Those of you that work with me know that I am a huge advocate of starting off each day with clear priorities. Every morning, before I start any work, I list out 3 priorities for the day so that I have a clear metric of what success looks like for that day and to help me focus my energy.

With those priorities in mind, everything else must flex in honor of those items. If something unexpected comes up during the day, I measure it in comparison to my priorities before I decide whether and how much energy to give to it. Sometimes I shift my priorities accordingly and other times, I have to find a way to make the unexpected bend in honor of my priorities for the day.

There is no drama about the unexpected; it is simply an evaluation of the unexpected in comparison to my priorities.

Further, how I honor and recognize those priorities is the only metric by which I measure my contribution for the day — whether I “achieve” all my priorities is not the questions. Rather, it is about living intentionally with awareness of those priorities and then honoring or deviating from those priorities consciously.

Priorities allow us to live intentionally and give us clarity so that we longer live at the mercy of whatever the day throws at us.

In addition to my daily priorities, I list the following –

One thing I am grateful for that day.

I am grateful for the support of my partner.

One thing  look forward to that day.

I look forward to taking the dogs for a walk and listening to my favorite podcast.

One thing I will avoid that day.

I will avoid lingering in anger about things I cannot change.

One thing I will practice believing that day.

Today, I will practice believing that I create the life of my dreams.

I keep all these in a journal that I add to every morning and am able to look back through to commend myself for my accomplishments and to remember all that I have to be grateful for.

While I have found great success with this practice over the years, I decided to update my process for 2023. In addition to working through these items every day, I also write down my goals for the year and everything I will do to help me achieve them. Specifically, I write my goals as if they were already accomplished in 2023. For example, today I wrote:

In 2023 I finished my yoga teaching training certification, launched my Podcast and published my book. In support of this every day I will journal, meditate, practice yoga and pray.

I began this practice as a means to dig into manifestation and align my energy with that future me, who has accomplished all of those things. What would she have done in furtherance of those goals? What steps did she take to get there? By writing out those goals as if I have already achieved them, I am able to more readily access my beliefs that my goals are not only possible but as good as done. It allows me to align my energy and tap into faith that anything is possible.

I didn’t initially begin this practice in hopes that it would help me day-to-day with priority setting but what I have found is that this practice has provided a useful lens through which I view each and every day and the time I spend on activities outside of each day’s overarching priorities.

What initially began as a manifestation practice has morphed into a metric by which I measure any and everything that gets on my calendar.

Through this lens I was able to cancel unimportant busy work and clear activities to make room for full days of focusing on my podcast and polishing that book.

While it is easy to let our calendar and practice run away from us and fill our days with myriad activities and to-do list items, a full calendar does not necessarily mean we’re operating with our overreaching priorities in mind. Instead a full calendar simply requires us to show up and execute without much thought behind it. Starting each day writing out my goals for the year (in addition to my priorities for the day) has allowed me to add an additional lens to that already full calendar. It allows me to question everything that I am attending to in every day and ask if there’s room for me to transfer that energy to a higher purpose.

If you are struggling to execute on your goals, I encourage you to take 2 minutes each day playing around with these exercises and focusing your energy before each day begins. If you need additional help, please don’t hesitate to let me know!

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

Timelines to get married, timelines to have kids, timelines to make partner, timelines to build that book of business, timelines to remain marketable and find another job…..

These never ending timelines not only often conflict with one another but can make it nearly impossible to truly enjoy this journey through time. Recently, I have been inundated with clients overwhelmed with the idea that they are “running out of time” for one thing or another. While I fully understand the importance of setting goals and having something to work for, what does it mean when we say that we are running out of time? Does that fear drive us to soar even higher or are the results more nefarious?

As a coach, I’m a firm believer in setting goals and having something to work toward but unfortunately the side effect of having too many trophies on the horizon is that, if left unchecked, it can diminish our current experience. When we are constantly casting our gaze off into the horizon, we overlook everything around us. Suddenly everything we are currently experiencing and the life that is currently happening to us and around us pales in comparison to that ultimate goal and whatever it is we are trying to achieve before we run out of time. We are driven by some notion that once we accomplish everything on our list, life will finally make sense and our existence will matter.

Sound familiar? You are not alone. Schedule a free consult and let go of this notion of “running out of time” for good.

While we think that this push to action and achievement is benefiting us what effect does it have on the remainder of our lives? If that goal itself comprises something in the distance, a mere fraction of our lifetime, that means that the remaining 99% of our lives are spent with that singular focus — the majority of our lives are spent disconnected from our current, lesser, existence and focusing on something we believe is bigger and brighter in the future.

Whenever I allow myself to think I’m running out of time, I feel this tightness in my chest and anxiety rising within my body. As if something bad is going to happen if I don’t get to work and start executing on some lofty goal. It’s this idea that I’m wasting my life that I should be doing more. That absent some future accomplishment my current existence is unworthy and my life will be a waste. From that space, I act franticly and quickly, trying to cram it all in. Nothing good comes from operating in that space other than a total meltdown burnout, in which case,

I REALLY do lose all that time I was worrying about, creating the exact result I was trying to avoid!

We talk a lot in coaching about being worthy and how that worthiness fits into context with our goals. Ultimately, the goal is never the point of the exercise but rather who we become in pursuit of those goals is the point. That ultimate goal, that accomplishment or achievement is never going to suddenly swoop in and make us experience all the worthiness that we’ve been chasing.

Rather, as many of us experience, once we achieve that goal those feelings of unworthiness and needing something more simply continue. That is the pattern that we practice when we let the ultimate goal have more value than it should — when we value the goal more than the journey. In that space, we are in essence doing exactly what we were trying to avoid: we are running out of time to enjoy the journey of life, we are running out of time to look around and witness our own evolution; sacrificing 99% of life in exchange for those blips of accomplishment.

Whatever we are striving for and worrying that we’re running out of time to accomplish, that thing will never bring us the happiness, peace, and feelings of worthiness that we think it will. Instead we must cultivate feelings of gratitude, worthiness, and success now so that when we achieve that one thing we are already skilled at appreciating it and understanding our worthiness already. From that space, the accomplishment loses its power and we are able to live in our value every step of the way and be thankful for all the gifts that we have in every moment.

If you don’t cultivate your belief in your worthiness along every step of your journey, no accomplishment will suddenly change that.

Whenever you find yourself thinking and worrying “I’m running out of time,” see it as a red flag that you are chasing some type of emotion or some external thing to make you feel a certain way. It is a sign that you are not truly living your life in the moment but rather casting your life forward to some unseen hands of fate. (Besides no one ever achieves their goals from a space of unworthiness, fear, and lack.) Whatever goal you’re seeking, pursue it for the sake of the pursuit. Pursue it so that you can practice believing in your own value every step of the way, in the face of every challenge. THAT is the only way to truly succeed. Achieving from any other place will only leave you feeling empty.

The first time I ever wrote a motorcycle, I was six years old. My three brothers decided that it was time for me to learn so I could participate in all the fun on the farm (dodge ball on motorcycles, anyone?). They loaded me up on a little yellow Suzuki and sent me on my way.

At the time, it was hot and dry in Iowa and the tractors and farm equipment had left ruts all around the farm from the wet spring. Having never done this before, I didn’t realize how dangerous those ruts could be when you’re flying 30 miles an hour around the farm on a dirt bike.

It didn’t take long before I encountered one of those ruts, misjudged it, and dumped the motorcycle. To this day, I still have a huge scar on my knee that commemorates that very first motorcycle ride.

Whenever I look at that scar, I can choose to think how reckless it was of us and how reckless I am in general. I can use it as an opening to judge myself and situations I tend to get myself into.

Poor judgment. Recklessness. Little foresight.

Or I can look at that scar and think, Gosh, I had a great childhood. We are lucky no one ever got severely injured! The freedom I was given during my childhood to try new things and to overcome fears was pretty amazing. I can look at that scar and see it as an acknowledgement that I can try new things and get back on the motorcycle even after I’ve hurt myself.

The things that happened in our past that are negative offer us the same opportunity: we can look at those experiences and the scars they leave and we can use those experiences to judge ourselves or we can change the way we think about those experiences (experiments?). We can instead think about our past scars from a place that is rooted in compassion, understanding, and faith in our own development. The choice is always ours.

When I open myself up to the first line of thinking, it’s easy to pile on and see a pattern in my life of recklessness–a horrible marriage, run down investment property, bad tattoos, even worse hair styles, and countless caprice. Every day, I make a conscious choice not to make any of my past experiences mean anything negative about myself. I choose to treat my scars as badges of honor.

These days, many of my clients are changing jobs, changing careers, experiencing downsizing, illness, death, and loss. What I have been blessed to witness is that when my clients are able to change the way they think about those experiences, it dramatically alters their course ahead and their next successes.

What they choose to believe about their “scars” has an immediate and dramatic effect on what they do next.

If you are struggling right now, I encourage you to bring in support and invest in believing differently. Your future success and happiness depend upon it. Join us. You won’t regret it.

Photo by Rodolfo Clix

Their minds are constantly re-hashing conversations, reconsidering strategies, worrying about what’s in their email.

The build-up of anxieties drives them to obsessively check their emails to see whether they have missed anything or gotten any feedback on their most recent projects.

Every time they check their emails, they are either “rewarded” with radio silence–Wahoo! I can relax for a minute!–or they receive more evidence that they cannot, ever, disconnect–Good thing I checked my email and can respond to this emergency right away!

Over time, this pattern disconnects us from our friends, family, and loved ones and creates an obsessive compulsive relationship with our phones and our jobs.

My clients want to be able to disconnect. They want to be present with their loved ones.

They want to enjoy a nice meal with their spouse and talk about something other than work.

They want to silence the chaos in their minds and focus only on what is happening in that moment.

They want to be able to put down their phones and make time to relax every day.

They know that if they don’t stop this pattern, every relationship outside of work is going to suffer and their mental well-being will erode.

But they BELIEVE they can’t stop. They BELIEVE disconnecting isn’t an option.

Sound familiar? Work with me and learn the foundational steps to protect your well-being and learn how to disconnect.

In order to fully commit to our profession, it means also making a commitment to show up as our best selves. It means investing in rest and life outside of work so that we can be fully engaged when we are working. To do otherwise is to cut our careers off at its knees because what we create is not sustainable.

Obsessive commitment to anything is not sustainable.

Recognize where your life is out of balance and endeavor to find pockets of rest and disconnection. Allow your brain to freak out every time you step away but honor yourself and your long-term wellbeing by making disconnection a priority. It WILL get easier with practice.

Your future self will thank you.

When we don’t practice disconnection and rest, we instead practice NOT disconnecting and NOT slowing down. We strengthen those muscles which ultimately makes any kind of balance even more difficult.

Today, I encourage you to find a pocket of space to reconnect with yourself.

You are not the job.

You are so much more than that.

Spend some time with your real self today. She might have some things to say to you.

Photo by Olga Lioncat from Pexels

So how do we rip up those thoughts and get to a place of believing we can do anything?

We must first get to a place where we recognize and acknowledge that those thoughts we carry around in our heads are just opinions. They are not factual. They have not come to fruition. They are just words in our heads. Words we give power to.

Next we must realize that when we give those sentences power, they grow stronger. When we sit with those negative beliefs, our brain will provide all sorts of evidence to support those fears. If you give power to “I’m going to fail,” your brain will offer all sorts of evidence to support that thinking — ALL the reasons why failing is inevitable. Your brain is not designed to argue with the thoughts in your head. It is designed to agree with you by providing supporting evidence (i.e., confirmation bias). That’s why those thoughts feel so true. It’s why they have such a hold over us! But when was the last time, you also asked your brain to provide you with opposing evidence — to prove that you CAN DO IT?

When we worry that we can’t do it, we don’t even give ourselves the chance to consider whether the opposite might actually be true.

What if you can do it?

What if you are MEANT to do it?

Let’s be honest, none of us have proof that we can’t do it. None of us know with certainty that we will fail. So before we can shift to rosy thoughts about how we know we can do it, we first have to recognize our own role in this little song-and-dance: sometimes we give too much power to crappy beliefs about ourselves. Maybe we learned them from our parents, maybe they are criticisms offered by unkind friends or lovers of the past. Wherever they came from, their existence in our minds does not make them truthful.

Once we see our patterned thinking as just bad brain habits and not evidence of our innate shortcomings, we can practice believing something else. We can start to compassionately understand why we have gravitated toward those thoughts and we can dismantle those structures. For many of us, the reason negative thinking about ourselves is so powerful and so ingrained in our habits is that there’s a part of us that believes in the veracity of those statements. Knowing that, we can work to let that go too.

We all know that we say terrible things ourselves in our heads. We all know we have these limiting beliefs that we carry around. But the reason we carry them around is that there is a part of us that still wants to believe in their truth. You can’t let go of a belief so long as you are committed to the investment that it is true at least in part. We have to get to a place where we recognize that in our life we have so many choices to make. Choices to make about what we think about ourselves. We do not have to choose to believe that we can’t make it or that we’re going to get fired. Seeing those thoughts as choices can allow us to choose to believe something else.

But can’t some of those negative thoughts push us to try harder and do better?

I get asked this all the time. Intellectually, we know it’s not okay to talk to ourselves the way that we do and to carry around these worries about inadequacy; however, many of us look to our past successes as evidence that maybe being hard on ourselves is why we have succeeded. Maybe being hard on ourselves is how we were able to get where we are!

While I agree that for many of us, being hard on ourselves and pushing ourselves certainly contributed to our early successes in life. But when women come to me for coaching support, they are out of gas. They have pushed so hard they are pushing themselves right out the door and off of a cliff. While being hard on ourselves might have served us early in our careers, we eventually get to a point where it no longer serves us. We start to see the negative effects of treating ourselves so poorly. We have the success and the accolades but we have no boundaries, no balance, and our relationship with ourselves (and often others) is completely broken. You shouldn’t have to beat yourself into submission to achieve success — that pattern will leave you worse off than you started. (What’s the point of all that success if you don’t love yourself enough to allow yourself to enjoy it?)

What if instead of using negative self-talk to motivate ourselves, we choose to believe that we are inherently good enough and that we can be whomever we want to be?

Motivation will spring from either mindset but one requires an investment in our abilities while the other requires an investment in self-judgment. Which is more sustainable? Which will reap you more long-term benefits?

The choice is always yours.

Photo by Katrina Wright on Unsplash

I recently worked with a client who was challenged by two women that she was working with. She believed that these women were the source of her unhappiness. She believed that they were the reasons she needed to leave her job. She believed that her job was not going the way she had wanted it to go. She was so invested in these beliefs and in the mentality that made her the victim and them the villain that she could not see her way out.

Through coaching, I worked with her to try and show her that all of these thoughts and beliefs were nothing more than choices and opinions in her head. Her opinions were not true for anyone unless she chose to make them true. And she was invested in making them true for herself. When I challenged her to think differently about her experience I was met with strong defensiveness. Immediately, she challenged me and asked if I was trying to get her to think pretty thoughts about these bad experiences in her life. Those of you that work with me know that my goal is never to shift you to prettier thoughts; my goal is simply to open up your awareness to the possibility that there are other ways of thinking about things  — that there may be more than one “truth” about a given situation.

There is never just one truth. There are multiple truths that can coexist at the same time.

For her, I needed first to get her to a place of neutrality where she could recognize that her perceptions of the experience were just that: choices. Her perceptions. Her opinions. And she could change them to something else. It didn’t mean that she needed to shift to something happier. We can always choose to live with those negative perceptions and interpretations of our life. But the power there comes from our choosing to feel negatively about those experiences and to think negatively about those experiences. My goal in teaching my clients to work through these challenges is to see that they are in fact making a choice. No experience is inherently negative. No fact of our life is inherently bad. We choose to make it bad. We choose to make it negative.

My goal in working with these clients is just to break loose that death grip that we have on our negative perceptions of reality and to open their eyes to that negativity bias and to be open to the possibility that there is always more than one truth available to us.

It doesn’t mean shifting from believing that our boss is the devil Incarnate to believing that he’s a saint. What it simply means is instead of living in the mind space where we always see our boss as a horrible human being and treating it as a hard fact, we shift to a mental space where we can see that he is there to teach us something about ourselves about our journey. For my client, what I wanted her to see was that she was choosing to be negative and to believe that this situation she found herself in was inherently negative. That was just a choice and she had complete authority to choose something different. She could choose instead to believe that this was part of her path. That it was time for a change. That truth could be equally as true as her belief that this was a bad outcome of her dreams. The choice was ultimately hers and each choice would dramatically impact how she showed up and experienced her time at that workplace.

Through my coaching programs, I help my clients to take complete authority over their life experiences. To take ownership of every emotion they experience and to consciously CHOOSE how they want to feel and what they want to believe about their lives.

“You see persons and things not as they are but as YOU are.”

What does your perception have to teach you about yourself? 

Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels

At that time in my life, I was roughly 29 years old. I had been practicing for about four(ish) years. I had a solid foundation and I knew enough to be dangerous but to start a whole practice group–pure silliness. What kind of maniacs would take that risk on me?! Despite it all, I sold them on the idea and I gratefully leapt from the arms of one task-master to another.

As I settled in and started to take an inventory of everything that went along with “running” a practice, I realized that I was going to need some support. I already felt myself bristling at the tired mentalities and structures that I disliked at my last firm and I could tell that many of the challenges I had run away from at my last firm would be waiting for me in this new place. So I hired a coach–a female attorney who had successfully built her own firm. I wanted someone who got it. I wanted someone who understood the subtext, the struggles, and the environment without my having to explain it.

(If you are interested in that kind of support, grab a free session now.)

In working with her, I was able to see and deconstruct many of the patterns that were following me into my new firm. I was able to shift into a different mentality — a space of confidence and unwavering belief that I COULD do it. That I did have what it takes. We worked through the imposter syndrome that many of us carry with us especially those of us that didn’t come from professional, college-educated homes.

Working with my coach, I was able to build a practice that was bursting at the seams within one year. Within one year, I had so much work and garnered the confidence and trust of so many large and demanding companies that I was drowning in billable hours. We hired two partners from opposing firms to come and join me…partners that were 20 and 30 years my senior and had been practicing for many years to great success without the oversight and wisdom offered by this 30-something little girl. So naturally, with that change, came all sorts of new challenges.

During that time, I was traveling all over the country selling our services to clients. Every day, my calendar was jammed with breakfasts, lunches, and happy hours where I was selling and schmoozing without end. I was asked to teach at a business school and then to also teach at a law school and I was constantly presenting at one conference or another.

My practice was thriving and I had done what I set out to do. I loved every minute of it.

The last time I related this story to a client, she asked me whether I thought my success was attributable to skills I had developed or whether I just had “it.” “Do you really think that is something I can do? I just don’t think I’m the type,” she explained.

This, people, is why I do this. There is nothing magical about my success.

“I am nothing special, of this I am sure.”

Nicholas Sparks

The only reason people aren’t going out and creating the life of their dreams is that they believe they can’t do it. Because they, like this client, allow themselves to consider that there is some innate “it” and you either have it or you don’t.

Let’s level set here. I am an introvert and I do not love to speak publicly. Prior to joining that firm, I hadn’t spoken publicly since COLLEGE. At my prior firm, I wrote the speeches, I prepped the slides but I was the silent partner — speaking was never permitted for associates. I was good at my job but I was not (and am not) any kind of a legal prodigy. Aside from leading bar crawls during my sorority days, I had never “led” anyone other than a secretary and a paralegal. I had no idea how to set budgets or project income, how to “sell” legal services, how to talk to partners who weren’t pulling their weight, and the idea of presenting my business plan to a Boardroom full of men made me sick to my stomach.

If there was some special “it” that made this stuff easy, I didn’t receive that gift.

I created my success because I INVESTED in myself. I put in the work. I allowed my coach to push me to do things that made me very uncomfortable. I got really good at uncomfortable conversations, I got really practiced at humility, and I learned how to “sell” myself authentically. Does it come easily now? No. It still doesn’t. But I have done it so many times despite the discomfort, I understand now that’s just part of the process for me.

I came to understand that in order to create a different career for myself, I had to do things differently. I had to take time to actually work on myself and that meant I had to get comfortable spending my hard-earned money on the fluffy stuff. I had to invest my money differently. I needed to acknowledge that, in order to create a different future, I was going to have to completely revamp my approach to practicing and that meant getting a coach on my team.

She pushed me to do things I didn’t want to do; things I WOULDN’T have done but for my respect and commitment to her. She helped me to see things about myself that were holding me back and she helped me to find my voice in a world where many of us just put our heads down and “accept” the legal profession with all its warts.

I wanted to share this with you today because I want to dispel this notion that we can’t all have the lives of our dreams. There is no magical “it.” You have what it takes and we have to stop considering that we aren’t enough. Instead, I implore you to consider —

What if you are wrong — what if you have EXACTLY what it takes?

To illustrate this point, I’ve been thinking through accomplishments in history where it’s clear that the champions were able to challenge the thinking of the time in order to create something great.

One thing that most readily came to mind was the concept that our earth is flat. And yes, I have seen the Netflix documentary Flat Earth exploring those of us who continue to subscribe to the belief that our earth is, in fact, flat. Flat Earth people aside, let’s consider the thinking that led to the discovery that our earth is actually round. In order to take the actions that ultimately confirmed the earth’s spherical shape, early thinkers from Pythagoras, Eratosthenes, Aristotle, Plato, Columbus, etc. had to be open to the possibility that the current thinking about the earth was wrong. They had to consider the possibility that everything we had always thought might not be the absolute truth. At the time, these men might not have known how right they were but at least they were open to the possibility.

We cannot do great things while carrying with us opposing beliefs.

These historical figures could not have generated the confidence and curiosity to challenge the theory of the earth’s flatness while being equally invested in the belief that the earth was flat. They had to shake that belief loose and consider the possibility that it might not be absolute. They were open to challenging the predominant certainties.

While this may seem an obvious and unnecessary exploration of history, I point this out because so often my clients are unwilling to dive into the ugly parts of their own brains. They want to develop the pretty thoughts and motivating thoughts or the thoughts that will generate action for them. They don’t want to spend time rolling up their sleeves and looking at their negative thinking and challenging those beliefs.

This is counterproductive and will serve only to create greater cognitive dissonance for my clients as they try to move forward. It’s like stretching a rubber band until it snaps back together — sure, you can make progress in that direction but the progress is never permanent; you always end up right back where you started. You simply cannot generate new action and new results from the same set of beliefs — you have to start thinking and feeling differently.

This requires us to challenge our existing thinking. 

In order to take action in a new direction, we need to generate emotions that will drive new actions and new explorations in recognition that a different truth may exist. Where we have conflicting beliefs that we continue to invest in and give energy to we’re never going to be open to equally investing in a new belief that will generate the energy needed to create the action that we want in order to create a new result.

In sum, unless and until we dismantle pre-existing belief models we will never have the energetic capacity to create new actions and results.

The conflicting, outdated beliefs will act as a ball-and-chain keeping the new beliefs from gaining traction. We will only be partially invested in the new belief, thus the emotions and actions that belief can generate will be restrained. The result is that we will never fully create what we want because we have always hedged our bets by holding onto our existing beliefs.

When we try to breathe life into new beliefs without dismantling our old operating system, we stifle our efforts.

We cannot shift to prettier thoughts and create better feelings and results while at the same time equally investing in opposing beliefs. It’s like putting on a pair of shoes that are 10 sizes too big and trying to run a marathon. It just doesn’t work. Those aren’t your shoes!

The majority of the women I work with want to be more confident. They want to believe they can do it, that they are doing a good job, and that they are good enough. They want to live and act from that space. The problem is they aren’t facing the reality that parts of them are still persuaded by beliefs that they aren’t good enough and that they aren’t going to make it. They are still holding on to the possibility that what they want to believe is not true.

Unless and until they unpack that circus, they will never be able to act from a genuine place of confident beliefs.

We have to look at those existing beliefs and get to a place where we can see them as just that. Choices were making and things we’re choosing to believe. We limit ourselves because we are not coming to new beliefs from a place of investment; rather, we are coming to a new belief from a place of uncertainty and exploration because we’re still committed to believing something else. We cannot create the life we want if we show up every day believing that law firms are unfriendly places for women, places where women can’t succeed as easily as men. That belief is never going to stop sucking part of your energy away from the true intended goal of building a practice you are happy in. That belief will always creep in and reinvest your energy in hopelessness.

If you are truly seeking success in your law firm, we have to start thinking about the law firm life differently.

We have to be open to the possibility that what we have been believing all along is not necessarily true. It’s just our opinion. It’s not factual and it is not serving us. In other words, we cannot shift any beliefs until we find ourselves in a place where we can see the old beliefs as what they are: bad choices that you’re no longer going to make. Not facts and clearly not places we choose to our energy. Only from there can we shift our energy to something new and start creating something new. To do otherwise is to divide our efforts and divide our energy and handicap yourself from the very beginning.

So there it is my friends, get to work looking at your ugly thinking and work on yourself from a place where you can see that all your beliefs about the situation are optional perceptions. You can choose something else. You can be open to the possibility that your perceptions are not the only truth available to you.

Work with me; schedule a free consult and let’s start dismantling your “thought” balls and chains so you can start creating lasting change.

Photo by Joey Kyber from Pexels

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

Voltaire

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how detrimental certainty can be in our lives. How certainty, if left to its own devices, would have kept us believing some pretty ridiculous stuff — tobacco enemas, changelings, icepick lobotomies. In order to progress, scientists (and the rest of us) had to let go of our closely held beliefs and be open to the possibility that those old beliefs weren’t serving us. One of the hallmarks of good science is constantly challenging our prior conclusions — to never truly be “fixed” in any given certainty.

Outside the world of science, our tendency to acquire certainties remains pervasive and, at times, limits our own innate abilities.

We are certain that no one is hiring during the pandemic.

We are convinced that it is harder to network with people virtually.

We believe that our neighbor is stealing our newspaper to spite us.

We believe that we have to respond to emails over the weekend.

Certainty is the enemy of growth. We can’t tell the future yet we parade around telling ourselves we can’t do XYZ because we know how it will pan out for us (the answer is always: badly). We soothsay away our options to justify our unwillingness to shake things up. We predict calamity and hellfire if we dare challenge the norms.

To grow, we have to constantly question our beliefs about ourselves, others, and our reality. That is how we evolve.

The problem is that certainty feels nice. It feels easy and comfortable and requires nothing of us. It is easier to remain wed to your beliefs (certainties) than it is to test those beliefs and see whether they are true.

There was a time in my life when I believed that I could never have any balance while practicing law at a big firm. And then I went and I did it. I tested my belief and discovered that it wasn’t entirely true. I was CHOOSING to not have balance. I was choosing to say yes to every request. When I put that belief to the test, I discovered that I could have a practice where I came and went as I pleased and spent my time speaking, traveling, writing and networking.  Did it require me to challenge systems I had previously let alone? Yes. Did everyone like my new approach to practicing? No. Did people gossip about it and crab about it? Yes. But I got what I wanted because I was willing to accept that my closely held belief was wrong. I was willing to explore other approaches to practice and I was willing to let go of the need to be liked and safe from gossip. I released myself from face time obligations and I never looked back. 

(Now I help other women to do the same — sign up for a free coaching session to learn how.)

Wacky historical medical beliefs aside, our entire society is founded upon the value that emerges when we challenge norms. When we allow ourselves to become uncertain about things. When we question things and allow ourselves to see if there is a better way of doing things and thinking about things.

How would your life be different, if you started examining some of your closely held certainties?

Photo by Brendan Church on Unsplash

When you ask a child what they want to do when they grow up, they will quickly offer all sorts of fantastical imaginings. Flying to the moon, raising a gaggle of unicorns, and becoming a fairy princess seem to be fairly obvious responses (both then and now — who doesn’t want to fly to the moon on a unicorn dressed as a princess?).

What is most interesting about fantastic childhood plans is not the plans themselves but a child’s commitment to making them happen.

Have you ever asked a child where they plan to find a unicorn, let alone an entire gaggle of unicorns, or how they plan to fulfill their lifelong dream of raising unicorns in every color of the rainbow? Such a question may be met with a variety of unique and interesting answers but, amongst those answers, you will not hear a child respond: I don’t know.

Kids don’t care about the how. That is an adult problem that we have gifted to ourselves.

Kids don’t care about how they are going to accomplish their dreams. They simply commit. When pushed, they brainstorm all sorts of ideas as to how they might accomplish this goal. Their little eyes squint with focused effort and their little brains hum away offering all sorts of solutions to the problem. They get to work solution-ing the problem, without hesitation or doubt.

The beautiful thing about watching a child do this is that it is a living reminder that we too are wired in this way. We too have the ability to solution all of our problems. The trick is that we must stop investing in the phrase “I don’t know.” Those three little words slam the door – no eye squinting with thought-exertion, no brain humming away to work. Just pure silence. Dream foreclosure!

Using those three little words suggests that we must know how something is to be accomplished before we can get to work doing it. In what realm does that make any sense? Why does it matter that you don’t know how to accomplish something?

Isn’t it simply enough to want it and chart your course from there?

(Get support charting your course by taking advantage of limited free coaching sessions that I offer every week.)

Our world is not filled with problems that have secret, solitary solutions that must be discovered. Our world demands that we must get to acting and crafting potential solutions before we know what will work. We must acknowledge that we don’t know the how and get to work sorting that out.

Not knowing “how” is not a stop sign, it’s the starting line.

We know this intellectually but yet our brains freak out whenever we are tasked with something significant that we have never done before. That freak out sounds like this:

I don’t know.

You DO know. You may not know the exact right solution but without a doubt you can brainstorm your first step. If you force yourself to imagine what you would do if you DID know, you will develop a first step. You will start learning what might work and what won’t work. In contrast, if you resign to a world of I don’t know, you will most certainly continue to not know because those words never spurred anyone to action.

In a world of balance — yin and yang, up and down, good and evil — everything has its opposite. Everything has its counterpoint. Wouldn’t it then follow that where you are “not knowing” there also exists in you the corresponding “knowing”? 

When you use IDK as a means to fill the space and avoid taking action, you discredit yourself and your resiliency. You communicate to yourself and those around you that you don’t have the ability to brainstorm like a 6-year-old child. Furthermore, you communicate to those around you that it matters that you don’t know the precise solution to the challenge at hand. It doesn’t matter! The only thing that matters is your investment in acting to discover a solution.

Lean into solution-ing like a child and give yourself space to be the problem solver that you are. No one is hiring you because they want you to know everything. People hire you because they trust you to craft a solution, no matter what it takes. That leaves very little room for “I don’t know.”

In sum, stop staying I don’t know and give yourself space to offer what you DO know. That is so much more truthful than “I don’t know.”

Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash