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 was sitting on the opening plenary of the Financial Opportunity Center 20th Anniversary Convening in Chicago. We had just finished our portion of the panel. I was settled into my seat, fully expecting the conversation to move on to the next part of the program. Then the CEO of Jane Addams Resource Corporation, who was sitting on the plenary with me, paused to thank me for the years of work I had given to this model. And before I could fully take in what she was saying, the room rose.

A standing ovation.

I do not remember a lot of details about my body in that moment. I think I may have looked down. I do remember the surprise. And I remember this very clearly. I cried. A few moments later, I was handed a welded plaque that one of JARC’s instructors had created by hand. The weight of it. The craftsmanship of it. The symbolism of it. It was almost more than I could carry standing up. I wrote about that day at the time in Honoring Legacy, Living Purpose, but I was not yet ready to write about what came after.

I have thought about that moment many times since. Not as a trophy. Not as a milestone. But as a question I have been quietly sitting with.

What does it mean to be seen, and what do we do when we are?

Because here is what I have noticed about myself. When recognition like that comes, I do not always know what to do with it. And much more often than I would like to admit, what I do with it is move past it. I share these reflections today because I do not think I am alone in this. I think there are many of you reading this who have been quietly building something meaningful for years, and when the recognition finally comes, something in you wants to set it down quickly and get back to the work. I want us to look at that pattern together. Because I do not believe it is serving any of us.

The Quiet Disappearance

Here is what the rushing past looks like for me. Sometimes I do not share the moment at all. The recognition happens, and I let it stay in the room where it happened. I do not post about it. I do not bring it up in conversation. I do not include it in the next email or the next update or the next reflection. It happens, and then it just lives in my own memory. Other times, someone else shares it. A colleague brings it up. A friend mentions it in a group. And in those moments, I say thank you, and very quickly I move us to the next topic.

I have done this for years. If I am honest with myself, I have not done it because I am afraid of being seen. I have done it because being seen has felt almost beside the point. The work was the thing. I did not do the work to be recognized for it. I did it because it mattered. And when the recognition comes, it can feel like a small detour from what actually matters, which is the work itself.

There is also another piece I want to name honestly. Sometimes pausing to share recognition feels self-promotional. And even though I know that is not what it would actually be, the thought of it still keeps me quiet. I share this not because I think I have it figured out, but because I am still learning this. And I suspect some of you are too.

Why We Shrink

When I have sat with this pattern long enough to be honest about it, I have come to recognize a few things that are true for me. They may be true for you too.

Visibility feels exposing when you have done quiet work for years. When you have spent a long time in the behind-the-scenes work of building, supporting, mentoring, advocating and serving, the spotlight feels foreign. Not because you do not deserve it, but because you are not used to it. The body remembers the shape of the work it has been doing. And quiet, faithful work has a particular shape. Stepping into recognition asks you to take on a different shape, even just for a moment, and that takes some adjustment. This is something I have been slowly learning to navigate, including in the lead-up to my first global speaking moment, which I wrote about in Ready Enough: What Happens When You Stop Waiting.

Receiving is harder than giving. Most women I know are practiced givers. We pour into our families, our teams, our communities, our clients, our missions. We know how to hold space for other people’s growth, other people’s celebration, other people’s wins. We are far less practiced at being on the receiving end. And being seen is a form of receiving. So when it comes, we sometimes do not know what to do with it because we have not built the muscle.

There is a fear of being seen as proud or as taking too much space. This one is real, and it is especially real for women in leadership. We have absorbed messages our whole lives about how much room we are allowed to take. And even when we know intellectually that being recognized is not the same as being prideful, the residue of those messages can still make us shrink. We can find ourselves softening our wins, qualifying our accomplishments or simply not naming them at all so we do not appear to be taking more than our share.

None of these reasons make us weak. They make us human. And they make us women who have been navigating a world that has not always known what to do with us when we step into the fullness of what we have built.

The Faith Layer

There is one more thing I want to name carefully, because it is true for me and I suspect it is true for some of you.

As women of faith, we have been taught well to give God the glory. And that is right and good. The work I do, the words I write, the moments I have been honored in, none of that exists apart from the One who called me to it. I know that, and I want to live that. But here is something I have noticed in myself, and I want to be honest about it. Sometimes I use giving God the glory as a way to skip past the moment instead of letting it land in me. The recognition comes, and I hand it off so quickly that it never has a chance to settle. I do not pause. I do not feel it. I do not let it shape me. I just route it past myself and keep moving. I am not sure that is what God is actually asking of me.

Giving God the glory and letting yourself be seen are not in conflict. You can do both. You were meant to do both. You can receive the moment fully, feel the weight of it in your body, let it reshape how you understand your own work and still know exactly who gave you the capacity to do that work in the first place. The deflection is not humility. The deflection is sometimes just another way of not receiving. And I am learning that receiving is part of the work, not a detour from it.

What We Miss When We Rush Past

When we rush past being seen, something is lost. And it took me a long time to be honest about what.

We miss the integration. Recognition has a way of reshaping our understanding of our own work. It tells us something we cannot tell ourselves from the inside. When someone reflects back to us what they have witnessed, we get to see ourselves through their eyes. That is not vanity. That is data. And when we rush past it, we lose access to it.

We miss the witness. The people who took the time to honor us did something meaningful. They paid attention. They chose to name it out loud. When we deflect too quickly, we are not just protecting ourselves from the discomfort of being seen. We are also unintentionally dismissing the gift they offered. Their seeing of us is worth honoring.

We miss the modeling. The women coming behind us, the team members watching us, the daughters and mentees and colleagues in our orbit, they are learning from how we receive. When we shrink, we teach them to shrink. When we receive with grace, we teach them they can too.

And here is the one that has been sitting with me most. We miss the chance to let God show us something through it. Sometimes the recognition is not just a nice moment. Sometimes it is God’s way of telling us something we have not been able to hear from ourselves. This matters. I see you. Keep going. When we rush past, we miss the message too.

What Sustainable Visibility Actually Looks Like

This year my word has been sustainable visibility. I have written about it as my intention for 2026, and it has shaped how I am showing up in every part of my work. But I want to be clearer about what it actually means in practice, because I think we sometimes confuse visibility with performance.

Sustainable visibility is not about posting more. It is not about being everywhere. It is not about claiming credit for everything or making sure your name is on the front of everything you touch. None of that is what I am talking about. Sustainable visibility is the practice of being seen and whole at the same time. It is letting the moment land when it comes. It is saying thank you and meaning it. It is staying in your body when someone is honoring your work. It is sharing the moment with the people in your life, not because you need them to validate it, but because part of what you are building is allowed to be witnessed. It is letting the recognition reshape how you understand yourself, not so that you can become arrogant, but so that you can become accurate. Receiving is its own practice, and like all sustaining practices, it has to be tended. I have written before about why we cannot pour from an empty cup and the same principle applies here. You cannot integrate what you do not let in.

You were not meant to do this work in the dark forever. The quiet seasons matter. The behind-the-scenes seasons matter. But there are also seasons of being witnessed, and those matter too. And when those seasons come, the invitation is not to shrink. The invitation is to receive.

A Word About the Next Time

I want to close with this, because I think it is the most useful thing I can leave you with. There will be a next time.

Maybe it is a small one. A colleague who says something kind in a meeting. A reader who emails you to tell you a post found them at the right moment. A friend who notices what you have been carrying. A coaching client who reflects back what you helped them see. Maybe it is a big one. A stage. A title. A piece of recognition you have been working toward for years that finally arrives.

When it comes, I want you to try something different this time. Do not rush past it. Do not deflect it. Do not change the subject. Do not move us to the next topic. Just for a moment, let it land. Say thank you, and mean it. Feel the weight of it in your body. Let yourself be seen. And then, if you want to, tell someone. Not to perform. Not to promote. But because part of what you are building is allowed to be witnessed, and you are allowed to honor what is being honored in you.

You were never invisible. The world is just slowly catching up to what God already saw.

So here is my question for you. What is one moment of recognition you have rushed past, and what would it look like to go back and let yourself receive it now, even quietly, even in your own heart, before the next one comes?

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?

For me, one of those moments happened earlier this month at the Financial Opportunity Center® (FOC) National Convening held right here in Chicago. The theme of the conference was Strength in Community: Together We Rise, and from the very first session, I felt the truth of those words. This convening felt especially meaningful as it marked twenty years of the FOC model, a celebration of growth, learning, and community impact. This theme of growth and renewal has been a thread through much of my work, both in writing and in practice; exploring how purpose evolves through every new season of leadership.

The FOC model has always been about more than financial empowerment. It is about transformation that ripples through families, neighborhoods, and entire communities. For nearly two decades, I have been deeply connected to this work, helping to strengthen and expand the model while witnessing its profound impact on people and communities. Being part of this convening felt like both a celebration and a full-circle moment.

Leading and Learning in Community

My conference duties began with leading a coaching practicum for a group of 24 participants. Coaching is not just something I do; it is a core part of how I live my purpose. Being able to train and guide others in the principles of coaching, especially in the context of supervision and leadership, always reminds me of why I began this work in the first place. It also reminded me of the many conversations I have shared here about how leadership and personal growth begin with listening both to ourselves and to others. Training others in coaching also reminds me how powerful it is to pause, listen, and help people unlock their own insight. Coaching is not simply about asking powerful questions or setting goals. It is about creating space for people to hear themselves, recognize their strengths, and reconnect to their own wisdom and capacity for growth.

I had the honor of participating in the opening plenary, Celebrating our Legacy, Charting our Future: Two Decades of Opportunity and Community Transformation. Sitting alongside other distinguished panelists, we reflected on the history of the FOC model, shared pivotal moments, and lifted up the stories of transformation that remind us why this work matters. We spoke about the evolution of the model and the lessons learned along the way. What struck me most was how consistently individual empowerment has created community impact. When one person builds financial stability, it strengthens families. When families stabilize, entire communities thrive.

A Moment I Will Never Forget

At the end of our portion of the panel, something unexpected happened. The CEO of one of our longtime community partners, Jane Addams Resource Corporation (JARC), who was also on the plenary with me, paused to thank me for my years of work with the model and the support I have provided along the way. To my complete surprise, the room rose to a standing ovation. Then, as if that was not enough, I was presented with a welded plaque that one of JARC’s instructors had created. The beauty of it, the weight of it, and the symbolism behind it left me completely overwhelmed. In that moment, I could not hold back the tears.

I am not often caught off guard in professional settings, but this recognition touched me deeply. It was not just about the plaque. It was about being seen and having my contributions acknowledged by people I admire and respect. It was about the reminder that the seeds we plant quietly, year after year, do take root, and sometimes they bloom in ways we could never imagine.

Another highlight of the convening was the keynote address by Mia Birdsong. She spoke powerfully about the connections that sustain us and the truth that our communities will show up for us when we need them most. Her words resonated deeply as I reflected on the spirit of this 20-year celebration. Purpose may be what drives us forward, but community is what carries us when we need reminding of why we started. The convening’s theme, Together We Rise, came alive in that moment and throughout the week, reminding me that while individual effort matters, it is the collective strength of community that makes transformation possible.

Legacy, Leadership, and Gratitude

I sometimes get asked how I have stayed at LISC for so long. For those who do not know, it has been 18 years, and I have many reasons. But in my top five are my colleagues and our partners. The images above and below this section reflect some of them. They represent people who have not only shared this journey with me but have shaped it. These relationships and shared milestones bring to mind what I expressed in From Pen to Purpose: A Year of Personal Growth Through Blogging, about how reflection helps us honor where we have been and embrace what lies ahead. Also in my top five is the impact itself, the real, tangible change that this work creates. The 20-year anniversary of the FOC model reflects that impact. It is a celebration of what happens when people, organizations, and communities commit to working together over time to create opportunity. Although I have passed the torch of leading the local FOC network to my very capable colleague, Sarai Garza, I am grateful to continue learning from her and to remain connected to the work. Watching her leadership and the new energy she brings to this space has been both inspiring and affirming. Leadership is not about holding on. It is about building capacity, mentoring others and creating space for new voices to shine.

Learning from Leadership

When I reflect on my own professional growth, I am reminded of the supervisors I have had during my time at LISC. Each one has taught me something invaluable about strategy, leadership, and big-picture thinking, and about the value of relationships that strengthen both people and purpose. I am deeply grateful for the leadership and guidance of Ricki Lowitz, Kevin Jordan, Susana Vasquez, Seung Kim and Meghan Harte, whose support and insight have shaped my journey in meaningful ways. Their mentorship has shaped not only my professional path but also how I show up as a coach, leader, and colleague. I have learned that leadership is both learned and shared, and that we grow by both guiding and being guided.

Honoring Legacy and Looking Ahead

The closing plenary of the convening honored the partners who have helped build and strengthen the FOC network over the years, recognizing partners who have left a lasting legacy, catalyzed change, innovated on the model, mentored others, and led the way for the FOC network. It was an opportunity to pause, celebrate, and honor the many people and organizations that have helped shape the last twenty years of impact. I was especially proud to recognize JARC for their lasting legacy and unwavering commitment to this work. Their leadership and innovation have made a real difference for the communities they serve.

Looking ahead, I am both reflective and hopeful. This convening reminded me that sustaining impact requires both continuity and renewal, honoring what has been built while making space for what is emerging. The legacy of the FOC model is not only about the past 20 years. It is also about the next 20, and how we continue to rise together through purpose, partnership, and possibility.

A Personal Note of Gratitude

I will carry the memory of that standing ovation and plaque with me for a long time. Not as a trophy, but as a reminder. A reminder that purpose is not something we live out alone. It is something that grows within us and through us, and then takes root in the lives of others. It is something that flourishes when it is held in community. For me, this convening was more than a professional milestone. It was a deeply personal reminder of why I launched Mission ENSPIRE in the first place: to create space for women, nonprofits, and faith leaders to rediscover purpose, overcome doubt, and walk fully in their potential.

Closing Reflection

As I look back on my journey, the experiences, the people, and the milestones, I am reminded that purpose is not static. It grows through connection, collaboration, and commitment. I am proud of the role I have played, grateful for those who have walked alongside me, and excited to see how this work continues to evolve in the years ahead. Because in the end, that is what true strength in community looks like. It is the ability to honor where we have been, celebrate who we have become, and keep building toward what is possible together.

As you reflect on your own journey, what moments have reminded you of your purpose? Who has helped you rise along the way?

If this reflection resonated with you, you may also enjoy Chapter 48: Embracing Growth, Gratitude, and New Possibilities, where I share lessons from another season of renewal and gratitude.

If this resonates with you, if you are reading this and thinking, “Yes, this is exactly where I am,” I want you to know something important. Your spark is not gone. It is not broken. It is not lost forever. Sometimes it is just buried under the weight of exhaustion, overwhelm, and the relentless pace we have been keeping.

August carries an interesting energy. Summer is still here, yet we can feel the shift coming. Kids are preparing for school, fall projects are on the horizon, and there is an underlying pressure to make the most of these final weeks of summer. But what if, instead of pushing through, we used this time to gently tend to the flame within us that has been flickering?

In my last post, The Art of Letting Go: Summer Decluttering for Mind, Body and Soul, I shared how releasing what no longer serves us makes space for what truly brings us alive. This week, I want to build on that idea by exploring what happens when we realize our spark feels dim and how we can gently tend it back to life by reconnecting to purpose.

Understanding the Summer Slump

First, let us normalize something. Feeling burned out or disconnected in the middle of the year is incredibly common. We begin January with fire and determination. We push hard through spring, trying to keep the momentum going. By midsummer, many of us hit a wall.

This is not failure. This is human.

Our bodies and souls move through seasons just as nature does. Sometimes we are in a season of growth and high energy. Sometimes we are in a season of rest and restoration. And sometimes we are in that tender space between seasons, not quite dormant but not yet fully alive. That is okay too.

What I have learned through my own seasons of disconnection is that trying to force excitement usually backfires. I have learned that passion can ebb and flow, but purpose is the thread that carries me through. When I have felt disconnected, it was not about forcing myself to be excited again. It was about returning to my “why,” my sense of purpose. That is what steadied me until the spark returned.

Instead of pushing ourselves harder, we need to approach ourselves with the same gentleness we would show a dear friend who is struggling. If you’ve read my post on optimizing your strengths, you know that connecting back to what energizes us is a powerful way to find direction. The same applies here.

The Difference Between Rest and Burnout

Before we talk about reigniting your spark, it is important to distinguish between needing rest and experiencing burnout. Rest is restorative. Even when you are tired, there is still a sense of yourself underneath. You can find joy in small moments, still feel connected to your values, and imagine feeling excited about things again.

Burnout feels different. It is the emotional exhaustion that makes everything seem gray. It is cynicism about things that once mattered deeply. It is feeling disconnected not just from your work, but from yourself.

If you are in true burnout territory, please be extra gentle with yourself. The strategies I share here will still help, but you might need additional support from friends, professionals, or simply more time than you expect.

Small Ways to Tend Your Inner Flame

Start with curiosity, not pressure. Instead of asking, “Why do I not feel passionate about anything?” try asking, “What would feel nourishing right now?” Sometimes it is not about doing more, but about creating space for your soul to breathe.

Return to your values. Sometimes the flame feels dim because we have drifted from our purpose, the deeper meaning that fuels us. Reconnecting to your values and your “why” can shift everything. What principles have guided your best decisions? What do you stand for when everything else is stripped away?

Pay attention to what catches your eye. Notice what makes you pause while scrolling social media, what articles you save, what conversations energize you. Your soul leaves breadcrumbs that point you back to your purpose.

Try the “5 percent better” approach. Instead of expecting to feel completely renewed overnight, ask yourself what would make today just a little more aligned with who you want to be. Maybe it is five minutes of creativity, reaching out to someone who inspires you or simply sitting outside without your phone.

Practical Steps to Reconnect with Purpose

Create a purpose inventory. Make a list of what has ever felt meaningful, even if it feels distant now. Include childhood dreams, past hobbies, career aspirations, volunteer experiences, travel destinations. Do not judge what comes up. Just capture it.

Experiment with micro-explorations. Choose three things from your inventory and spend just fifteen minutes exploring each one this week. Read an article, watch a video, visit a website, or simply daydream about it. This is not about commitment. It is about giving yourself permission to explore.

Connect with purposeful people. Energy is contagious. Spend time with people who are excited about their calling or the work they love. Their enthusiasm can remind you of what alignment feels like and awaken the possibility within you.

Document small moments of meaning. Notice throughout your day when you feel even slightly more alive or more grounded in your values. Write these down. Over time, you will see patterns that guide you toward deeper alignment.

Give yourself permission to evolve. What once felt meaningful may not fit this season of your life, and that is perfectly natural. The goals that once energized you may no longer align with who you are becoming. That is not loss, it is growth. Purpose does not stay frozen in time. It expands as you do.

Working Through Purpose Blocks

“I do not have time.” Begin with five-minute investments. Can you read one page while drinking coffee? Listen to a podcast on your commute? These touches with meaningful things can open doors to bigger shifts.

“My purpose does not feel practical.” Who says it has to be? Purpose is about meaning, not productivity. Some of the most soul-nourishing pursuits have nothing to do with career advancement.

“I am scared I will fail.” What if success was not the goal? What if the aim was simply to experience the joy of trying? Exploration itself is a form of alignment.

“I do not know what my purpose is anymore.” That is okay. Purpose is not always a lightning bolt. Sometimes it reveals itself slowly, like a steady light that grows brighter the more attention you give it.

Your Spark Reignition Plan

Think of purpose as the compass that guides your spark. Sometimes it blazes brightly, sometimes it glows quietly, and sometimes it feels like it has gone out. But even when the flame seems faint, there are always embers waiting to be stirred back to life.

It begins with noticing what feels nourishing right now. Maybe it is laughter, a conversation that lifts you, or a curiosity that keeps tugging at your thoughts. These are your kindling.

Allow yourself to experiment gently. Try one small thing that feels aligned. Not because it has to be big, but because it invites you back into exploration.

And then, give your spark room to breathe. Share what inspires you with someone you trust. Celebrate even the smallest flicker. Let it be enough that you are tending to yourself with care. Over time, those embers grow into a steady flame that feels both new and familiar.

The Truth About Reconnecting to Purpose

Purpose is not a one-time discovery. It is something we live into, cultivate and realign with through attention and care. Passion may ebb and flow, but purpose steadies us when the fire feels dim.

Your spark may change, but your purpose remains. It evolves with you. When you reconnect with it, the flame does not just return, it burns steadier and brighter. Your spark may look different now. It may burn for different things or in different seasons. That does not make it less valuable. It makes it authentically yours.

Some days tending your inner flame looks like diving into a project with energy. Other days it looks like holding onto the faith that your spark will return. Both are valid. Both are acts of courage.

The Ripple Effect

When you reconnect with your own purpose, you give others permission to do the same. When you live with curiosity and alignment, you create space for those around you to do what lights them up.

Your purpose matters. Not only for what you may create or achieve, but for who you become in the process of honoring what is meaningful. The world needs people who are awake to their purpose, who tend their inner flame with care.

That person is you. That flame is yours. And it is never too late to add kindling.

What is one small way you could tend to your purpose this week? I believe in your ability to reconnect with what matters most, and I would love to hear about your journey.