been doing the visibility work, showing up on stages, building a platform, saying yes to rooms that stretched me. But the person who walked through that door and knew what to do once she got inside, that person was built by twenty-five years of nonprofit leadership, facilitation training, and the particular kind of confidence that only comes from having held a lot of rooms over a long time.

Both callings got me there. Neither one could have done it alone.

Before 2020, in-person facilitation was woven into my professional life so regularly I rarely stopped to think about it. The world shifting inside changed that, and a promotion in 2024 shifted it further. I had been back in an in-person room just six weeks earlier. But there is something about walking into a new room, with a new audience, built around work that is entirely yours, that asks you to show up differently. The familiarity of the format and the newness of the moment were both true at the same time.

And still, the body remembers. The instincts came back before I finished my first sentence.

I told the room at the start that I was not there to lecture them. That this was not a session where I would talk at them for an hour while they took notes and waited to leave. We were going to reflect. We were going to write. We were going to share with the woman sitting beside us. I said it because I meant it, and because I have learned over a long career that a room does not open until the people in it believe they are actually safe to be honest. You cannot create that with a slide. You earn it with how you enter.

We started with short introductions, just enough for everyone to hear their own voice in the room. Then we went to work.

The workshop moved through three roots: mindset, boundaries, and self-trust. Not as a list of concepts to memorize but as an invitation to look inward, to ask which one was asking for their attention right now, and to name one practice small enough to actually keep. There were workbook prompts and four full minutes of writing in silence. There were partner shares with specific instructions: listen, do not advise, say thank you, then switch. There was a moment where I asked everyone to hold one of the gardening tools from their tote bag and think about what it means to tend soil before you expect anything to rise from it.

None of that structure came from a facilitation playbook. It came from years of coaching work, from the belief I have carried through Mission ENSPIRE that women already hold more than they give themselves credit for, and that what they need most is not more information but more space to see themselves clearly. That sensibility shaped the design of the entire workshop.

And the facilitation training, the pacing, the silence, the instinct for when to push and when to pull back, gave the coaching content a container strong enough to hold it. One without the other would have produced something thinner. A coaching session without the facilitation structure might have felt unmoored. A facilitation workshop without the coaching underneath would have been information delivery with good activities. What happened in that room on June 18 was neither of those things.

The feedback forms told me what I could not fully see from the front of the room. People named validation. Self-reflection. Being asked to look at themselves. One person wrote that they do not normally do things like this. That is the sentence I keep returning to, because that is exactly what the workshop was designed to do. To take a professional development moment and make it personal. To invite the woman, not just the leader, into the room.

When it was over, I walked to my car and sat with the quiet for a minute.

I felt good. I also felt drained in that particular way that only happens when you have given a room everything you brought with you. It is not the tired of depletion. It is the tired of full effort, the kind that tells you something real happened, that you did not hold back, that the work cost something because it was worth something.

That is what the and produces when both callings are allowed to show up fully. Not a divided self trying to serve two masters. A whole person, drawing from everything she has built, in a room that needed exactly that.

What does it look like when everything you have learned, across every season and every role, shows up at the same time? Have you stopped long enough to let that be something you claim?

I have lost count of how many times I have designed the perfect morning.

You probably know the one. Up early, coffee ready, a quiet hour of focused time on Mission ENSPIRE before the workday begins. I have imagined that morning in detail. I have told myself, more than once, that this would be the week I finally put it into practice. And then Tuesday arrives. The early meeting. The message that cannot wait. The morning I designed in my head stays in my head, and the morning I actually live belongs to everything else. By the following Sunday I am designing it all over again, convinced that this time I just need a better system.

Some mornings the time does not go to any work at all. It goes to sleep. It goes to rest, to errands, to being a person with a life and not just a woman with two callings. I used to count those mornings as evidence against myself. I am learning to count them as part of the math.

If you have ever built a routine in good faith and watched it dissolve by midweek, this post is for you.

The Math I Do Not Usually Say Out Loud

Here is what a normal week actually looks like for me. LISC takes the largest share of my working hours by far, and it is demanding work. I lead people who lead people, which means it does not always stay neatly inside the hours assigned to it. It follows me into the evening in the form of things I am still turning over in my mind.

And then there is the rest of a life. Family. Friendships. Rest I actually need. The ordinary maintenance of being a person. None of that disappears to make room for a business, nor should it.

So, Mission ENSPIRE gets what is left, when I can find it. And there is no rhythm to that time right now. I do not have business hours. I do not have a sacred morning block that actually holds. I claim time in chunks, when the energy is there or when something is time sensitive. A Saturday afternoon here. A stolen evening there. A burst of focus when a deadline makes the decision for me.

I am naming this plainly because almost nobody does. Every piece of advice out there says build the routine, protect your mornings, treat your business like a business. I have tried all of it, sincerely and more than once. And what is true for me in this season is that the business gets built in the margins, irregularly, by a woman who coaches other women on consistency and knows exactly how this looks from the outside. I am naming that tension on purpose, because I do not believe I am the only one living inside it.

Not a Job and a Side Hustle

Here is where I need to correct an assumption before it settles in, because it is the assumption people make most often when they hear about my two worlds.

LISC is not the day job that funds the real dream. Mission ENSPIRE is not the passion project waiting for me to escape into it. I have given 19 years to community development work, across Chicagoland, Central Illinois and nationally, and that work is not what I do while I wait to do the thing I love. It is calling. And the coaching, facilitating, and writing I do through Mission ENSPIRE, supporting women to lead themselves well so they can lead everything else well, that is calling too. Same calling, honestly. One purpose, expressed in two places.

I used to think that clarity would make the carrying easier. It does not. In some ways it makes it heavier, and here is why. If one of these were just a job, the math would be simple. You protect the real thing and you endure the other one. You give the job what it requires and not an ounce more, and you pour everything else into the work of your heart. There is a whole library of advice built on exactly that math.

But when both are calling, there is nothing to demote. There is no lesser thing to put down so your arms can be free for the greater thing. The and is not between an obligation and a dream. The and is between two things I would choose again. And the hours still do not divide evenly. That is the weight nobody hands you a framework for.

What the Hours Tell Me

Now here is the part that took me a while to see, and it might be the most important thing in this post.

When I do claim those chunks of time for Mission ENSPIRE, when I finally sit down on that Saturday afternoon or in that stolen evening, I do not feel resentment. I do not feel guilt about what got bumped. I feel good. I feel accomplished. I close the laptop genuinely glad that I took the time to work on the business.

Sit with that for a moment, because there is evidence in it. The hours themselves are never the struggle. Being in the work confirms the calling every single time I get there. The struggle is only ever reaching the hours. Getting to them through the noise and the meetings and the legitimate demands of the other calling.

I think some of us have quietly concluded that because the time is so hard to find, we must be pursuing the wrong thing. That if this were really our calling, the path to it would be clearer and the calendar would cooperate. If that is the conclusion you have been quietly carrying, I want to offer you a different reading. The difficulty of reaching the work is not a verdict on the work. Pay attention to how you feel when you are actually in it. That is where the truth lives, not in how hard it was to arrive.

Returning Is Its Own Kind of Consistency

Earlier this year I wrote about consistency as quiet courage, about showing up before the results arrive. I believed every word when I wrote it, and I believe it now. But this season has taught me something I did not fully understand then.

Consistency does not always look like rhythm. Sometimes it looks like returning.

A rhythm carries you. Once the routine is established, the routine itself does some of the work. You show up because it is 6am and that is what 6am is for. But when there is no rhythm, when the week refuses to repeat itself and the perfect morning keeps dissolving, every single return is a decision. Nobody and nothing carries you back to the work. You carry yourself. You come back to it again on Saturday, again next Wednesday night, again after two weeks when the season swallowed everything. And in some ways that takes more than a routine ever would, because you are choosing the calling fresh every time instead of riding a habit toward it.

So, if your version of consistency looks like returning rather than rhythm right now, I want you to hear this clearly: you are not failing at consistency. You are practicing its hardest form.

There is a song by Jonathan McReynolds called “Make Room.” I have been sitting with the idea at the center of it, the work of making room for what matters most even when your life is already full. That is what this season has asked of me. Not a better system. Not a perfect morning. Just the willingness to keep making room, again and again, for a calling I refuse to set down.

I do not have a tidy resolution for you, and I am not going to pretend that I do. As I write this, the hours still do not divide evenly. The perfect morning still does not hold. What I have instead is the truth of this season, written down plainly and the knowledge that I am not carrying the and alone. Neither are you. There are more of us living in this exact arithmetic than you would ever guess from the outside, building what we are called to build in the margins, returning again and again without a schedule to carry us there.

This series is for us.

What does returning look like in your week right now?

I have been thinking about that Tuesday a lot lately, because it captures something I want to talk about here. Something I have learned through years of coaching women, building a business, leading a team, and finding my own way through the seasons where showing up felt hard. Sustainable success is not built on intensity. It is built on consistent, aligned steps. And sometimes, showing up quietly when no one is watching is the most courageous thing we can do.

I want to be honest about what I mean when I say consistency, because I think we have been sold a version of it that sets us up to fail. The version that says you must show up every single day without exception, that gaps mean failure and breaks mean you have to start over. That version is exhausting, and for most of us, it is simply not sustainable. Real consistency is something quieter and more forgiving than that. It is not about doing everything every day. It is about returning. Returning to what matters, even after the pause, even when more time has passed than you intended. The goal is not the perfect streak. The goal is the relationship with the practice, and your willingness to come back to it.

There is also an important distinction I want to make between intensity and consistency, because they can look similar from the outside but they feel completely different from the inside. Intensity is that surge of energy that comes at the beginning of something new, the first week of a habit, the burst of momentum right after a breakthrough moment or a powerful conference. It feels electric. It is exciting and visible and it gets a lot of attention. But it does not last. And when it fades, many of us make the mistake of believing the fading means we have failed, that we did not want it badly enough or we are just not the kind of person who follows through. That is not failure. That is just the natural end of intensity. Consistency is what we build after the electricity fades. It does not have the thrill of a fresh start, but it is far more powerful over time. It is what compounds. It is what the life we are praying for is actually built on.

I also want to name how perfectionism gets tangled up in all of this, because it is one of the most common consistency killers I see in the women I work with and in myself. As I shared in From Perfectionist to Progress-Seeker, perfectionism kept me from launching my business because I was waiting until everything was in place. But perfectionism does not just keep us from starting. It also keeps us from returning. It tells us that if we cannot come back fully and perfectly, we should wait until we can. It disguises the avoidance as wisdom. And so we wait, and the gap stretches, and returning feels harder the longer we wait. The truth is that the re-entry does not need to be perfect or even impressive. It just needs to happen. A smaller, quieter version of the thing still counts. And the return, however imperfect, is always the right move.

This is where faith comes in.

I want to talk about this honestly, because I think it is the piece that makes this conversation uniquely ours. Secular content about consistency talks about discipline and habit formation and systems, and those things are real and useful. But what I have learned in my own journey is that showing up before you can see the results is not primarily a discipline issue. It is a faith issue. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” I have read that verse many times, but I have understood it most deeply not in a Bible study, but in the experience of building something slowly, in the quiet, without confirmation that it was working. Every time I sat down to write for this blog when the audience was small, that was faith. Every hour I invested in my coaching credentials before I had a full client roster, that was faith. Every time I returned to this space after a long pause, trusting that these words reach the people who need them, that is faith. Consistency practiced with intention is the physical form of faith in motion. It is what we do while we are waiting for the evidence. It is how we tell God, and ourselves, that we believe in the outcome even before we can see it.

I think about the years I spent making student loan payments that barely seemed to make a dent in the balance. Month after month, year after year, with no end visibly in sight. There were moments when the progress felt so invisible that it was hard to believe it was happening at all. And then one day, the letter came. Forgiveness. Freedom. A number I had written down years before in a dream journal at a retreat, next to the words: I believe my student loans will be paid in full. I did not know exactly how or when. I just kept showing up, kept paying, kept filing the paperwork, kept believing. That is consistency as faithfulness. And it is quiet. It rarely looks impressive while it is happening. But it is some of the most courageous work we ever do.

It is also worth being honest about what breaks our consistency, because I think naming those things clearly is more useful than pretending they should not be happening. Three things come up again and again, both in my own experience and in my work with clients. The first is perfectionism, which I have already talked about, this idea that if we cannot return fully and completely, we should not return at all. The second is comparison, which quietly drains the heart. When we see someone else further along, more visible, producing more, something in us dims. We forget that we are not seeing their unglamorous Tuesdays or their seasons of doubt. We are seeing their highlight and measuring it against our behind-the-scenes, and that is never a fair comparison. The third is depletion, and I want to give this one particular attention because it is the one we talk about the least. Sometimes we lose our consistency not because we are lazy or unmotivated or undisciplined, but because we have been giving everything to everyone else and there is genuinely nothing left. That is not a discipline problem. That is an energy management problem, and it deserves to be treated as such. As I have written about before, you cannot sustain consistent action from an empty tank. Protecting your energy is not a luxury. It is a prerequisite for showing up for what matters most.

And I want to say clearly: there is a difference between a break and a breakdown. Sometimes the pause is wisdom, not failure. I have had seasons in this blog where I stepped away not because I gave up, but because I needed to be present somewhere else first. That pause was not abandonment, and the return was not starting over. In October I wrote about refocusing and recommitting, and the truth I shared there still holds. Recommitment is just consistency with a restart. You do not have to earn your way back or explain the gap or make up for the time that passed. You just have to come back.

For those of you who want something practical to hold onto, here is what has helped me build a consistency practice that actually holds. First, anchor new consistent behaviors to things you already do. A morning prayer, an evening reflection, a weekly review. Instead of building entirely new structure from scratch, attach the practice to something that already has roots in your day. Second, define your minimum viable action for the hard days. What is the smallest version of the thing you can still do when you are tired, stretched, or running low? Five minutes instead of an hour. One paragraph instead of a full post. One email instead of an entire project. The point is not impressive output. The point is staying in relationship with the practice so that returning tomorrow feels like continuation, not resurrection. Third, build accountability around encouragement, not judgment. The structures that last are the ones where someone celebrates your return, not tracks your absence. And finally, protect your energy like your consistency depends on it, because it does. Boundaries, rest, saying no to the things that drain you without giving back, these are not soft suggestions. They are the infrastructure that makes showing up possible over time.

What I most want you to take from this is something that I have had to learn slowly and return to often. The life you are praying for is frequently being built in the moments you almost skipped. The post you almost did not write. The call you almost cancelled. The return you made three weeks later than you intended, quietly, without fanfare, because something in you said it is not over yet. Consistency compounds. What feels invisible right now is accumulating into something real. I have watched this in my own life across many seasons, and I see it in the women I have the privilege of working with. The seeds planted in the unglamorous middle are the ones that eventually take root in ways that take your breath away.

I also want to leave you with this: some of the people who most need what you carry have not found you yet. Your consistency right now is faithfulness to them. The client you have not yet met, the conversation you will have that changes someone’s direction, the version of yourself you are still becoming through the quiet discipline of showing up, she is being built right now. In the ordinary Tuesdays. In the returns. In the moments no one applauds. Keep going. Not loudly. Not perfectly. Just faithfully. That is quiet courage, and it is enough.

So here is my question for you: what is one thing you have stepped away from that is quietly asking you to come back, and what would it look like to return to it this week, not when everything is perfect, but simply because it is time?

So I did not post in December.
And I did not post in January either.

Instead, I chose to pause. And honestly, it was one of the most grounding decisions I have made in a long time.

In my coaching training, we spend significant time on a skill called active listening, specifically what is often referred to as Level 2 listening. It is the kind of listening where you are fully present with the person in front of you, not mentally preparing your response or thinking about what is next on your calendar. I teach this skill. I coach others on it. And still, during high pressure seasons, I catch myself slipping into distracted presence. That is why I close Teams during one on one meetings. It is a small boundary, but it matters. If notifications are popping up or my task list is visible, I am not fully there. I may look engaged, but my attention is divided.

December and January reminded me that sometimes we need to close more than just applications on our screens. Sometimes we need to close the expectation that we must always be producing, posting, or proving something in order to be valuable.

What the Pause Taught Me

When I gave myself permission to step back from writing, something unexpected happened. Instead of feeling behind, I felt grounded. Instead of feeling guilty, I felt clear. I rested without feeling like I had to earn that rest through productivity. What surprised me most was this. The pause did not disconnect me from my purpose. It deepened it. By allowing myself space, my reflections became clearer and more honest. I was reminded that sometimes the most courageous thing we can do is trust that our work will still be there when we are ready, and that our commitment is not measured by constant output.

That pause extended into January, intentionally. Instead of rushing into the new year with plans and pressure, I attended the Elevate and Empower Retreat, a guided experience created for clarity, alignment, and intentional momentum. What I needed most was not another strategy. It was space.

Space to slow down enough to see what had been taking shape beneath the surface. Space to listen for how I wanted to show up, how I wanted to share my work, and how to protect my energy while doing it. And in that quiet, I realized something simple but powerful. I do not need to become someone new to move forward. I need to lead from who I already am, with consistency and intention. During the retreat, the focus was not urgency or reinvention. It was integration. I spent time bringing together parts of myself that I had unconsciously kept separate, my professional leadership and my entrepreneurial work. What became clear is that the next season of growth is not about pushing harder. It is about structure, focus and visible action that honors both my values and my capacity.

Ironically, this experience echoed something I created last year, a personal retreat guide meant to help others pause, reflect, and reconnect with themselves without needing perfect conditions. Sitting in a retreat space centered on my own business reminded me that the practices we offer others are often the very ones we are invited to return to ourselves.

I left January not with dramatic answers, but with clarity, alignment, and a renewed commitment to lead and share my work in ways that honor my energy, my values, and the season I am in.

Looking Back at 2025

As the pause created space, I found myself reflecting on the year that had passed. Not through a list of accomplishments or goals met, but through a deeper awareness of who I am becoming. Every year has its own rhythm. Some years are about building. Others are about releasing. Some are defined by visible milestones. Others by quieter internal shifts.

For me, 2025 was a year of finding my voice. Not the voice I use when facilitating or coaching, but my voice as a speaker and leader representing my own brand, and as someone willing to be seen. At the beginning of the year, I would not have used the word speaker to describe myself. Even though I facilitated. Even though I trained. Even though I stood in front of rooms leading conversations. I had not fully claimed it.

Today, I can say it clearly. I am a speaker.

That shift did not happen all at once. It happened through consistent, imperfect action. Month after month of showing up, speaking, and using my voice even when it felt uncomfortable. One way I stretched myself was volunteering to go first. On calls. In conversations. In spaces where it would have been easier to stay quiet. Going first did not always feel brave. Sometimes it felt exposed. But with each moment of practice, my confidence followed.

Courage came first. Confidence followed through repetition.

What deepened in 2025 is carrying forward into this year as I step into new speaking opportunities in February during MEE Month and join the Women Thrive Summit in March.

Leadership Growth and Responsibility

2025 also brought new leadership challenges in my role at LISC. I fully stepped into my position where I manage people leaders. I do not directly own the work, but I am accountable for outcomes. That responsibility carries weight. That weight is real, and some days it’s nerve-wracking. Some days, I wondered if I was guiding my team well enough. Other days, I surprised myself with the strength I didn’t know I had. Leadership has a way of showing you both your doubts and your growth at the same time.

What I learned is this: you don’t always feel ready. You second-guess. You compare. You wonder if you’re really walking in your purpose. But clarity doesn’t come first it comes from taking action.

This became especially clear in September when I participated in the Financial Opportunity Center® (FOC) 20th Anniversary National Convening here in Chicago. As I shared in Honoring Legacy, Living Purpose, that experience was both humbling and affirming. Leading a coaching practicum for twenty four participants, serving on the opening plenary panel, and receiving recognition from partners I deeply respect, including an unexpected standing ovation and a welded plaque from Jane Addams Resource Corporation, reminded me that the seeds we plant quietly year after year do take root.

That moment of being seen and acknowledged by my community taught me something important: we often can’t see our own impact until others reflect it back to us. And sometimes our greatest growth happens not in the spotlight moments, but in the decades of consistent showing up that come before them.

The Entrepreneurial Middle

If I am honest, 2025 was also challenging in my entrepreneurial journey. I have been building Mission ENSPIRE for four years. In 2025 progress felt slower than expected. There were moments when the question shifted from can I do this to can I keep doing this.

This is the part we do not talk about enough. The space between starting and thriving. Between momentum and mastery. Early courage is fueled by excitement. Sustained courage is fueled by discipline and trust. 2025 reminded me that courage is not only about starting. It is about staying. About continuing to show up even when results lag behind effort.

Releasing Recommitting and Redesigning

Now in February of 2026, I am intentional about what I carry forward. I am releasing the pressure to have everything figured out by now. Entrepreneurship does not follow a neat timeline. It follows a process. I am recommitting to using my voice consistently and to this space, Flourishing Fiercely, even when engagement feels quiet. Because I know these words reach the people who need them. I am redesigning my definition of success. In 2026, success includes consistency, courage, relationships and unseen impact. It includes honoring both my leadership role and my entrepreneurial calling as complementary expressions of the same purpose.

My 2026 Intention Sustainable Visibility

My intention for 2026 is sustainable visibility. Not visibility driven by urgency. Not visibility that leads to exhaustion.

Sustainable visibility means showing up in ways that align with my values and capacity. It means trusting that slow, intentional presence is enough. It means believing that I can be seen and whole at the same time. Publishing this post in February feels aligned with that intention. This is not about catching up. It is about beginning again with clarity.

So, here is my question for you. What are you releasing, recommitting to, or redesigning as you move through this year?

Here is to beginning again.
Here is to sustainable visibility.
And here is to continuing to flourish fiercely together.

Recommitment, Not Perfection

Recommitment isn’t about pushing harder or catching up. It’s about doing what matters. It’s not about hustle, guilt or chasing perfection. It’s about realigning with your purpose and giving yourself permission to begin again. Maybe there’s something you started earlier in the year that deserves one more try. Or maybe your priorities have changed, and it’s time to release a goal that no longer fits. I’ve been there more than once, realizing that the thing I was chasing no longer aligned with who I was becoming. Letting go wasn’t failure; it was an act of grace that opened space for what was next.

If you’ve felt behind, remember what we explored in From Perfectionist to Progress-Seeker: Embracing the Imperfect Journey. Growth is not linear. Every step forward is a step toward the life you’re building. Recommitment means meeting yourself where you are, not where you think you should be. It’s choosing progress over pressure, alignment over achievement.

Choosing What Still Matters

Take a moment and ask yourself: What do I most want to experience before this year ends? What would make me proud when I look back on 2025? You don’t need a dozen goals. You only need one or two that truly resonate; the ones that light a quiet spark inside you. The rest can be released with gratitude.

A few years ago, I learned the power of releasing what no longer serves me. I had a business goal that looked great on paper but felt completely off in practice. Once I let it go, I found room for something more authentic and energizing. Sometimes the real breakthrough comes not from doing more, but from letting go and making space to breathe.

Small Steps, Big Shifts

If that spark feels dim, start small. Micro-goals and mini-habits can help you regain momentum when energy feels low. I’ve written before in The Power of Tiny Steps about how ten minutes of focus a day can create lasting change. Whether it’s a quick journaling ritual, a weekly walk or reaching out to a friend, small steps add up. One of my favorite practices is a “three wins a day” reflection which is taking a few minutes each evening to acknowledge progress, no matter how small. Those moments remind me that growth is still happening, even in seasons of transition.

Finding Focus and Support

If you’re feeling distracted or uncertain, you’re not alone. This time of year can stir both reflection and fatigue. That’s why having a structure, even a simple one, helps. For me, recommitment often begins with a reset moment, where I pause, breathe, and ask what I want to feel by year’s end.

That’s what inspired the Reset & Reignite Masterclass. It came out of one of those very moments when I felt stretched thin and needed to recenter before moving forward. In that workshop, I guided participants through exercises to help them identify what’s fueling and what’s draining their energy, realign their goals with their capacity, and use gratitude as a growth tool. You can still experience the impact of that session through the Reset & Reignite Momentum Pack, which includes limited replay access, a 30-day printable planning journal and a coaching-style email series to help you stay focused, inspired, and aligned with what matters most.

A Ritual for Recommitment

If you’re ready to refocus, here’s something simple and grounding. Write a letter to your future self dated December 31, 2025. Describe how you want to feel as this year ends, what you’ll be proud of, what you’ve learned and what you’ve let go of. Then tuck it away and set a reminder to read it at on New Year’s Eve. It’s a gentle, personal way to stay connected to your intentions. Or, if you’re a visual person, create a “last quarter” vision board. Gather images, words, and phrases that capture how you want to close the year. Let it be a reflection of who you’re becoming.

Flowing Into What’s Next

As we move toward the year’s end, remember that every step forward is an act of courage and self-leadership. You don’t need to have it all figured out. You only need to keep showing up for yourself. Give yourself permission to realign, recommit and finish this year with clarity, confidence and grace. Next month, we’ll turn toward gratitude and reflection as we prepare to close out the year together. Until then, keep tending to your growth. You are worthy of a strong and intentional finish.

As you close out this year, what intention are you recommitting to and how will you honor that commitment to yourself in the weeks ahead? I’d love to hear your reflections in the comments below. 

Much of our resistance to taking charge of our lives comes from forces within ourselves. Fear, insecurity, doubt and overwhelm can really keep us rooted in place. Unfortunately, what others think and say can also have a big role in holding you back. Some people don’t like change. The people around you may prefer you stay exactly as you are for fear of rocking the boat. They might be afraid you’ll move on without them. Perhaps your success is intimidating to them. Whatever the case, you can’t change them. You can only keep moving forward and focusing on your own happiness. Follow these tips to help you avoid letting the opinions of others keep you from crafting the life of your dreams.

Know Yourself.  One of the most effective ways to combat worry over what others think is to truly take time to get to know yourself. Consider your values, priorities, interests and desires. When you know what really matters to you, it’s much easier to care less about the opinions of anyone else.

Set Boundaries.  Setting boundaries can be tough. It means actively choosing to put your needs first and not allow others to impose their will upon you. When you realize it’s okay to say no and to put yourself ahead of others’ comfort, you’ll find a freedom to pursue your own objectives. Developing the ability to set boundaries can take practice, but it’s an invaluable skill.  

Forget Embarrassment.  Embarrassment is definitely something that can hold you back from going after what you want. It’s easy to worry that others might criticize you or laugh at you. One way to combat this issue is to ask yourself if it really matters. Adding perspective to the matter can truly help you to move past embarrassment. Most of the time, what others think of us doesn’t have any real effect on our lives at all. In addition, they’re probably not paying nearly as much attention to you as you fear they might be, anyway.  (And they may even be preoccupied with their fears or self-consciousness about what other people think about them!)

Don’t Compare.  Comparison can be insidious. Feeling like you should be living up to what others are doing or achieving can definitely keep us from pursuing what we really want in life. Try not to compare your life to anyone else’s. Remember your priorities and what matters most to you. Then live your life around those things, not what anyone else is doing or what they think you should be doing.

These are just some of the ways you can begin to stop worrying about what others think and start living life on your own terms. Taking charge of your life requires a firm understanding of what you want, with less concern for the opinions of others.  But what about something that can be an even bigger roadblock than fear of others’ opinions–our own fears?  Fear is one of the biggest detractors to living your best life.

In coaching, there’s a dimension of this fear that we call our “inner critic”: that voice in our heads that sometimes whispers to us that we aren’t smart enough, strong enough, disciplined enough, etc; that we’re an imposter and everyone around us is going to realize it; that we don’t belong somewhere; or that something big and bold that we want in our life “isn’t for people like us.”  We all have an inner critic, and it can be hard to ignore that nagging voice! Often that inner critic gets its power and its fuel from our own fears. 

Being afraid holds you back from trying new things, having unique experiences, taking advantage of opportunities and leaving your comfort zone in any significant way.  I struggle with this myself, too.  One of my biggest fears is fear of failure, and there have definitely been times in my past when this fear got in the way of me reaching for my dreams and pursuing my goals.  I had to learn that not only should I not let this fear of failure hold me back, but that sometimes failure isn’t even a bad thing; it’s how we learn and grow, and it’s a part of life.  I’ve experienced first-hand that real progress only happens when you do the things you’re afraid of. Here are some reasons to move past the fear today.

Fear Is Limiting.  Fear will limit so much in your life, if you let it. Fear limits your experiences, your fun, your relationships and your potential. It can cause great distress and unhappiness, along with regret. Fear prevents growth and progress. It keeps you stuck in a rut. Basically, fear takes away your power. You put this negative emotion in charge of your decisions, rather than taking the actions you most desire in your heart.

Fear Wastes Your Energy.  Being afraid to live your life fully is a waste of both your emotional and physical energy. While it is possible for fear to give you a rush of adrenaline to push toward action, this isn’t usually the case. We tend to let our fears build up. Rather than using them as a catalyst for change, we allow our fears to stagnate and fester. Giving into the fear is mentally exhausting because it causes a battle of emotions between desire and denial. You want to step out of your comfort zone, but you fight fear to see which ends up winning. It can also be physically tiring to engage in such a battle of wills on a regular basis.

Fear Can’t Be Eliminated.  Let’s face facts, fear can’t be eliminated completely. You’ll probably always fight a battle with this powerful emotion. However, that doesn’t mean fear has to win. You absolutely can learn to manage your fears. You’re more powerful than what scares you. Think of the worst-case scenario. It’s rare that what you’re afraid of can actually physically hurt you. Therefore, it makes sense to find ways to push past the fears and go for the opportunity that awaits. If you let fear win, chances are good that you’ll only satisfy it briefly. You’ll have to deal with that fear or a related one later. Why not try to conquer it now?

Taking charge of your life requires you to also take charge of your fears. It’s not an easy thing to do, but it is possible. It’s also worth it.  

About Bucket Lists

The term “bucket list” is related to the phrase “kick the bucket,” slang for a person dying or passing away.  While there were a few examples of the term being used in years prior to this, the idea of a “bucket list” exploded into popular culture and American vocabulary thanks to the 2007 movie of the same name, in which Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson play two men who meet by chance in the hospital after both being diagnosed with terminal cancer and then embark on an epic adventure to cross items off their “bucket list” in the last months of their lives. 

Many people associate bucket lists with over-the-top kinds of wishes–things like climbing a mountain, meeting a favorite celebrity, vacationing in a dream once-in-a-lifetime destination, running a marathon, or going skydiving. However, everyone’s bucket list is unique and personal and should be meaningful to them. Your bucket list items don’t need to be extravagant or over-the-top if those kinds of dreams or activities don’t speak to you. And you definitely don’t need to be an adrenaline junkie to have a bucket list. (I’m not one–believe me, you will never find something like bungee jumping on my personal bucket list!)

Why Have One

There are lots of benefits to having a bucket list. This activity can truly be a catalyst for helping you to live a more purposeful life. Writing out your fondest desires gives your clear perspective on what’s important to you and what types of things might be worth sacrificing for. It also makes fun a priority and helps you to enjoy your life more, reminding you to move out of your comfort zone and the day-to-day grind.

One of the items that I recently checked off my bucket list–starting a business–was an idea that was 100% out of my comfort zone when I first added it after a conversation I had with an executive coach that I was working with back in 2016.  I was working full-time at one of Chicago’s leading community economic development nonprofits, growing in my career, putting some of my coaching and facilitation training into practice, and also making sure I was carving out time to spend with my family.  I had a full plate already, yet I knew that I had a passion for entrepreneurship that I wanted to nurture–sooner rather than later. 

While Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson’s characters in “The Bucket List” resolved to pursue their bucket list items after receiving devastating terminal diagnoses, in real life, we don’t have to wait until the end of our lives or until a health crisis hits to get our bucket lists down on paper, and start tackling those items–and we shouldn’t wait!  A bucket list can act as a guide or framework, as well, keeping you on track toward reaching some of your bigger goals and dreams. Checking things off your list can be satisfying and create a log of some of your most amazing life experiences.

How to Start

Starting a bucket list can seem overwhelming. It’s daunting to sit down and consider the kinds of things you’ve always wanted to do. The choices are seemingly endless! This calls for some good old-fashioned brainstorming. Ask yourself some questions to get the ideas flowing and to clarify things. Consider things you’ve always wanted to do, where you’d like to go or what you want to see. Learning and education can be bucket list inspiration. Think about things that appeal to your senses like food you’d most want to taste, types of scenic locations that appeal to you or music you’d love to hear. Use these prompts to brainstorm and keep on going until you’ve got a substantial list started. You can always add to it as new ideas come to mind.

In fact, after I checked the big “start a business” item off my bucket list, I added new items to take that one’s place. (Of course, in one sense, my business is never entirely “off” my bucket list–more like a standing item, maybe–since I have dreams and visions for how to grow it now that I’ve launched.)  At a business retreat I attended in December, one of our exercises was to make a list of 23 “Dream Big Statements,” which gave me lots of ideas for additional bucket list items I can take on over the next few years or decades.  The next thing that I want to tackle on my “personal” bucket list is to travel internationally–hopefully in the near future! This other item may take a bit longer, but one big thing on my “professional” bucket list is to publish a best-selling book.  I got a chance to dip my toe into writing and publishing recently when I was invited to write a chapter for a book called The Entrepreneurs’ Toolkit for Success (Volume 1).  Getting published for the first time was a fun experience (I like to think of it as a “mini-item” on my bucket list) and made me even more excited to author a whole book of my own someday!    

A bucket list can be inspirational. It can provide motivation for living your best life. Go ahead and get started on yours today.

Through all that time that I held on to my credentialing dream, I worried about whether and how I could make it happen.  Coaching training and credentialing requires a substantial investment of both time and money, and I often got “stuck” on these barriers–how would I make it work, financially?  How would I juggle the time required for training and documentation of coaching experience hours with my full-time day job in a gratifying-but-sometimes-demanding leadership role at one of Chicago’s leading community development organizations?  And even if I could balance work obligations and my coaching professional development, would it leave me any time for my family? 

Reflecting on all these doubts and worries now, I realize that to a large extent they all boiled down to one emotion: fear.  One of the biggest killers of dreams is fear. We often let fear keep us from dreaming or the memory of past failures hold us back from setting our sights too high. This type of limitation can become a pattern. In order to live the abundant life you desire, it’s important that you’re not afraid to dream big.  Visualizing and shifting my perspective are two tactics that have helped me push through those fears and doubts and dream big. 

Your Thoughts Are Powerful

What you think is what you become. That’s a popular saying based in reality. While it may seem like merely wishful thinking to believe you can achieve great things simply by envisioning them, there actually is some science to the matter. Visualizing what you desire in life and actually incorporating small details into this picture is quite powerful when it comes to your brain chemistry. Visualization has been shown to have an effect on neural pathways and connections.  I have a vision board that’s helped me tremendously, both with making my goals and dreams a bit more tangible and with staying on track to tackle them.  I typically first spend time really brainstorming about my goals and dreams, and then I find images that reflect those and pin them to the board.   But it doesn’t stop there.  I have my vision board in a place where I can see it regularly and I revisit it at least quarterly when I’m checking in on my goal progress and planning out my action steps.  If you repeatedly see yourself accomplishing something or obtaining your deepest desire, your brain will start to believe that thing is real. You’re more likely to act it out in your real life.

Your Perspective Changes

As you allow yourself to dream bigger, your perspective starts to change. Whereas you may have been a bit of a naysayer in the past, you now start to think more positively. That’s because your focus has changed. You no longer see things from a limited point of view. Instead, you see the big picture. You’re now able to look at life more realistically. You may have thought you were being realistic before, but what you were really doing was keeping yourself stuck. When you didn’t have dreams, your world was automatically smaller.

Now, however, you can actually see all the potential of what the world has to offer. Simply by shifting your mindset and daring to think bigger, a wealth of possibilities is now open to you. You’re no longer living in a state of lack. You’re able to actually visualize what your life could be like, and this vision provides the motivation to consider what else might truly be possible. You’re open to the idea of self-improvement in order to get to where you want to be. You’re no longer stuck in the same old rut.

Applying the “Dream Big” Mindset to your Everyday Life

Of course, we have to be real, too.  Dreams don’t magically come to fruition overnight and we still have our everyday constraints–money, time, etc.–to deal with.  A vision board isn’t going to change the fact that we need money to pay our bills, for example, but dreaming big and visualizing those dreams might help you think creatively about different ways to make that money or changes you might be able to make over time to shift your income and expense needs.  Refocusing on and visualizing my coaching-credential dream sparked me to think that maybe there were resources out there to help coaches defray the cost of training/certification, and that was the first step in my research toward eventually finding Coaching for Everyone, which helps make coaching training and certification pathways more financially accessible.  

You’ll see that lots of new opportunities can exist for you simply by dreaming. You’ll find yourself working proactively and productively toward your goals.  In fact, once I recommitted and started dreaming big about my certification journey, I found it inspired me to keep going–I couldn’t stop dreaming big and ultimately also launched and began to grow my business, Mission ENSPIRE. 

In addition, you’re likely to seek out other “dreamers-to-doers” who are making things happen in their own worlds. All of these small changes you’re making will begin to add up to big things. Just wait and see what happens when you’re not afraid to dream big.

Stop Reacting And Start Taking Action

Deciding to take charge of your own life can be a daunting task. You may not even know where to begin. You simply feel that you’ve been going with the flow for far too long. The good news is that there is no one right way to get started. The key is just to do something. Taking action of any kind will likely motivate you to take more steps toward transforming your life. Here are some suggestions to get you moving along your path.

Set Goals and Objectives

The first step to actively changing your life is to assess your current situation and then to decide where it is you’d like to go. If you’re feeling unhappy with your life as it is and that you’re not in charge of things, ask yourself some questions to determine why that is. Write down your answers and use them to spur you on toward making a plan for the future. Questions about what you truly desire, what you feel you’re missing, how you’d like to live and what’s most important to you are good ones to start with. Then just continue to build on them until you’ve formed a good foundation for your planning. Next, write out some tentative goals. Start with a long-term goal, such as where you see yourself in five years, and then break it down from there. Decide on a few short-term goals to complete over the next year that would ultimately lead you to that five-year mark. Create small tasks to help you along the way.  (Check out my April blog series for a deeper dive on setting SMART goals, maintaining motivation and accountability, and making those goals a habit for the long term.)

Make Changes

Once you have a tentative plan laid out, it’s easier to actually take some concrete action. You can now begin to make the small changes that add up to big transformation. Now is the time to begin to do things differently. Take a look at your lists of goals for inspiration. The tasks you laid out to help you reach your goals are a good place to start. Do just one thing from your list each day, and you’ll be actively making changes toward reaching your truest desires. You can look for other ways to take action, too. For example, try new things or meet new people. Anything that takes you from your comfort zone and moves you toward where you want to be is good.

Let Things (and People) Go

Finally, it’s important to note that you will probably have to let some things, and some people, go in order to reach your goals. Old habits may be keeping you stuck, so you’ll need to ditch them. Sometimes people are what’s holding you back. There are likely to be some friends and loved ones who don’t react positively to the changes you’re making in your life. Take note of such things and act on them accordingly. If you’re not ready to remove someone from your life entirely, perhaps just setting boundaries will suffice.

Keep these ideas in mind when you begin taking action toward changing your life. Remember, every little step counts. What’s important is that you just do something.

I recently recommitted to a longtime goal: becoming an ICF-credentialed coach.  ICF (the International Coaching Federation) is a membership organization for coaches and offers some of the most robust and most internationally-recognized professional credentials for coaches.  Though I’ve taken numerous coaching trainings and been a coach and trainer since 2013, I’ve always wanted to take my coaching practice and professional development to the next level by achieving the ICF credential.  In fact, it’s been a professional goal of mine for seven or eight years but something always got in the way–time, finances, procrastination, etc.–and the path seemed a little daunting (yes, even coaches struggle with self-doubt!)

Last year, I decided to recommit myself to my ICF credential goal, and decided to follow my own advice by taking it one step at a time, starting with research on additional ICF-vetted coach training programs that aligned with my values, the goals of my company Mission ENSPIRE, and my budget.  I was so fortunate to find Coaching for Everyone, an organization whose mission is to “certify the next generation of BIPOC coaches.” (Coaching for Everyone also seeks to “offer complimentary coaching and leadership support to traditionally underserved and under-resourced BIPOC populations,” which aligns with the mission of my business as well.) 

This year, I’ve set myself the goal of finalizing my training by completing and documenting the 100 hours of paid coaching experience required for the ICF credential.  I’ll admit, 100 hours sounded like a lot to me at first–especially with juggling my business, my day job in the community development industry, and my family responsibilities–but again, I’m taking it one hour at a time!  Now that I’ve recommitted to my goal, I feel more motivated to achieve it than ever, and I plan to use this Flourishing Fiercely reader community as an accountability partner–so stay tuned for updates on my progress in the coming months!