There are all these rules about how we are supposed to live and how things are supposed to work out and many of us wholeheartedly believe these rules and it is stagnating us.

I recently had a client who was struggling to figure out her next move and she was struggling to make a decision. She was examining certain career opportunities available to her and she was convinced that they were all mutually exclusive. She believed that she had to pursue her legal career or her passion for social change. She believed that she had to be an educator or an attorney. She felt that she was at a crossroads and the only way to move forward was to make a dramatic change one way or the other. She was paralyzed by the

tyranny of the or. 

During our session together, we were able to explore the possibility that maybe none of her dreams need to be mutually exclusive: it’s possible to have a legal career and do lobbying work. It’s possible to be an attorney and support nonprofits with their legislative work. It’s possible to be an attorney and an educator.

When we allow our ourselves to buy into either/or propositions, our brain is not able to see the solutions available to us. (Hello, confirmation bias, you old goat!)

When we feel like we are faced with mutually exclusive options, our duty as evolving humans is to challenge these prescribed rules and ask:

Why can’t we do both? What could that look like?

Does one choice really have to eclipse the other?

Is there some way we could make both options work?

How do we know that we can’t do both?

The only way you will ever know the answer to these questions is if you ditch the tyranny of the or and invest in both and thinking.

If you catch yourself feeling stuck and unsure what to do next ask yourself whether you are subscribing mutually exclusive thinking. Instead consider ways that you can make all options work for you in this moment.

I encounter all sorts of professionals whose lives are multifaceted and well-rounded. Women who are invested in both and thinking and committed to living a well-rounded life that incorporates everything they want. They don’t allow their lives to be a series of black and white options: they subscribe to both and  thinking.

If this is appealing to you, I would love to visit with you and see how we can get you closer to a balanced, both and kind of life. Grab a free consult and let’s get to work.

This doesn’t necessitate any large life changes but can be applied at the simplest and most basic levels. I can’t work out and get my work done. I can’t get enough sleep and finish these projects. I can’t have a social life and have a career.

The next time you catch yourself in one of these simplistic lines of thinking, ask yourself whether this is a middle ground. For instance, if you are stuck thinking I can’t work out and get my work done, what if you only tried to work out for 30 minutes instead of an hour? What if you identified projects that don’t need an A+ finish and used that extra time to workout?

When we allow ourselves to ditch the tyranny of the or, we are often amazed at the solutions that manifest just to being open to new possibilities.

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When we are faced with a choice that could have lasting repercussions, how do we know when to take the leap and when to stay put?

While I am not a soothsayer and I do not pretend to have any answers for anyone’s life other than my own, what I can offer is what I have seen so many women grapple with as they sort out big decisions. When new opportunities come to our door, they often bring the same party favors with them: self-doubt, fear, and guilt are common accompaniments.

We worry that we won’t have what it takes, what will happen if it doesn’t work out. We feel guilty for contemplating decisions that might upset those around us.

When all of those fuzzy feelings come to the door, it can be very difficult to think clearly and decide whether to act. In those instances, I work with my clients to start getting very clear on what it will cost them to act or not to act. In any choice that we make, there will be pros and cons. There will be consequences of many varieties, even when the opportunity seems too good to be true. In those instances, we have to consider what we gain by acting.

What could we gain if we try and end up failing?

What could we gain if we end up succeeding?

What does it cost you to NOT act?

The answers to these questions are something we all must answer for ourselves but these questions force us to look beyond the negative feelings that accompany change.

Fear, self-doubt, and guilt are all parts of the bargain when we choose to make changes — those feelings do not mean you are doing it wrong.

But we must set those feelings aside and focus on weighing the costs. For instance, when we know with certainty that staying in our current job or relationship will stifle our development and we can see what taking a risk will force us to grow and develop in new ways, we then have the assets we need to push through those negative feelings and take the leap.

When we have clarity about what is at stake with every new decision, that clarity will light the path when things get murky (because they will). That clarity will allow you to keep moving.

So when all those wonderful feelings meet you at the door of opportunity — self-doubt, fear, and guilt — invite them to sit down at the table because they will most certainly be coming along for the ride.

That is simply the price of evolving.

We have to ignore those feelings in the short term so that we can truly focus on and weigh the options ahead of us and make an intentional rather than an emotional decision.

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In my opinion, this starts with the study of law. Law school and the pursuit of lawyer-dom is a solitary pursuit. We spend hours and hours alone, reading casebooks, working on our outlines, and reviewing class notes. It’s not that the solitude of legal studies is unique from other kinds of scholarly pursuits but it is unique in that, becoming an attorney means becoming a business of one. People hire an individual attorney based upon their knowledge and skill set.

There is some expectation that we, standing on our own, will have the answers.

Pair that implicit expectation with the study of law and those long hours of solitude and drop in the competitive gauntlet of the legal job market. Everyone is competing for positions at the top firms or clerkships; you have to lock down a job before your last year of law school even begins lest your career be over before you even graduate.

This solitary, competitive realm breeds attorneys who are silo-d. We get really good at the grind and problem solving. But this environment also breeds attorneys who are not very good at asking for help.

There are going to miscommunications and disconnects between you and the rest of your team. Partners will omit essential information and facts when giving you assignments. People will make false assumptions about your background or skills. When we resist asking for help or seeking additional clarification, we are ignoring all of those truths.

When we don’t ask for help we are choosing instead to believe that we have been provided all of the facts, communication was clear, and no one made any assumptions.

We ascribe absolute perfection to others involved in the project and assign absolute imperfection to ourselves. The wildest part about these scenarios is that we KNOW, logically, that the partner or assigning attorney is far from perfect. They may have a habit of omitting pertinent information or forgetting to provide key documents or they may simply have a reputation for providing terrible direction. But in the heat of the moment, we are so busy focusing on ourselves and our failures in the situation that we overlook the roles of others involved.

We provide no room for compassion toward ourselves. It’s so much easy to be hard on ourselves!

When you fail to ask for help it is usually because there is some nasty thing you tell yourself in that moment. You make asking for help mean something negative about you. The next time you find yourself spinning your wheels in confusion, ask yourself what you are making it mean if you went to ask for help or clarification? Do you believe that it means you aren’t good enough? You should not be an attorney? The partner is going to judge you and think you’re an idiot?

You are none of those things. You already are an attorney. If you weren’t able to do the job, you wouldn’t have made it through the LSAT, 3 years of law school, the bar exam, and landing your first job. Don’t let something as simple as a miscommunication or misunderstanding erode all of that value.

Approach the situation with curiosity–why am I struggling? Why am I confused? What am I missing? And get to work sussing out that information.

That may require you to seek some additional support and follow-up with the assigning attorney. Remind yourself that the other attorney is not perfect either and it is possible they omitted something or miscommunicated something. In fact, that is more likely true than the possibility that you are an idiot who shouldn’t be practicing law.

Open yourself up to alternative possibilities and stop making it all about you!

Your team and your clients are counting on you to put aside your ego and get the job done.

Take advantage of an opportunity to take this work deeper and apply it directly to your practice. Sign up for a free one-on-one coaching session with me. I would love to help you reconnect with your value and get your career back on track.

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The truth underneath that notion is that when we allow ourselves to delay action until it can be done perfectly, we are really just trying to protect ourselves from failure.

But what I often see happening is that perfectionism morphs into complete inaction; permission to remain in place. I’m not ready to move forward yet so I’m just going to stay where I am.

It is not logical to believe that we can plan everything to such an extent that we can eliminate all risk of failure.

You are going to have to risk failure if you are ever going to act.

Those that work with me regularly know that I believe perfectionism is for scared people and I’m not the only one who objects to perfectionist tendencies. Perfectionism is a just a prettier word for self-protection.

While I agree that we must all act in a manner that protects ourselves in the highest sense, that self-protective impulse is not relevant when it comes to commonplace activities — applying for a new job, reaching out for support, finishing a large project, sending an email. So many of us apply that self-preservation impulse to those every day tasks and the net result is that we don’t apply for the job, we never reach out for support, and we agonize over the tiniest details of projects and simple emails. Our work takes longer and our emotional fortitude wanes.

When we allow ourselves to linger in preparation mode rather than simply acting, not only do we prolong our current state (assuming we will EVENTUALLY act, which is not always the case, some of us prepare indefinitely) but we rob ourselves of the opportunity to create self-confidence.

Self-confidence is not something we are born with; it is something we create for ourselves.

How do we build it? We take action and fail and develop the ability to move forward despite the failure. When we know we can survive failure, heartache, embarrassment, shame, humiliation and all the other fantastic emotions that accompany failure, we learn to trust ourselves. We realize that we can weather any storm, overcome all those negative emotions. In that experience we develop confidence in ourselves because we know we can do and survive anything that comes our way.

Naturally, that means that in order to become more confident, we must fail. We must take action and set ourselves up to experience failure. If we don’t ever experience failure and adversity, how can we learn to trust in our ability to do and survive anything?

If we play it safe forever, allowing ourselves to linger in preparation so that when we do act, we can act perfectly (as if that ever really works) we prevent ourselves from simply acting and taking the chance that we might fail.

At the same time, we rob ourselves of the possibility that we might act and do it perfectly the first time. It just might work out! All those details you wants to distress over and sift through might never even matter. But you won’t know until you take the risk.

When we linger in preparation we imply that it is possible to know exactly what is needed for success and what is necessary to prevent failure. That is ridiculous.  If that were true, our lives would be very different. The truth is that we never know what will work or won’t work until we start acting and learning all the things that didn’t work.

When my clients explain to me why they aren’t taking action on things or why they are taking so long to complete their work, I challenge them to experiment with the concept of B- work. What if you allowed yourself to present B- work where it was warranted? What if you allowed yourself to recognize that sometimes done is actually better than perfect? What if you accepted that all the minutia, all those nagging second-guessing thoughts might not actually be important to the overall project? What if a client wants a B- answer and doesn’t want to pay for a A+ dissertation-worthy response?

What is the worst that could happen if you just committed to acting and stopped second-guessing?

Embarrassment…shame,…guilt…?

Those are all just vibrations in your body, caused by your thoughts. YOU and how you talk to yourself when things don’t go as planned, THAT is what causes those emotions.

The beauty of it all is that you control those thoughts and you can decide what you want to make it mean when your commitment to action is met with failure. 

It doesn’t have to mean that you are a failure or that you aren’t cut out for your job. It could simply mean that you learned how to not do something; you can add that learning to your arsenal, practice experiencing the feelings of embarrassment of guilt and just keep moving.

Without acceptance of failure, you will never create meaningful success. The price for success is repetitious failure. The process of repetitious failure creates self-confidence. What do you have to lose?

Are you wanting to take action but can’t figure out how to get moving? One session can make all the difference. Sign up for free session and get started creating the life you really want.

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How do you know….

When it’s time to quit your job

When it’s time to find a new firm

When it’s time to ask for a divorce

When it’s time to change professions

When faced with these questions from clients, we work through a three step process:

myths, justifications, and so whats

The myth: there is no predestined “right time” that must be known before we can make big decisions.

What is the benefit of that line of thinking?

It’s like handing your life over to some unknown scheduler, hoping that they will let you know when you can move on. It assumes that there will be a time when the change you are questioning will be easy. It also assumes there will be a time when you can act without any fear or reservation.

Instead, this wait and see approach simply keeps you stuck. It keeps you in the safe familiar. It justifies your unwillingness to do the scary thing and gives you an excuse for not taking control over your life: “It just doesn’t feel like the right time.”

In my experience, those of us that wait to find some certainty that the time is finally “right” to make that big decision only end up getting beat over the head with their own truth.

The truth that they have known all along but that they kept ignoring, waiting for a “sign” that it was the perfect time to act. When we ignore those inklings that we need to make a change and we tell ourselves that we need to wait for the “right time,” life typically just turns up the volume and makes that truth harder to ignore.

You knew the right decision already but you allowed fear to convince yourself that you needed to wait for the right time.

There is no “right time.” If you feel driven or called to do something or make a change, pay attention to those urges. They will not go away. They will just get louder and the messaging typically becomes more painful (so that you cannot ignore it).

The one person that we should innately trust, who always has our back, is ourselves. Why do we ignore her so often and listen to others whose intentions are not always so benevolent? In order to build the life of your dreams, you have to start trusting yourself.

The only person who will join you for every step of the journey is yourself.

So, you might as well start giving her a seat at the table.

The justifications. When we are trying to weigh important decisions, the most important question to ask yourself is “why” do I want to do this. Next, we ask ourselves if we like our reasoning.

It’s that simple.

If your reason for wanting to leave your job is because “It’s too hard…I don’t think I’m cut out for it…I’m not happy here” you have to as yourself if you like that reasoning. Do you feel good about that explanation?

For many of us, these types of justifications are at the root of a lot of decisions. Things get hard. Life will challenge you to grow. These justifications are all based in some sort of fear. Fear of failure. Fear of not being good enough. Fear that you made a mistake.

Furthermore, these types of justifications give away all your power–you imply that your job should give you some sort of happiness. (In case you missed it, happiness is no one’s job but yours.)

You are free to allow yourself to make decisions based upon these justifications, that is wholly your right. But my question is: Do you like your reasons? Do you feel good about your justification?

Be honest with yourself about why you are wanting to do (or not do) something and carefully examine your justification.

So long as you like your reason, you have everything you need to act. From there you simply make a decision and execute. No drama. Just action from a place of authenticity. Simple.

The so whats.

This is the part of the process where we tackle the fear that is keeping us stuck. When we eliminate the drama and get clear about our justifications for acting, the only thing that will keep us from executing is fear. In order to act, we have to take a look at that fear.

If you act and you make the “wrong” decision, so what?

Answering that question will ultimately bring you face to face with your worst case scenario. When we ask “so what?” over and over and over again, we eventually get to the root of the fear:

I don’t want people to think I’m a failure…because then I will believe I have failed.

I don’t want to be embarrassed…because it will mean I have messed up.

I don’t want to admit I was wrong…because it will mean I’m less than.

Facing our worst case scenarios and developing a strategy where we not only survive but THRIVE through those events will dispel the fear that is keeping us from acting.

If we know that we can make a decision, fail, and handle the consequences, there is no longer anything to be  afraid of. There is no longer any reason NOT to act.

Don’t let your brain tell you that you can’t handle your worst case scenario. Believing that will keep you stuck indefinitely.

Don’t make your life a merry-go-round of boring and fear-driven decisions. What would your future self tell you to do?

Interested in some free support in making your next big decision? I got you. Sign up today before this week’s spots are gone.

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Indecision has so much to teach us about ourselves and, particularly, our fears.

How do we move out of indecision? Recognize the tunnel vision and get some perspective.

Many of us have struggled with decision paralysis from time to time because we put these decisions on a pedestal.

We allow them to loom ahead of us like giant crossroads in our lives. In order to move forward you have to separate from the facts from your primitive-brain-thinking.

In my client’s situation, the facts were that she was giving a presentation at a seminar in three weeks and she hadn’t yet picked a topic. Pretty non-threatening.

BUT, in light of those facts, her brain was explaining

You have to pick a good topic or people won’t want to work with you.

If you pick a topic you don’t know EVERYTHING about, you are going to get stumped in the Q&A and people will think you don’t know what you are talking about.

If you pick a topic that is too easy, no one will listen to you and they will think you don’t know anything useful.

All the important partners will be there and they will be measuring you up.

This is a huge opportunity for you to make a name for yourself.

None of those juicy dramas were factual. They were all totally optional choices. Sentences in her head. Sentences that were making her anxious, nervous, and scared.

In order to move out of indecision, you have to first recognize the thoughts you are choosing as just that: thoughts.

Focus on the facts of the situation and examine how else you could be thinking about them.

For this client, alternative thoughts included: This is a great opportunity for me. This is going to make me a better speaker. I can handle any question with grace even if I don’t know the answer. It’s okay to be nervous, this is not supposed to be easy.

While, pretty thoughts can be useful to shift your energy, they ONLY work if you if examine what’s really going on below the surface.

Indecision is fueled by the fear of making the wrong choice. You can’t move forward until you examine and address that worst case scenario.

Whenever, we are avoiding a decision it’s because we have convinced ourselves that there is a right and wrong path ahead of us and if we choose the wrong one, our world will fall apart. In my client’s case, she was worried that if she picked the wrong topic, the audience Q&A would stump her and everyone would think she was dumb.

Your worst case scenario fears are comprised of two things:

Obstacles that you can anticipate and negative self-talk.

When we are afraid of making the wrong decision, it is because of what we will make it mean about ourselves if things don’t pan out how we hoped.

We allow our brains to convince us that if we make the wrong decision it proves something negative about ourselves: we aren’t good enough, we aren’t smart enough, we can’t do this, this will never work out, etc.

Those thoughts feel terrible: shame, guilt, fear, worry, doubt, all come crashing down when we spin in those sentences.

But what if we decided that when things don’t go the way we hope, we won’t make it mean something negative about ourselves?

What if we decided to have our back in the future?

Recognize that when we make choices, we are doing our best in the moment and that sometimes things don’t work out the way you hoped. No big deal. It doesn’t mean you aren’t worthy. It doesn’t mean you are a failure. It could simply mean that you are figuring things out. That it was just another step on your path.

If we can commit to not beating ourselves up if our decisions don’t pan out the way we want to, then there is nothing to be afraid of.

If we make the wrong decision, we can keep moving. We don’t have to believe that the wrong decision means something bad about our ability.

Once you commit to having your own back in the future, the pressure and weight of these current decisions goes away. You can make a decision and know that whether it pans out or not, it has nothing to do with your skills. It’s just part of the process.

From that space, everything else is simply an obstacle to overcome.

For my client, we strategized how she could handle questions from the audience when she didn’t know the answer. We talked through how she could think about that kind of an experience from a place of humility and curiosity as opposed to perfection-seeking.

When you find yourself stuck in indecision, force yourself to examine the worst case scenario. What comes up for you? What negative self-talk do you indulge in when things don’t pan out?

If you can plan to treat yourself kindly if things don’t work out, indecision loses its foothold. It stops being scary because you remove the negative consequences.

Everything else is just planning. Identify potential obstacles that might come from the decision and develop strategies ahead of time.

Don’t let your brain tell you the sky is falling. Tell your brain to get to work figuring out how to handle the sky when it wants to fall.

Don’t allow indecision to take the wind out of your sails. Look at the indecision, it has so much to show you!

Need support making a big decision? I reserve three spots each week for FREE mini-sessions with me. Bring your big decision or latest struggle and let’s get you back on track. Sign up now before this week’s spots are gone.

Moving can be a lot of work and, like most humans, it left me feeling a bit frazzled and frantically searching for that one thing that “I know I put it in a box somewhere…”

Upon returning to work, I found myself struggling to focus. Every request for support or input ruffled my feathers and made me want to go hide until 5pm. I felt like I was crawling out of my skin…If I don’t get out of here and get some time to relax, I’m going to jump out this window…

In lieu of leaping from a tall building, I sat down and did some self-reflection. Why was I feeling so irritable? Why couldn’t I focus and enjoy spending a day NOT lifting boxes or cleaning our old house? Wasn’t this a nice respite?

I did a quick thought download and started working through each thought, quickly discovering the culprit: I am just so tired. It was like my mantra…I am just so tired. I just need a break. Over and over, I kept returning to those thoughts.

Admittedly, I was a bit physically taxed: my muscles ached, and my back was screaming but after a few visits to the company masseuse, I was really feeling pretty okay. I had gotten plenty of sleep and had made an effort to enjoy some nice long baths at the end of each moving day. So why was I feeling so irritable?

Because I kept telling myself I am just so tired.

When I sit with the thought I am just so tired, it makes me feel hopeless and it creates an avalanche of similar thoughts: I have so much to do, I can’t handle this today, I don’t want to do any of this stuff, I just want to be left alone, etc.

Whenever I feel hopeless, it creates a lot of indecision. I spin out, second-guessing how to spend my day, agonizing over my to-do list, trying to figure what to do next, then I remind myself that I’m just so tired and then the feelings of hopelessness resurface along with all the other ugly thoughts and the day just falls apart.

In the end, my thinking I’m just so tired, created a cycle of indecision and unproductivity that made me feel worthless at the end of the day because I didn’t accomplish anything. I just spent my day spinning in mental misery, beating myself up and mentally wearing myself out. I was exhausted at the end of those first few days because I wasted so much energy in this cycle, going in 1,000 different directions and carrying around indecision, self-judgement and heavy hopelessness.

After this realization, I acknowledged that, while I may be physically tired, carrying around the thought I am just so tired was making me absolutely miserable and was truly making me exhausted at the end of the day. It wasn’t that I was “so tired” I couldn’t be productive and focus, it was the trajectory I created for myself when I kept telling myself I am just so tired. Physically tired or not, that thought was not serving me; it was making my current state even worse. Seeing this, I tried on another thought:

I can do hard things. I can be a good employee and a good partner during this transition period. I have done harder things before.

We all have days when we are tired and operating with a low tank of gas but when your thoughts compound that physical tiredness, it is a recipe for disaster.

Don’t let your thoughts compound an already difficult situation. Use your thoughts to shift from a meltdown to a triumph.

So many of our thoughts seem innocuous and others like I’m just so tired, can seem like hard facts. That is rarely the case.

Thoughts like this can seem so lovely and founded in self-care yet create all sorts of emotional chaos and stunted action. Only by examining your thoughts can you truly get to the root of the problem.

For me, it wasn’t physical tiredness that was bogging me down, it was tired thoughts and the feelings those thoughts created.

If you are feeling like you are in a funk or just can’t seem to get it together, just one coaching session can make all the difference. Check it out. I promise you won’t regret it. Try out a free coaching consultation to see if I’m a good fit to help you create the life you’ve always wanted. I would love the opportunity to meet you and see what we can do together!

I can’t go to the gym today because my ankle is feeling a little sore. I can’t start that side business because my boss will fire me. I am not going to that party because I know my ex will there. I can’t go to the gym this morning, I will be too tired later.

I recently had a client who wanted to talk to me about marriage. She was in a serious relationship that she was happy with, but she just couldn’t stop thinking about marriage. It didn’t help, that people kept asking her about marriage. When are you guys going to get married? As she talked about the concept of holy matrimony, she became visibly agitated.

I just don’t understand why everyone expects me to get married. I don’t want to have children so what’s the big deal? Why do I need to get married?! It’s just a stupid social construct!

So, what’s the problem? I asked her.

The problem was that while she was adamant that she didn’t need to get married for those reasons, she couldn’t help thinking that she really did want to get married. It seemed that, despite her best efforts to talk herself out of wanting to get married, she did, in fact, want to marry her partner.

I do want to marry him because I believe that is the utmost demonstration of my love for him. I want to get married because it makes it easier from a legal and tax perspective. We talk about getting married all the time and it makes me really excited to make that commitment but the second I leave the room, I find myself arguing with myself about it ask “Why do I need to do this? What’s the point? I can love him unconditionally without all that!”

Rather than allowing this back and forth to ramble on for the duration of our entire session, I simply asked her What’s the worst that could happen if you did get married?

Then she transformed into a puddle of tears. I had never seen her so emotional and, admittedly, it took me by surprise. The reality of the situation was that she really did love her partner and really did want to marry him. She fantasized about having a truly meaningful and intimate wedding with only their closest family and friends. She looked forward to the day that he did propose, and she was excited to become his wife. That was what she wanted and no matter how hard she tried to fight it, she couldn’t help it. She wanted to get married and it was important to her.

Unfortunately, she was carrying around some heavy baggage. Her ‘what’s the worst that could happen’ was something she had already endured and it terrified her to have to go through it again. She had been married previously and it didn’t work out. She left when her husband’s alcoholism and abuse escalated to extremes. She didn’t see it coming and she was immobilized with fear that it would happen to her again and she would miss it. Again.

She was so terrified of going through that again that she spent all this time and energy trying to convince herself that she wanted something else.

For better or worse, I believe that she is destined to get married again. To me, it was evident that in order to work through her past traumas, she needed to find the strength to face and own that fear and persist anyway. The alternative is that she could spend her life avoiding that work; avoiding working through those emotions and avoiding marriage at the same time. If she never got married again, she would never have to work through that fear. She could avoid the risks altogether.

The tricky thing is that she survived and thrived from that first marriage. She emerged a true warrior and an inspiration and I know in my bones that if her “worst thing” did happen to her (again), she would survive and thrive again and would emerge another, even greater version of herself.

So often we believe that we couldn’t survive our worst-case scenarios. That is total BS. It is nothing but our reptilian, caveman brains trying to keep us safe and warm. Our brain is lying to us because it believes that fear will keep us safe.

Don’t sell yourself short. Certainly, if you come face-to-face with your worst-case scenario, it won’t be fun or easy but it will forge you into a better version of yourself, I promise you. All great success stories emerge from the ashes of past lives. Don’t stifle your chance at growth by playing it safe. Besides, what if the worst, DOESN’T HAPPEN? What would you lose?

When we allow fear to direct our course, we miss out on the opportunity to grow and learn and sometimes yes, go through the hard things that make us even better.

Once I find my clients explaining to me why they aren’t taking a certain course of action or why they have made a particular decision, I ask them What’s the worst that could happen if you made the opposite choice? If you find yourself going to great lengths to convince yourselves of something or making excuses, BEWARE. We are masterful at letting ourselves off the hook and justifying our actions (or inactions).

If you were really committed to your decision and liked your reasons for your choices, you would not be stuck in these thought loops. It is a sign you are choosing to play it safe. It is a sign you are choosing from a place of fear.

If given the opportunity, we will most certainly come up with reasons why we aren’t doing all sorts of things and we will BELIEVE all of those reasons. Becoming aware of this cycle will allow you stop and ask yourself—What am I really afraid of? What is really going on here? Do you really like your reasons for your action or inaction? Are you just choosing the easier path?

That discussion will help you uncover whether your action/inaction and justifications are founded in truth or founded in fear. More often than not, those justifications are coming from a place of fear.

Growth, evolution, and success do not come from choosing the easier path. Don’t let yourself off the hook that easily. Get. Uncomfortable!

When you find your course in life being directed out of fear or avoidance of something scary or potentially difficult, stop and course correct. You are not on this planet to be a wallflower. You are here to challenge yourself and learn certain lessons. Avoiding those challenges now will not delay them indefinitely, you just might instead have a harder lesson waiting ahead for you, a lesson you might not be able to avoid.

Join us and do the work now. Don’t let fear be the driver. Be afraid but do it anyway. What’s the worst that could happen?

“Sometimes what you’re most afraid of doing is the very thing that will set you free.”

Robert Tew

This logic is one of the most time-sucking, goal-derailing theories my clients subscribe to. And let’s be honest, we have all been guilty of it — I don’t FEEL like doing XYZ even though I said I would. I used to avoid planning my outfits for the week because I wanted room for creative liberties – because, what if I don’t feel like wearing a skirt that day?! So, instead I would waste 20 minutes every morning laboring through my closet and the I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR AGONY before rushing out of my house in a sweaty, flustered, and grouchy tornado.

Forget that. Years later, I have gotten wise to my propensity to wear approximately 5% of the clothes I own. Why? Because those are the clothes I most often feel like wearing. So, two years ago, I decided that I will get rid of one thing every single day. Whether that is the extra can opener or those strappy pink sandals that I never wear, every day something has to find a new family. With respect to my clothes, this means that on Sunday, I take about five minutes to pull five work outfits and hang them in my closet. That’s it. Either those clothes get worn that week or they go. I either like them enough to wear them no matter what or they find a new home. This has been magically freeing (but more about that later). I have stopped allowing myself bask in fashion creativity. I force myself to be decisive and no longer give energy to what I feel like wearing. What does that even mean?!

Anywho, the point is, we don’t like to make decisions ahead of time because we want to allow ourselves to make decisions in the heat of the moment, guided by our feelings. The problem is that our feelings are fleeting and our feelings are often driven by our primitive brains. Our primitive brains want to keep us happy, safe, comfortable and warm. The primitive brain will seek safety and pleasure while avoiding resistance. That brain is NOT the brain that will help you climb a mountain or do anything that scares you. That brain is not a cheerleader for healthy choices or difficult workouts. That brain wants the dopamine hit from chocolate cake and takeout Chinese on the couch. That brain cannot be allowed to make any decisions, unless you are running from a tiger, naturally.

Instead, we must make plans ahead of time from our prefrontal cortex – the part of our brain associated rational thinking, cognitive behavior, and decision making. This is the brain that says go to the gym, do not face dive into the box of red velvet cupcakes. Unfortunately, this brain is like your silent partner whose solid advice is often drowned out by the rantings of a lunatic toddler (i.e., your reptilian brain). You have to allow your prefrontal cortex to make decisions ahead of time, when your toddler brain isn’t participating because toddlers don’t care about planning. Once those decisions are made, you have to stick with them. This is where the real work comes in.

Most of us would not deliberately stand up a friend at Happy Hour or bail on your friend for that 5am Zumba class at the last minute so she is left to suffer alone. But we don’t hold ourselves in that same regard. When it comes to commitment to ourselves, we are terrible, horrible, no good, very bad friends. We ghost ourselves on the regular. We make plans and then we skip them. We promise ourselves we will go to the gym and then we hit snooze instead. In those instances, we are letting our warm and cozy, reptilian brain run the show. We refuse to trust the earlier judgment of our prefrontal cortex. We refuse to honor those commitments and will expend all sorts of energy rationalizing our flakiness.

Stop. Doing. That.

Make decisions in advance and commit to yourself that you will do it. Make a meal plan for the week and stick to it. Decide which days of the week, you will have a glass of wine and honor it. Set benchmarks and tasks in furtherance of a larger goal and freaking do them! My clients ask me all the time, How do you accomplish so much? How do you have time for all of that? Here’s the secret: you just do it. There is a reason that Nike’s slogan is Just Do It. Anyone who has done anything hard knows that the only trick is to simply DO IT. There is no magical formula for motivation or progress. You make a commitment to yourself and you honor yourself. It’s time to start treating yourself as well as you treat your friends and the commitments you make to them.

Here’s the icing on the cake. So many of my clients want to feel inspired and motivated to achieve their goals. They don’t act because they are waiting to be moved and inspired. Sorry, people, motivation and inspiration are not synonymous with lightening. They don’t just suddenly appear. They are created by action. Action creates momentum, which creates inspiration and motivation on repeat. How to you take action? Honor your commitments to yourself.

It all starts with learning to make commitment to ourselves and respecting ourselves enough to show up for ourselves. If you can master that skill, you can do anything.

If you are interested in practical tools to help you organize your life and start sticking to your commitments, sign up for a free consult and let’s get to work!