Hi and hello. You might have been with me for a while. You might be fairly new. You might not even remember why you signed up.

So, this is my hello again message and reintroduction to Soulfueled.

I’ve been fairly quiet in the past few months. A lot has happened in the past year that made me take pause and relook at my life quite differently.

I finally hit my breaking point with social media and called it quits. I got fed up chasing all the growth strategies that I needed a digital detox to cut out all that incessant noise. I also had a few of identity changing moments: I got married and changed my legal name. I moved out of my long time home and neighborhood and into my husband’s place in another city. I’m also currently pregnant with our first child. (And there will be an even bigger change once he’s born!)

With one thing after another, my life was no longer what it looked like when I started Soulfueled and my business. It’s one thing to plan for changes, and another to actually live through them.

So in the past year (and probably the year prior as well), I kept feeling like something’s off with my life even though on the surface it seems to be “fine”. That’s why I started Soulfueled as a space for me to share what I was feeling out loud, and I was so grateful for all the responses, knowing that I wasn’t alone in how I felt.

I could’ve just abandoned Soulfueled and become one of those dead Substack statistics. But with all this time away, something was still calling me back… Even without writing for months, I kept getting emails for each new follower and subscriber. For me, that meant what I’ve been sharing resonates, and my message is still needed.

…but 2 questions still remained

Who am I now? Where is this all going?

So I took a step back and looked across everything I’ve written in the past 8 years, across the different pivots on my own identity work (from the scientific brainy NLP approach to the super spiritual woo soul-driven alignment), and across my different coaching niches (burnout recovery, conscious dating, and prior productivity focused Soulfueled).

What I noticed is that all of those pieces have been pointing toward the same underlying philosophy and the same goal I’ve approached my own life: It’s always been about being “Soulfueled”.

At its core, Soulfueled is a way of living where you show up from your own inner alignment and truth instead of external pressure, expectations, or the need to constantly prove your worth.

That started to show up in a few consistent ways (notice which ones you resonate with, too):

1. Recognizing the hidden patterns under common tendencies

As a highly capable person, you don’t usually struggle because you are lazy or unfocused. You struggle because your strengths have also created the patterns that turned into more obligations for you and reasons why you can’t stop doing so much.

Over time, those patterns can create lives that look successful on paper but feel increasingly uncomfortable and overwhelming on the inside.

Soulfueled helps you see those patterns clearly so you can choose how you want to live rather than simply continuing what has always worked.

2. Challenging the beliefs that equate effort to worth

You’ve learned early on that being useful, dependable, or high performing earned you more approval and security. So when something in life stops working, the instinct isn’t to pause. The instinct is to do MORE! Put in more effort. Shoulder more responsibilities. Do more fixing. So much so that you’ve turned more effort and more output into how much you’re worth.

Soulfueled questions that reflex, and invites you to untangle your worth from constant effort and overfunctioning, so your life isn’t built on proving yourself.

3. Stepping out of automatic problem solving mode

Your life can feel like a game of whack-a-mole… something pops up, and the instinct is to handle it quickly so everything keeps running. You fix and improve things. You optimize. You do whatever it takes to push through and whack that problem away.

But sometimes the issue isn’t efficiency. Sometimes the structure itself needs to change because you have changed inside it.

Soulfueled creates the space to see what is actually happening underneath the surface, instead of reacting on autopilot.

4. Supporting intentional adjustments as you grow

Life isn’t something you design or set up once and then maintain forever. You evolve. Your priorities shift. Your identity expands. And eventually, what once worked stops fitting.

Soulfueled normalizes that moment instead of treating it as failure. It treats it as feedback and more data points to consider as you encounter natural checkpoints in your life.

The goal is not to blow up your life or start over. The goal for Soulfueled is to notice when something no longer fits and adjust with awareness.

5. Building a life that can actually sustain you

Your capacity is the ultimate determining factor for whether your life works for you or not. It’s not about managing your time better by implementing better productivity hacks, but how much responsibility, pressure, and expectation you can realistically carry without draining yourself dry.

This is where you start to reevaluate what success means and looks like to you. Without capacity, you can’t do anything, no matter how hard you try. That’s why people burn out (or blow up their life), because they hit a point where they no longer have the capacity to keep doing what they’ve done anymore.

Soulfueled encourages you to evaluate your capacity and use it with more discernment, so that you can build a life that supports you rather than constantly demanding more from you.

What this space is here for

Soulfueled is a space and exploratory “sandbox” for honest reflections, trying things out, and questioning how you’ve been operating without needing to immediately fix anything.

It’s not here to tell you what to do or position itself as having all the answers. It’s here to bring attention to what’s been running in the background, so you can see it clearly and decide what still fits.

Soulfueled invites you to examine things like:

• Why are you carrying this much responsibility?

• When did effort become how you measure your worth?

• What parts of your life still feel true for you?

• What parts are you maintaining out of habit or pressure?

It’s less about “fixing” you and more about seeing clearly enough to make intentional choices.

Where this is heading

So when it comes down to it, Soulfueled isn’t something I’m “relaunching”. Instead, it’s something I’m understanding more clearly.

As I continue to evolve and grow, this space will naturally shift with it. Some things will become clearer. Some things will be left behind. And some things will finally be said in a way I couldn’t fully articulate before.

What I’ve learned through this pause is that you don’t have to force clarity. It tends to show up when there’s finally space to see what’s been there all along.

P.S. If something here helped you recognize what you’ve been dealing with or questioning, tap the 🤍 to let me know or share in the comments below.

P.P.S. There’s more behind this shift that I haven’t fully unpacked here, so I shared a closer look at it here.

There’s a quiet but very real tension that so many entrepreneurs carry but rarely name, and it sounds like this:

That sentence has probably floated through your mind more times than you’d like to admit. Maybe it shows up as resistance to showing up online, hesitating on selling and promoting yourself, or dreading those outreach and visibility strategies.

At some point, you’ve probably assumed the issue was you—your inconsistency, your lack of motivation, your own self sabotaging tendencies.

But what if the real issue wasn’t personal failure… but a strategic mismatch to the plan you were following?

Because here’s what no one tells you upfront:
Most common business advice is created by and for extroverts.

And if you’re not one, those tactics aren’t just uncomfortable—they’re unsustainable over time, especially if you keep overexerting yourself.

The real cost of overriding yourself

And that’s what I kept doing to myself. I was that introvert who kept overriding my own nature. I thought if I could just mimic extroverted behaviors by being louder, more visible, more “on”, then I’d finally succeed and “make it”.

But every time I pushed myself to perform in ways that weren’t true to me, I ended up burned out and disconnected, which made me energetically drained and feeling like a failure.

There had to be another way, so I decided to take another approach: If I no longer made myself feel wrong or flawed, how would I show up in a way that feels good to me?

As a way to understand my introverted nature more, I started reading ’s “Quiet” and it was fascinating to discover that in the early 1900s, American culture shifted from a “Culture of Character” to a “Culture of Personality,” where being bold, sociable, and magnetic became more valued than being moral, humble, or disciplined.

Confidence became about how loud and charming you are, not how grounded or honorable you are. This “extrovert ideal” was heavily reinforced by institutions like Harvard Business School, which intentionally trained leaders to speak up, stand out, and sell themselves, whether it aligned with who they were or not. As a result, modern society began equating success and likability with extroverted traits, often sidelining or devaluing the quieter strengths of introverts.

We’ve spent so long glorifying speed, visibility, and charisma that many entrepreneurs are only now realizing how much that extrovert-driven model has cost us. You’ve probably felt it yourself as that wide-swung pendulum is finally starting to swing back—toward slower, more intentional ways of working, and toward strategies that honor depth, intuition, and who we actually are underneath without the overachieving performance and grind.

Why visibility feels so hard… for some of us

In the online business world, being visible is marketed as nonnegotiable. You’re told to show up consistently, post more, engage more, be everywhere, and become a personal brand. With the help of AI, it seems like you have no excuse not to pump out nonstop content at faster rates.

But these behaviors are built on an extroverted foundation—fast action, high output, frequent interaction, and constant exposure.

For the go getters who excel in those interactions, those strategies can be easily effective as they energizes and excites those types of extroverted entrepreneurs.

But if you’re more introspective—someone who needs space to think, who processes deeply, and who prefers fewer but more meaningful connections—trying to keep up with that model feels like swimming upstream.

And the most dangerous part?

When it starts to feel soul draining, you don’t question the strategy.

You question yourself.

You wonder why something so “simple” feels so heavy.

You push through, thinking maybe if you just tried harder, it’d eventually click.

And slowly, without realizing it, you disconnect—from your business, from your voice, from your sense of joy, and from yourself.

The misalignment that drains you dry

If you’ve found yourself procrastinating on tactics you’ve been told are essential, there’s a good chance the core issue isn’t merely fear or laziness.

It’s energetic misalignment.

These tactics don’t just require time. More importantly, they require a certain type of energy output. Depending on how introverted you are, this type of output can be costly. What fuels an extrovert often drains an introvert. And when your business starts asking for more energy than it gives back, it’s not just a strategy problem. It’s a sustainability one.

Yet most entrepreneurs aren’t taught to recognize this. We’re taught to power through. We override our intuition and internal cues in service of what’s proven to work… even when it’s not proven to work for you in the same way.

This is what keeps so many driven entrepreneurs in quiet cycles of burnout, guilt, and second guessing themselves.

Strategies that favor extroverts

If you’ve ever felt like you’re “not doing enough,” this list might explain why.

These are commonly taught (and often glorified) business activities that reward extroverted behavior:

• Frequent live videos or public speaking

• Daily posting—multiple times a day or across multiple platforms

• Consistent high-touch engagement (comments, DMs, voice notes)

• Aggressive networking and cold outreach

• Being “always on” and reactive to trends

These activities often require outward-facing energy. They rely on fast, spontaneous expression. They reward continual presence and high resilience in a noisy and unpredictable environments.

And if you’re someone who needs to recharge alone, who processes deeply before responding, and who thrives in quieter, more intentional spaces, then these strategies may feel a bit off putting.

Where introverts quietly win

Being introverted doesn’t mean you’re shy, antisocial, or incapable of visibility. It just means you access your power in a different way.

You likely excel at:

• Long form content that’s thoughtful and deeply resonant

• 1:1 conversations that build trust and loyalty

• Email marketing that feels like a letter to a trusted friend

• Creating intentional experiences or self-paced offers that don’t rely on constant energy spikes

• Listening before speaking, and saying something that truly lands when you do

These aren’t lesser strategies. They’re simply quieter and more spacious, which makes them feel more sustainable. They build depth over hype. They compound value over time. And they tend to attract clients who crave the same type of thoughtful, grounded leadership you naturally exhibit.

How to honor your quiet power

You don’t have to abandon everything extroverted. Some parts of your business will require you to stretch. The point isn’t to hide behind the introvert label or make excuses for your avoidance. It’s to be honest about how your energy works and use that new perspective to make smarter decisions that work better for you.

For example:

• Instead of copying someone else’s playbook, filter the advice through your own nervous system and choose tactics that fit your rhythm, not just your industry.

  • Ask: Is this truly the right strategy for me? Where have I been trying to force fit myself into someone else’s momentum?

• Instead of pushing through, build in recovery time after visibility-heavy work.

  • Ask: Which tasks feel more draining? What does my recovery strategy look like?

• Instead of putting yourself down, consider how you can leverage your strengths to achieve the outcome in another way.

  • Ask: How can I get similar results by showing up in a way that feels better for me?

The more you let your inner wisdom lead, the more ease you’ll feel—not just in how you work, but in the results that follow. Resolving these misalignments allows you to work more effectively and more enjoyably in your business.

Because the truth is, you don’t need to be louder. You need to be more aligned! Once you are, you’ll be surprised how much power your presence already holds.

Btw, these are the kind of the conversations I wish more of us were having, and it’s one I’m continuing to explore in Soulfueled.

If you’re an introvert craving a more sustainable way to work, consider what’s one tactic you’ve been told is ‘essential’ that just doesn’t work for you? Leave a comment below, and let’s talk about it.

P.S. If this helped you name the quiet friction between how you want to work and what you’ve been told, tap the 💜 to let me know. Share or restack this post to help others rethink what’s really draining them.

There was a time when I labeled every hesitation, every delay, and every “I’ll do it later” as a personality flaw. That it was something I was doing wrong or purely just suck at. I told myself I had a consistency problem. I even doubted whether I was really cut out for this.

But what if we chose to believe differently?

What if our avoidance, procrastination, and resistance aren’t signs that we’re broken—but indicators that our inner Work OS is merely outdated or bloated with things you no longer or never really needed?

Truth is, many of us are still running on old survival strategies—ones we learned in childhood and picked up in high-pressure environments. They helped us succeed back then… but they were never meant to sustain us long term. And now? They're quietly fueling the exact hustle cycles we’re so desperate to break.

If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in cycles of overworking, burning out, doubting, or numbing out, this is for you.

The hidden function of your “flaws”

Avoidance often feels like laziness or failure. But more often, it’s fear in disguise.

Fear of not getting it right. Fear of letting others down. Fear of wasting precious time and resources.

You avoid what feels uncertain. You procrastinate when you don’t trust your capabilities. And when the pressure builds, your system defaults to the one strategy that’s always “worked” before: overworking.

You overdo to feel in control. You say “yes” when you’re already maxed out. You convince yourself that you just need “one more push” before you can finally rest.

But here’s the truth most entrepreneurs don’t see:

Overworking is often a trauma-informed response to a world that praised you for self abandonment.

It looks like grit. It looks like productivity. But it’s a silent signal that you haven’t yet learned to feel safe having complete trust in yourself and while being still.

Breaking the glass ceiling I didn't know I created

One of the most transformational shifts I’ve experienced during this slowdown came when I finally faced the fears I didn’t even know I was carrying.

I always thought I was just being “realistic” or “practical” about my business goals. If I followed what others are doing, then I’ll succeed, too, right?!

But beneath that logic was a quiet set of internal rules I had never questioned. What I thought was strategic planning was actually me operating inside a self-imposed glass ceiling—one built from fear, doubt, and outdated beliefs I didn’t even realize were running the show.

That changed the moment I sat with one unexpectedly powerful journal prompt, framed from a different perspective I hadn’t considered before.

What poured out was a handwritten list of 55 fears! It filled pages. Some I already knew. Most I had never consciously named.

Fears about visibility. Fears about failure. Fears about what success might cost me. Fears about being not enough. Fears about whether I could truly find a slower and more sustainable way that works for me.

Once I could see them, I could start to address and release them. These fears felt like invisible shackles that kept me busily churning behind the scenes and made me believe in my excuses more than my dreams.

Naming my fears gave me back my power. That list became a mirror, showing me exactly where I was holding myself back.

And I’m not done… I’m still working through that same prompt—every day this week. Each instance helps me shine light on all that dark and scary stuff I’ve been avoiding. It is showing me the deeper fears that have quietly shaped how I show up in my business without me even realizing it.

Here are a few things I’ve noticed and heard from others as well:

• You default to what's familiar, not what's aligned.

  Many of us unknowingly recreate old work patterns even after leaving corporate. The same pressure. The same guilt around rest. The same urgency to prove ourselves. Even when you're trying to build something different, your nervous system will often steer you back to what feels familiar—overworking, overthinking, or overserving—because those are the patterns that once kept you safe.

• You underestimate how much decision fatigue is draining your clarity.
  Constant context switching, open tabs (literal and mental), and too many options subtly erode your ability to follow through. You cannot do your way out of exhaustion. Rest isn’t a reward. It’s a requirement. If you don’t give yourself time and space to recover, it will be forced upon you at some point.

• You default to work as a way to avoid emotional discomfort.
  It feels productive, but often it’s just a more socially acceptable way to stay distracted from the hard inner questions. But often, those discomfort are just signals that something needs your attention—your energy is misaligned, your expectations are off, or your next move doesn't feel safe enough yet. They’re meant to show us something but we’ve been trained to ignore their wise whispers and just push through.

The more you bring these patterns into awareness, the less grip they have on you.

The blindspots that keep you in burnout

You might not see these at first glance, but they continuously shape how you work:

• Avoidance is easier than admitting what you really want. Because naming it means you might have to confront your limits—or the beliefs, commitments, and expectations that no longer fit.

• Procrastination isn’t always about time. Sometimes it’s about your identity and what you choose to believe about yourself. Sometimes it’s a deeply rooted fear you’re scared to face. Sometimes it’s your mind calling for some form of mental rest.

• You confuse pressure with purpose.
  That internal urgency feels like motivation, but it’s often just unprocessed fear dressed up as drive. And whenever that pressure loosens, you find a way to crank it back up to recreate that seemingly needed fuel to keep you going.

• You’ve normalized inner tension as part of the job.
  Subtle resistance, low level dread, or anxiety around your work becomes so familiar you stop questioning if it has to be there. Just because you’re used to it, it doesn’t mean it’s right or necessary.

In order to create the kind of work life I truly crave, I have to stop letting these outdated patterns run the show. I can’t keep repeating them and expect a different result.

This part of the journey isn’t always easy. But I’m choosing to believe in what’s possible.

And for me, that begins with one honest, undeniable truth:
Admitting to myself that I’ve been ineffectively using my time and energy.

Tracking the truth behind my efforts

In my recent Sandbox Experiments, I’ve been testing one intentional shift: paying closer attention to how I’m using my time.

Not because I want to optimize every minute to be more efficient, but because I want to be more honest with myself and understand what my current patterns are actually revealing. No more mindless autopilot. No more wondering where all my time went.

It’s about identifying where I am unconsciously recreating unnecessary pressure, burnout, or overwhelm… and finally having the data to choose differently.

This not only improves my business outcomes, but also how I feel when I’m doing the work, too.

Your ideal Work Structure is based off of two essential elements—how much time you give yourself to work, and how much focused energy you have to give when you show up.

So I created two customized tracker templates to (1) map my natural energy and focus cycles throughout the day and (2) how I’m choosing to spend my time across what I claim to matter most.

At first glance, it sounds simple. But the clarity it’s brought me has been nothing short of game changing.

Not because it helps me be more effective, but because it helps me finally understand:

• Why I keep defaulting to certain habits

• Where my energy gets drained without me realizing it

• How to work with my natural tendencies, instead of constantly fighting them

I’m currently testing and refining these templates. Once they’re ready, I’ll be offering them to those of you who want to explore your time and energy with more honesty, clarity, and intention, too.

Because when you can see what’s actually going on, you stop managing your time based on guilt, pressure, or inherited expectations. You start building a business that finally supports you.

Until then, I’ll leave you with this:

• What is your time and energy really going towards?

• Is how you’re spending your time and energy actually working for you?

• What do you wish you had more time for?

You don’t need to overhaul everything overnight. You don’t need to shame yourself into structure. And you definitely don’t need to work harder to fix what’s never been broken.

You just need to start paying attention.

That’s how you begin to shift—gently, intentionally, and in ways that finally support the kind of life you actually want to live.

Keep asking better questions. Keep noticing your truths. And let’s keep experimenting… together.

P.S. If this helped you better understand why you’ve been feeling stuck, tap the ❤️ to let me know. Share or restack this post to help someone else shift their story—and finally stop feeling broken for needing a different way to work.

There’s a hidden work pattern stealing more energy than you realize.

It creeps in quietly, and has become such a norm that you don’t even notice doing it anymore.

It shows up when you open a new tab mid-sentence. When you reply to DMs and emails while watching a webinar. When you check your phone while you’re in the middle of a conversation.

From the outside, it looks like you’re staying on top of things.

Inside?

There’s a quiet fraying. The small, continual erosion of your attention. It convinced you that the more you do, the more output you produce, the more progress you make.

But when you look closely, you are “getting things done,” but it doesn’t feel truly complete. You’re constantly moving, but not quite arriving. You wrap up your day wondering why you’re so drained.

It’s easy to blame your to do list, your lack of time, or the weight of responsibilities.

But here’s what it really costs: Your presence. Your ability to think clearly with depth. Your EQ. And here’s something unexpected, it’s killing your brain cells!

Not all at once—but slowly and subtly, until you don’t even realize how much you’ve drifted from what you’re truly capable of… each time you multitask.

It seems like we know it’s not the best for us. I shared a Note asking people to tell me what they thought about multitasking in less than 5 words, and there were some great answers:

…but how often are you still doing it?

It doesn't just split your attention. It splits your identity.

Every time you context switch from task to task, you fracture your internal rhythm.

You train yourself to operate in fragments, in tiny sprints.

You give partial energy to everything, and full energy to rarely anything.

And then you wonder why your creative work feels diluted. Why you reread the same sentence three times and still can’t absorb it. Why your ideas feel foggy, even though you’ve been “working” all day.

That is the deeper harm of multitasking.

When I started noticing how multitasking was draining me, I realized it wasn’t just my energy slipping away—it was my belief in my own capacity. Not just to do… but to creatively think, to focus, and to trust my own process.

I began to believe that “I work better under pressure”, so I created shorter timelines to force myself into get what I needed done. Then I start designing my work day and business around that urgency, instead of my genius.

I thought I could hack my way into being more effective, but what started as a coping mechanism became a way of operating. A survival pattern that quietly disconnected me from my best self. That is how multitasking became more than just a bad habit.

This 4 Day Work Week Experiment is my reclamation, a conscious unlearning, and exploration to undo that harm.

What multitasking actually teaches your nervous system

It’s easy to overlook because it feels familiar and normal. You think it’s not affecting you, only because you’ve been doing it for decades and your body has found a way to cope with it.

But underneath it all, multitasking tells your nervous system to stay alert and be on edge. It keeps you stuck in shallow engagement, never fully landing in one thing before leaping to the next.

And when you try to slow down? Try to take your time, go deeper, or focus for more than a few minutes?

You feel anxious. Your brain tries to distract you. The quiet you’ve been craving suddenly feels uncomfortable.

Why?

Because your brain has been trained to equate stillness with danger, with falling behind, and missing opportunities.

This is how multitasking becomes a negative feedback loop: You feel scattered, so you try to do more. But doing more makes you feel even more out of sync. Whenever you want to rest, your brain guilt trips you back into doing more. Rest no longer soothes you—it agitates you.

So you’re not here to just about learning another productivity strategy to get more done in less time.

You are here to relearn how to feel safe in your own focus again.

Yes, multitasking actually damages your brain

Let’s drop the “it’s just how I work” defense and get real about what multitasking is doing to your brain.

A mentor once told me about a Forbes article that said, “multitasking kills your brain cells.” That sounded extreme… until I looked deeper and learned that the damage isn’t theoretical.

That article stated that “A study at the University of London found that participants who multitasked during cognitive tasks experienced IQ score declines that were similar to what they'd expect if they had smoked marijuana or stayed up all night. IQ drops of 15 points for multitasking men lowered their scores to the average range of an 8-year-old child.”

Another study discovered that heavy multitaskers have reduced gray matter density in the anterior cingulate cortex—the part of your brain responsible for empathy, emotional regulation, attention, and decision making. The very skills you rely on to lead, relate, and create.

That’s what’s happening inside your head while you’re toggling between tabs!

But it’s not just your IQ that takes the hit. It’s also your EQ.

Multitasking lowers your emotional intelligence because it dulls your awareness. You stop noticing tone, body language, and the subtleties in people’s words. You miss what’s being said between the lines, and your ability to respond with clarity and care gets compromised.

You become less attuned. Less discerning. Less connected.

Not because you don’t care… but because you’re not fully there. You are present with your body but not with your full, undivided attention.

That disconnection continues to build in other areas of your life, too. You’ve probably heard of the phrase “how you do one thing is how you do everything”, right?

It shows up in missed cues, weakened rapport, and degrading ability to connect at a deeper level. (That also includes the relationship with yourself, too.)

So NO! Multitasking is far from being harmless. It affects how you think, how you learn, how you lead, and how you connect.

And for entrepreneurs who are the face of their business? That is everything.

When you trade attention for speed, you dilute your power.

It’s tempting to believe that doing more means you’re being more.

But when you dilute your focus, you dilute your depth. And when you dilute your depth, you disconnect from the very thing that makes your work matter.

Your clearest insights (the ones that land with your audience and actually shift something for them) don’t show up during a flurry of context switching. They arrive in the stillness, immersion in the space where your mind gets to complete a full thought without interruption.

That’s where your voice strengthens, where your genius gets sharper, and where your work resonates deeper.

You aren’t just be “productive”. You’re making a difference. This is why focusing on multipurposing has been such a impactful shift for me.

Because it doesn’t just change your work flow and Work Structure.

It changes your Work Identity. Because you’re no longer someone who “tries to do it all”. You become someone who sees clearly, chooses wisely, and honors what truly matters to you.

You’re not broken.

Your focus is scattered because you’ve been taught that more is better and that your worth is tied to your output.

But that way of working has a shelf life and dire long term consequences. It leaves you feeling perpetually behind, even when you're checking things off. It disconnects you from the parts of yourself that are wise, creative, and present.

You don’t need more hustle. You need more clarity. Not about what to do next, but about what deserves your full presence.

Your real power isn’t in what you can juggle. It’s in what you can hold—fully, deeply, and without distraction.

Choose that. Choose that each time you notice yourself multitasking or chasing distractions. Choose to stop, reclaim your focus, and save your brain cells, too.

P.S. If this post helped you rethink how multitasking shows up in your day, tap the ❤️. Share or restack this to help someone else unplug from the multitask trap.

✨ A special thanks to from The Doers Club and from the Vibe Coder for their awesome comments. Check out their Substacks, and maybe one might just earn a spot in your inbox.

RELATED POST

I’m pissed, I’m tired of all this, and I had to get out.

Not out of my business… but out of the noise. Out of the Bro Marketing bubble. Out of the echo chamber of ego, urgency, and those empty promises that dominate the online business space.

This industry feels broken, and it has done harm for the sake of making a profit.

People spent so much money, time, and energy… chasing while still feeling lost, pushing while still questioning everything, and achieving while still not feeling whole or fulfilled.

I’ve watched too many smart, purpose-driven entrepreneurs (myself included) get manipulated into buying $1k, $2k, $5k, and $10k+ “miracle” programs or courses that were never aligned to begin with. Not because they didn’t need the help, but because someone sold them a shiny solution wrapped in fear, false urgency, and that I-know-better-than-you authority.

THAT is the dark side of marketing.

It’s sneaky psychological warfare disguised as freaking business advice! (Ugh! This got me so riled up writing this!!)

And I’m so done with it…

Bro Marketing didn’t just warp the way we sell. It warped the way we think, and it hijacked how we work.

It drilled into us that urgency equals value. That being constantly busy means you’re “productive” and how that proves your serious dedication and unwavering commitment. That results should come fast, impressive, and visible—or you’re doing something wrong. That if you’re not scaling, automating, or optimizing every damn minute of your time, you’re behind or failing.

Bro Marketing isn’t just in the funnels and the fake countdown timers.

It’s in the color-coded calendars and productivity planners.

It’s in the optimized to do lists and back-to-back-call schedules.

It’s in the glorification of “getting up at 5am”, “the ONE strategy that rules them all”, and “slay your goals like a SHE-EO or Girl Boss.” (Oh yes, Bro Marketing is in the female entrepreneurial space, too.)

So many of them set unrealistic standards and promote quick fixes. They often try to get you to push through your natural human tendencies and neglect the unique circumstances of your life and the nuances of your goals. Then oh, wait… for… it… Cue making you feel inadequate and frustrated when those methods don't yield those promised results in a short period of time.

Through all that, I thought there was something wrong with me. That I failed because I couldn’t live up to their standards and perform their strategies to the T. And even when I tried, I burned out.

Here are some the Bro Marketing equivalents in the productivity world:

• Weaponized urgency = “You’re just one routine away from 10x-ing your life.” “Treat every minute like it matters.” “You can sleep when you’re dead.”

• Manufactured scarcity = “You have the same 24 hours as (insert your role model).” “There’s never enough time, so you have to squeeze more in.” “You only get one shot at a first impression.” “Your competition is already ahead of you.”

• False authority = “This guru’s morning routine is the key to success, so copy it.” “I’ve worked with thousands of clients, and this system always works.” “Only amateurs/procrastinators/dabblers wing their success.”

• FOMO = “Everyone’s doing this, and it changed their life!” “You should be way further along by now.” “This thing helped me hit 6 figures.”

It’s the… same… manipulative pressure, just dressed up as “high performance.”

And all that is messing with our Work Identity.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that:

• If you slow down, you’re lazy.

• If you rest, you’re uncommitted.

• If you’re not producing or growing, you’re falling behind.

• If you aren’t always on, you don’t want it badly enough.

That identity is built on pressure, performance, and pretending like burnout is just part of the deal.

I’ve lived that, I know better, and hey, there are times these tactics still influence me.

So the Work OS Sandbox isn’t just a cute idea. It’s a necessary rebellion.

It’s a space to detox from all that noise.

To pause. Reflect. Remember what you actually want.

To challenge the lies that shaped your pace, your priorities, and your self worth.

To discover your own unique productivity combination.

Because if we don’t slow down and rewire the way we work, we’ll keep…

• Building businesses that look good online but feel like pressure cookers inside

• Performing success instead of experiencing it

• Abandoning ourselves to meet someone else’s definition of productivity or success

This is what needs to change

We need to redefine what real productivity looks like—one that actually leads to fulfillment, clarity, and choice.

It’s not that you’re broken, inept, or a complete failure for not getting these “right” or not being able to keep these up long term.

It’s because you were given these one-size-fits-all tactics since they’re easier to sell versus teaching you the deeper principles for why it works so that you could figure out how to make it effective for yourself.

That’s why in the Work OS Sandbox, I’m building around these principles:

• Go at your own pace – because urgency is not a virtue

• Reflection fuels progress – because clarity isn’t found in the noise

• Set your own standards – because your business should fit you and your life

• Less but better – because doing more doesn’t make you more

• Embrace imperfect action – because progress is made in motion, not perfection

• Patient perseverance – because rushing ruins what resilience refines

• Fulfillment is the real metric – because peace, not pressure, is the point

This isn’t about working less just to “relax more” or work on your laptop while at the beach.

This is about working differently because the old way was never built for entrepreneurs like us—people who care, who feel, who want their work to actually mean something, and who are no longer willing to sacrifice what truly matters to us.

So yes, on the surface, I’m testing the 4 day work week model.

But more importantly, I’m dismantling the shackles of “hustle equals worth.”

This is the new way I choose to work:
Steadier, even if it’s slower. Smarter with more purpose. Most importantly, mine!

In the journey of discovering mine, I’ll show you how you can experiment your way to yours, too.

Here’s how we’ll go about this

Each week, I’ll talk about a specific concept and tie that back to a particular element of the Work OS. That’ll help you start seeing where in your Work OS needs some updating and restructuring.

Since I’ll be jumping around, tackling this as I go, you can always refer back to this Work OS Frameworks page, where I’ve organized content, resources, and larger-scale experiments for the Work OS element you want to focus on.

At the end of each Post, I’ll also include “Experiment Field Notes” to give you more context and details about where I’m at, what I’m focusing on, and suggested strategies to experiment with based on where you’re at. Paid subscribers will also gain access to additional templates, resources, and in-depth insights, when relevant.

As for the tracking metrics, I am highlighting several practical contexts to ideally help you formulate better apples-to-apples comparisons to your journey. I’ll be sharing the stage of my business, the progress of my project, my average work day hours this week, how many days I worked, and relevant Context Notes.

Btw, here’s an important distinction I’m making: untangle the “Business Season” stages you’re in from the “Project Phase” ones. Because each stage has its own unique requirements of time, energy, and focus. With better context and awareness, you’ll be able to map out and spot trends in how you work on a regular basis, compared to the times that do require more of you.

Without further ado, here goes…

4 Day Work Week Experiment ⟬ 2025 Edition № 01 ⟭ Apr 5-11

Context Notes:

I’m building the Work OS framework and Sandbox as I go through this 4 Day Work Week Experiment. So that’s compiling triple the amount of planning, strategizing, researching, and building simultaneously. Yup, A LOT of behind-the-scenes work and being in multiple stages at once.

Everything feels like it’s taking longer at the moment because I’m trying to thoroughly think things through and get feedback from coaches, peers, and clients along the way, too. My brain is filled with so many ideas and possibilities, so it feels like I’m marinating in this creative problem solving mode… all… the… time.

I admit it is a bit hard to pull away, and I’m grateful for my husband for his gentle, kind nudges for me to wrap things up in the evenings.

At the same time, it’s super rewarding and exhilarating that I finally know where I’m taking this Substack and how I’m planting that flag, declaring what I’m all about and how I can help you. I’m loving every moment of this, so even though it’s “work”, it doesn’t feel like it.

Factors to consider:

• I might need to clarify what I define as “work”. Are learning and journaling my thoughts (to mentally process all my ideas) considered “work”, too? What if enjoyable work IS my hobby? (I know, I know… I totally sound like a workaholic there.)

• I’m participating in Notes Challenges right now, so I’m also spending a lot of time on Substack Notes at the moment. This isn’t sustainable in the long run, so what can this look like in the long run?

Average work day hours:

7am to 830pm (- 2 hrs for meals - 1.5 hrs of personal time)

Work days per week:

5 days + Sunday afternoon

✨ I know, not ideal. But this gives you a clear idea of how “bad” it’s gotten, and you’ll see how I’ll go from this overworked state into one that is more sustainable with more ease and freedom, without my work taking over my life anymore.

Reconsider…

Is your definition of productivity truly yours… or was it inherited?

Ask yourself:

• Whose work ethic influenced what you think “productive” should look like?

• What unspoken rules are you still trying to follow—about time, effort, and results?

• Are you optimizing for peace… or performance?

Most of us didn’t choose this hustle blueprint. We just absorbed it from others around us over time. The good news is that you can uninstall it!

This is your permission to pause and challenge it all. The way you work should support who you are, not pull you further out of sync.

Experiments to explore

🧱 If you're feeling STUCK…
You might feel like you’re running on autopilot—doing things because you’re “supposed to,” not because they feel right. That disconnection can be frustrating and disorienting. It’s okay to take a breath and pause here.

Try this journal prompt:
“What expectations or ‘rules’ have I adopted that no longer serve me?”

Sometimes clarity starts with noticing what no longer fits.

🧪 If you want to EXPLORE…
You’re starting to question the hustle habits and want to try something that feels more like you. Awesome! You don’t need a whole new system—just a small rebellion.

Try this:
Pick one work habit you’ve outgrown (like always responding immediately or stacking your calendar).

Release it for a day and notice what frees up—mentally and emotionally.

📐 If you're ready to REFINE…
You’re here to protect your energy and refine your systems with more intention going forward. Now’s a great time to zoom in on and highlight what is still subtly driven by pressure.

Try this:
Choose one part of your workweek, such as your Monday start, your planning ritual, or your time blocks, and ask: “Is this supporting my wellbeing, or did I set that up due to some sort of productivity guilt?”

Consider how you can adjust it in a way that feels more spacious, not stricter.

P.S. If this Post gave voice to frustrations you’ve been quietly holding or helped you see how deeply hustle culture has shaped your pace, tap the ❤️ to honor that clarity. Share or restack to help others recognize how bro marketing might still be subtly warping the way they work. The Work OS Sandbox is here to help us all rebuild with intention.

I’ve written and rewritten this Post several times this week, and it kept coming back to this one question:

“Where and how do I start this 4 Day Work Week Experiment?”

There are so many ways to approach this, so many things I could start putting in place.

But there’s one thing I know for sure…

This IS the right thing to do and dive into.

Because once I carefully took the time to make sure this felt right…

Once I committed and told myself, “Alright, let’s do this!”…

All these ideas were coming at me like a fire hose, and I’ve been trying to parse through all that piece by piece in the past 2.5 weeks. Imagine trying to build a dam as a tsunami is coming at you at high speeds and large volumes. It’s been wild, but at the same time, super exciting, as that feedback confirmed this was the right direction for me AND where to take this Substack to help you, too.

Here’s where we’ll begin:

1. I sorted the common problems into a framework that’ll help us clearly identify where our potential problems are coming from. This creates a foundation we will build upon in tandem.

2. I’ve created an “environment” or space for us to explore these challenges with less pressure, more curiosity, and ideally, meeting you where you’re at… because we’re all experiencing (and will experience) these different challenges in different stages of our business. Let’s evolve together wherever you’re starting from.

SO! What I’ve uncovered so far is that the 4 Day Work Week Experiment is a part of something bigger—bigger than my and our situation, bigger than this Substack itself.

I’m diving deep into a systemic problem we entrepreneurs have inherited and are now stuck in.

You’ve learned all sorts of productivity hacks. Read THE books on how to work better and “smarter,” promising to help you “do more in less time.”

But after trying all those methods, why are you still working the way you do?

Why do you still feel behind, stretched thin, or pushed to the brink of exhaustion?

The truth is:

You don’t have a productivity problem.

You have a Work Operating System problem.

The hidden pattern behind your overwhelm and burnout

Most people try to change their work lives by tackling surface-level symptoms—trying to find the “right” business strategies to help them grow, tweaking their to do lists, downloading another productivity app, trying to power through with more motivation, coffee, or creating a tighter structure to maximize their output.

But the truth is… that approach only scratches the surface.

If you want your work life to feel different (more spacious, fulfilled, aligned, and with less pressure, stress, and hustle), then the problem needs to be tackled at a deeper level.

Begin with HOW you work.

Not just what you’re doing, but how you do your work.

Why traditional productivity advice fails you

Hustle culture trained you to override your body, ignore your needs, and call it “ambition”. You didn’t build that system, but you did adopt it. And now it’s running your business and YOU on autopilot.

The real problem is that it was never made for people like us.

No, you’re not lazy. You’re not undisciplined. You don’t lack ambition.

You’ve just been trying to thrive inside systems built for urgency, pressure, and external validation.

You inherited your way of working—from hustle culture, from high pressure bosses, from internet gurus selling you strategies that never really fit you.

And you’re tired of all that, right?!

It feels hard to thrive because you’ve been drowning in survival mode, trying to make it all work. Unconsciously, you’ve made hustling your default because you thought that was the only way to succeed, and that’s why you keep driving yourself to burn out and exhaustion.

But there is another way…

Traditional productivity advice tells you to wake up earlier. Work in sprints. Hack your habits.

But it never asks what you actually need.

It teaches you to optimize, not to align.

It tells you to do more, not how to feel better.

It urges you to chase success, not to define it on your terms.

So you end up pushing harder through the misalignment. You override your intuitive signals. You push down your inner wisdom for what others deem is “right”.

And when you still feel tired, stuck, or uninspired… you blame yourself. (I’ve been there waayyy too many times, and that was a good chunk of 2024 for me.)

You wonder:

• “Why can’t I stay consistent?”

• “Why is it so hard to stay focused?”

• “Why does it never feel like enough, even when I’m doing all the things?”

• “When will I stop burning out and finally get ’there’?”

Here’s the reality:

Most productivity advice treats your symptoms, not your system.

It gives you one-size-fits-all tools, not teaching you how to make it work for you.

It was built for constantly-on performance, not sustainable peace.

And if you’re a purpose-driven entrepreneur, you’re not just trying to get things done. You want to do something impactful. Something sustainable. Soulfueled. Personal. Real.

So, no, you don’t need more hacks.

What matters more is a better foundation—a way of working that honors your energy, your values, and your vision, not one that guilts you into hustling harder.

That’s the shift. That’s exactly what I’m addressing, exploring, and transforming in the 4 Day Work Week Experiment.

Upgrading HOW you work

Your “Work OS” (aka Work Operating System) is the foundation behind how you typically operate on a day-to-day basis on your work, often without you realizing it.

It’s not just the tools or the schedule you use. It’s the deeper structure influencing your pace, focus, capacity, and clarity. In other words, it’s the full set of elements that shape how you show up, how you feel, and how you function.

It addresses these 3 common problems:

1. CHRONIS OVERWHELM AND SCATTERED FOCUS - Most entrepreneurs are spinning their wheels because they’re trying to do everything without a clear direction. The Work OS framework helps you define what actually matters… so you can stop reacting and start working with focus and purpose.

2. SYSTEMS THAT DON’T FIT AND CREATE BURNOUT - Trying to follow generic productivity hacks or hustle-heavy strategies leads to friction, inconsistency, and burnout. This framework helps you rebuild the way you work around your energy, values, and work style… so it becomes sustainable.

3. INVISIBLE MISALIGNMENTS THAT DETAIL PROGRESS - When something feels off but you can’t name it, you stay stuck in trial and error. The Work OS gives you language and structure to diagnose what’s not working—whether it’s your rhythm, identity, or structure… so you can address the root cause, not just the symptoms.

That’s what this Work OS framework does. This is where I choose to make a difference and help guide entrepreneurs out of hustle for fulfillment, guilt for clarity, and burnout for sustainable peace.

We’re starting at the root—the foundation of how you work—so you can build a life and business that supports who you are becoming, not who you’ve been trying to be.

Together, we’ll explore the 5 core elements that shape how your business functions: Work Life Vision, Work Identity, Work Rhythm, Work Structure, and Work Life Integration.

When you understand these 5 elements, you can finally stop guessing. You can pinpoint the misalignment and shift the right lever to improve, instead of overhauling everything or blaming yourself.

In my 4 Day Work Week Experiment, I’ll show you how I’m actively applying this framework—not to “do more in less time,” but to rebuild my work life from exactly where I am now to how I truly want it to look and feel like.

If you’re craving more peace, more clarity, and more fulfillment in how you work, this is how we begin: Read more about the 5 core elements of the Work OS here.

And that is only the beginning… I gave this bigger vision, purpose, and exploratory space a name, too.

Explore with me in the “Work OS Sandbox”

A guided testing ground to reimagine how you work—through experiments, reflection, and intentional choices… all without the pressure to get it “right” immediately.

It’s a soft, safe space for hard things.

Instead of pushing harder, you’ll experiment gently, rebuild with intention, and grow in a way that feels sustainable, aligned, and energizing. This space honors where you’re at right now, while giving you room to evolve how you work in a way that feels good, grounded, and true to you.

I named it the “Work OS Sandbox” because I wanted to create a quiet, reflective space for purpose driven entrepreneurs to play with possibility—without the noise, pressure, or performance of the loud entrepreneurial “playground” so many of us get stuck in. A sandbox is where you can build, reshape, and test things freely. It’s not about perfection. It’s about exploration. That’s exactly the energy I wanted this space to hold.

The Work OS Sandbox invites you to slow down, tune in, and experiment with how you work best. It’s where you get to upgrade your inner operating system—your habits, your mindset, your rhythms—in a way that supports clarity, ease, and fulfillment. This is an intentional space where you can try new things without judgment, honor your energy, and begin (re)building a sustainable business that actually feels like yours.

By being here with me… in these Posts, I welcome you into the Work OS Sandbox. Read more about it here.

What’s next

Phew~ Now with all these foundational elements laid out, in the upcoming Posts, I’ll walk you through how I’m actively applying this framework inside my 4 Day Work Week Experiment.

You’ll see:

• How I’m adjusting each part of my Work OS in real time

• The small (but powerful) shifts that are already creating more ease

• How you can begin evaluating your own Work OS, too

Next week, I’ll share more about my current workaholic state (which I’m still in and haven’t tweaked just yet) and which Work OS element I’ll be addressing first.

Remember, you’re not meant to work like everyone else. Let’s design your way forward and make your Work OS work for you, instead of against you.

P.S. If this helped you realize it’s not about doing more, but doing it differently, tap the 💜 to let that truth sink in. Share or restack to invite others into a more sustainable path forward.

Ever feel like everyone else has figured it out… except you?

Their follower and subscriber count keeps growing… while yours feels like such a slow crawl, no matter what you do.

They have more clients and making more money… while you don’t understand what you’re doing wrong, so you keep trying what they’re doing, hoping that’ll get you better results.

They have a VA (virtual assistant) or a team… while you’re going at it alone, juggling all these different projects and responsibilities.

You scroll in comparison.

You analyze the differences.

You take note of your own situation.

You try so hard—spending hours learning, tweaking, and doing… but you still feel like you’re steps behind.

Have you noticed how the more you compare, the more that sense of envy or frustration grows within you?

Instead of building momentum, you stay stuck chasing after other people’s strategies, hoping for better progress:

• Maybe I should try what they’re doing.

• Their success means they’re doing something right—should I be doing that, too?

• I don’t want to fall behind. I need to keep up.

Btw, comparison doesn’t always feel like self doubt.

It disguises itself as ambition, inspiration, and smart decision making. It convinces you that if you just follow the “right” strategy, framework, or trend, you’ll unlock success.

You keep seeking what others are doing, and tweak your plans or approach based on what’s working for them.

You then fill your time chasing new ideas, bouncing between strategies, and constantly pivoting—never truly committing to one path long enough to see results.

And before you know it, another week, another month, another year has passed—and you’re still searching for the thing that will finally work.

I had to learn my lesson the hard way, spending so much time chasing after different approaches:

I podcasted. I wrote books. I spoke on stages. I was featured on media and tv. I did webinars, workshops, and group coaching programs. I built and scrapped websites. I tried waaay too many programs and platforms. I got certified and trained in various modalities of coaching and techniques for mental and emotional release work. I hired coaches and joined masterminds. I bought countless books, courses, and programs—some I never even touched.

…and all the money I spent over the years could’ve been a down payment for a house, seriously.

That chase can be thrilling, but also very costly with your money, time, energy, and mental wellbeing.

Plus, the more I compared, the more lost I felt:

I second guessed my pricing, because I saw what others were charging and wondered if I was undervaluing or overvaluing myself.

I changed my content strategy multiple times because I thought I should be modeling what top creators or influencers were doing.

I abandoned offers before it had time to gain traction, because I saw someone else succeeding with something different and I thought maybe I was on the wrong track.

I told myself I was being strategic and adaptable, but really?

I was chasing someone else’s success instead of building my own.

…and that was quite the gut punch when I finally came to that realization.

This is just a subset of the potential ways continual comparison and chasing strategies sneakily sabotage entrepreneurs in a constant cycle of second guessing and switching directions.

Why this feels like a shortcut… but it isn’t

Your brain isn’t trying to sabotage you. It’s just trying to keep you safe from uncertainty. Comparison isn’t just about admiration—it’s a survival mechanism designed to help you feel like you’re making the “right” choice.

It’s your mind’s way of shielding you from:

• Fear of choosing wrong—so you look at others for validation instead of trusting your own decisions.

• Fear of missing out—so you constantly shift gears, worried that you’re falling behind.

• Fear of commitment—so you keep one foot in, one foot out, afraid to go all in on your own vision.

But instead of helping you, this cycle keeps you in endless motion without real momentum. You start and stop. You pivot and tweak. You convince yourself you’ll commit once you find the “perfect” path.

Oftentimes, by copying others, you’re losing out on what truly makes you unique and not leveraging what you’re actually great at.

The hidden cost of constantly measuring yourself against others

One of the biggest pitfalls I see growth focused entrepreneurs fall into is Endless Comparisonitis Chase—the belief that success comes from adopting what’s working for others instead of staying committed to your own path.

Every time you switch gears, you reinforce the idea that what you’re doing isn’t “enough”. That hesitation becomes a habit. That habit becomes your default. Before you know it, you’ve wasted resources endlessly tweaking instead of compounding efforts in a consistent approach.

This self sabotaging behavior is what I call an inner “Disruptor”, and it might show up like this:

• You constantly refine your strategy based on what others are doing, instead of sticking with one long enough to see real results.

• You keep jumping from one offer, niche, or business model to another, chasing what seems to be working best at the moment.

• You feel behind every time you see someone else’s success, leading you to believe you must be missing something.

• You struggle to trust your own instincts, always looking for external validation before making a move.

If any of this resonates, you might be stuck chasing external sources of validation while losing sight of your own vision of success and noticing what actually works for you.

Here’s the truth: Success doesn’t come from following the latest trend—it comes from trusting your own path and giving it the time to grow.

The productivity illusion

The problem isn’t your ambition—it’s how you’re chasing it.

When you constantly compare and switch directions:

• You never give one strategy enough time to work.

• You dilute your efforts, making progress slower instead of faster.

• You lose confidence in your ability to create success on your own terms.

Endless Comparisonitis Chase doesn’t lead to growth—it leads to doubt, distraction, and delay.

The goal isn’t to ignore market research, industry trends, or inspiration from others. It’s to stay focused long enough and committed to your own vision and approach so that you build something that’s truly your own.

ARE YOU STUCK IN THIS CYCLE?

If you keep questioning your every move, constantly tweaking your approach, and feeling like you’re always behind, it’s time to take a step back.

The more you chase what’s working for others, the less you trust what actually works for you. And that hesitation? It compounds and stalls your momentum.

This is just one of the 7 inner Disruptors that can hijack your productivity and quietly sabotage your success. Oh, yes. They know how to work well together!

Want to know which ones are secretly sabotaging your progress?

In a few minutes, the Success Blocker Quiz can help you uncover the hidden patterns keeping you stuck, identify what’s truly holding you back, and learn how to finally move forward with greater confidence.

Take the quiz now

FYI, comparison itself isn’t the problem—it’s how you use it

Comparison can be powerful if it’s used as an inspiring motivator rather than a reason to doubt yourself or put yourself down. Here’s how:

🐇 Curious with quick maneuverability

• You quickly spot trends and new opportunities, making you highly adaptable.

• You foster creative problem solving by staying openminded and willing to experiment.

• You’re not afraid to pivot and experiment, making you resilient in the face of change.

🎢 Innovative + Informed

• You keep yourself in the know and ahead of the curve by being highly aware of industry trends and shifts.

• You deeply reflect and use keen observations to refine your strategy and messaging.

• You are motivated by ambition, striving to do well and reach higher potential.

🤖 Detail oriented + Impact driven

• You have strong attention to detail, ensuring high quality work.

• You excel learning from successful models and integrating best practices.

• You are naturally growth oriented, looking for ways to do it better.

👀 Insightful decision making

• You’re thoughtful and intentional, considering different perspectives before making a move.

• Your openness to feedback allows for continuous learning and growth.

• You value collaboration and support, creating strong relationships and a sense of community.

Learning from others, staying adaptable, and striving for more are powerful strengths… as long as they’re paired with focus, self trust, and commitment.

When in balance, these innate skills allow you to make informed, strategic decisions—without losing yourself in the process. It fuels a drive that creates sustainable success that keeps you nimble and innovative, rather than reactive and scattered chasing after what others have.

Harness these strengths with purpose and channel them from Endless Comparisonitis Chase into undeniable drive and confidence.

It’s never too late

More scrolling, analyzing, and tweaking won’t get you where you want to go. Constantly chasing what works for others only keeps you running in circles.

If you’re tired of questioning your every move and feeling like you’re always one step behind, it’s time to uncover what’s really keeping you stuck.

Take the quiz, get your results, and start building YOUR success—not just following someone else’s. You’ve got this!

P.S. If this reminded you that your success doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s, tap the 💜 to anchor into your own vision. Share or restack this post to support others in letting go of comparisonitis and owning what truly works for them.

Dunno about you, but 2024 was a wild, bumpy ride for me. Felt like I was in one of those speed boats that purposely go super fast up to the bottom edge of a large waterfall and quickly swing you back out. It’s filled with adrenaline and excitement, and you’ll most likely get soaked.

Sure, it might have been fun 1 or 2 times, but… 5-6 nonstop loops of that. No, it’s not fun anymore being thrown around and continuously getting drenched. I was ready for the year (more accurately, that particular pattern) to be over.

Here’s something important to highlight…

Upon reflection, this was all… self induced! Like the people who went on that speedboat ride, they chose to go on it and willingly shelled out money for it, too.

Yeah… I was doing this to myself as a result from my decisions, choices, and how I went about setting goals and deadlines for myself.

Partway through the year, I became more hyper aware of and frustrated with these recurring patterns and did what I could to course correct them. But they’d still creep up and pounce like a horror flick monster from a dark, unsuspecting corner. Plus, the consequences and their side effects had been compounding to the point that I had to forcibly pause and stop.

These were my self sabotaging behaviors, and I distilled them down to these 3:

1. The workaholic and high achiever tendencies that were deeply ingrained within my unconscious and made me feel like it’s never enough.

2. The impatience in wanting success now drove me harder to do more and faster.

3. The hope that someone else had the right answers for me, but that chase led to following inauthentic and energy-draining strategies that burned me out quicker.

With these insightful saboteurs in mind, I could factor these into my planning and do reflective gut checks to evaluate my motivations and strategies.

I use questions like: Why am I choosing this specific goal and setting this particular deadline? Is this what I really want to do, or am I trying to prove something or impress someone? Then I use the answers to tweak my plans accordingly.

YOUR TURN! TAKE A MOMENT AND CONSIDER…

What are your patterns that have been holding you back achieving your goals? How do they commonly affect my decision making?

Feedback + opportunity = another shot at success

It’s a new year with new intentions and new ways of being. Plus, I’m readying for a whole lot of new life changes this upcoming year.

I had to come up with a better system for myself, derived from all the various goal setting courses and content I’ve come across and tested and setting it up in a way that I could personalize it for myself.

It’s not just about writing down the goals you have in mind.

It’s also about looking back to see how your goals fit into the bigger picture of your life and delving into the details to understand what those goal setting choices entail.

In just one goal, there are many dimensions, dependencies, and tasks derived from it.

Now layer that upon the numerous goals and intentions you have for this year, and be sure to consider both your life goals with your work goals, too.

On top of that, factor in the busyness of life and unexpected distractions that could derail you as well.

Can you see how goal setting can get messy, unsustainable, and complicated… fast? Without a clear plan, consistent focus, and support, even the best intentions can unravel and fall apart.

Plus, you could get so busy in the doing and achieving that you lose touch with your inner self, your instincts, your intuition, and your purpose. How many times have you felt like sleepwalking through life with your eyes open and your senses shut down?

You are not just your work. You’re not meant to sacrifice your life for your work.

Your work is meant to enrich and grant you the lifestyle you desire.

So how do you do this differently and do it in a way to have that ideal work life balance you desire?

That’s why continuous intentional planning matters.

Look, intentional planning isn’t just about writing down some goals and committing to them with perfection. It doesn’t have to feel rigid, stifling, or filled with the pressure of needing to get it all figured out now.

It’s about dreaming about the life you desire and crafting a practical path toward it. This is a creative process where imagination meets strategy, and it’s about keeping your intentions and plans front and center in your mind. This allows you to transform intangible dreams into a series of achievable, inspired actions. Those create small wins, and those wins? They’ll add up in ways that might surprise you.

It’s about creating clarity, space, and momentum. You don’t need the perfect plan to start. In fact, it’s in the act of starting that clarity often emerges. You don’t need to make dramatic changes. It’s about taking continual, progressive steps towards your intended direction. Every step you take builds confidence, and that confidence fuels the next step and the step after. Yes, intentional planning is an iterative process, and that is why it’s effective!

It’s about simplifying your decisions and hyperfocusing your energy, leaving room for what truly matters. When you set clear intentions, you engage in a form of mental decluttering and boundary setting. You fend off the grips of indecision, distractions, overcommitment, and opportunities that pull you in every direction. You know where you’re going and what you need to do, and that’s the foundation for meaningful progress. The key after that is consistency and course correction.

It’s about reconnecting with your purpose—the core of what drives you. It’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day shuffle, reacting to whatever demands your attention and being pulled by seemingly unavoidable obligations and expectations. But intentional planning pulls you back to your core, refocuses you, and reminds you of what matters most. When you have it set up like a vision-board-esque document, you can reference it at any time and leverage it to easily plan out your daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals.

It’s about reclaiming power and responsibility over your life. So much of our energy is spent reacting to external pressures, letting our priorities get overshadowed by the noise. But when you set intentions, you take back control. You focus on what you can influence, and you let go of what’s outside your grasp. It’s freeing. It’s grounding. It’s empowering!

There’s even science behind this. When you set specific intentions, you activate your brain’s Reticular Activating System (RAS). When you tell your brain what to notice or focus on, this amazing little filter tunes your brain to spot opportunities and solutions that support your goals. It’s like aligning your mind with your purpose, making it easier to recognize what’s meant for you and act on it.

Intentional planning is active. It’s collaborative. It’s personal! It’s you working alongside your vision, showing up every day in even the smallest ways. Because the truth is, you can’t just sit back and hope for things to change—you’ve got to cocreate the life you want. This is how your dreams start to take shape, so that they’re no longer distant “maybes” but something you can touch, feel, and move toward.

I purposely waited to send out this Post so you had time to think about your goals. Because right now, I challenge you to look at your goals and consider:

• How do you truly feel about them?

• How confident are you in successfully achieving them in your current state?

• Are you fully aware of the effects, choices, and sacrifices you have to make to fulfill that goal?

This is exactly what I did with my paid subscribers this week.

I guided them through my Soulfueled Intentions Planner and helped them develop a holistic view of their goals and intentions for this year.

This is what they said…

“It pushed me to think about things with a longer focal length than I've been using.”

“I can see more of a pathway to get where I want to get this year and to grow my business and myself. It's given me a lot of clarity which is super helpful!”

“This was just really helpful, seeing it all laid out, recognizing the benefits of overcoming my limiting beliefs, and getting really clear on that why. That was really helpful for me. I loved it, so thank you.”

“I was a little skeptical when I saw that it was a spreadsheet… but, your aesthetic and design, the way you approach it, like actually made the spreadsheet soft and usable. What it did was it allowed me to see everything on one page, which means I have to stay accountable to what I'm writing as I'm moving through it. Now, I can just pop it up, quickly look through it, and quit it.”

“After reflecting for a minute on the core goals and then on the support assistance required, I was able to write everything down on just two stickies that I can stick to my monitor as a reminder. That felt really good that I was able to like summarize everything down to two stickies like that which are meaningful and something I can look at in the morning when I start my work.”

(and these were two tiny post-its that he wrote on!)

“Thank you, Kat. That's a pretty cool skill that you have in pulling all this together. I haven't seen anything like this before.”

Plus, several people chimed in saying that…

“Showing up in community makes such a big difference. It definitely helped give me the motivation and the support to journey a little deeper than I would if I was just doing it by myself.”

Want this for yourself, too?

Because of all the positive feedback and benefits I’ve gotten personally from doing this process, I’m hosting another session next week: Weds Jan 15 at 3pm PST / 6pm EST. (Hey, you can attend again if you want to work on your Planner more!)

So if you’re interested in joining this live 90 min coworking session where we work on your Soulfueled Intentions Planner together, sign up here for free by Monday Jan 13th. (Sign up even if you just want the recording and planner to complete on your own time.)

Feel free to invite others to join, too. Let’s help more people set holistic and achievable goals this year.

Cheers to starting 2025 strong and making it the year you don’t just set goals,
you achieve them with clarity, focus, and purpose!

USEFUL JOURNAL PROMPTS

Why do you want to achieve these particular goals now? What would happen if you did? What would happen if you didn’t? How would you choose to show up differently this time?

P.S. Tap the ❤️ if you’re ready to stop repeating old patterns and finally approach your goals in a way that actually feels sustainable and aligned. Share or restack this post to spark more honest, intentional planning in someone else’s life, too. Let’s make progress feel aligned, not overwhelming.

If you think money is the worst thing you can waste, you’re mistaken.

The most expensive thing you can waste is time.

The most expensive thing you can do is procrastinate.

Each time you put things off, you lessen the time you have to compound momentous energy and value into your business.

Time is on your side… until you waste it

So don’t waste it chasing other people’s goals.

Don’t waste it listening to those who put down you or your dreams.

Don’t waste it on things that don’t feel right to you.

Don’t squander it chasing what you think you “should” be doing.

I had to learn this expensive time and financial lesson… the hard way and numerous times.

I kept finding ways to justify why “this time” was going to be different.

Ultimately, the problem originated… within me

It didn’t matter what and how many strategies I tried.

If I wasn’t clear and specific about my goals,

If I wasn’t aligned with my Work Vision,

and if I didn’t believe in myself,

my path to success would undoubtedly be filled with tons of detours, obstacles, and failures.

That wasn’t fun to admit, BUT it was empowering.

That means I could stop looking externally for validation, approval, and answers.

It was like finally finding the missing puzzle pieces I’ve been searching for so long.

Realigning with a better way to set goals

Through my journey, I’ve also discovered a different way to set goals… derived from my soul and amplifying them with the power of manifestation. (Oh yah, if it’s not obvious already, I’m into all that the woo woo spiritual stuff.)

The thing is that this worked before!! But I abandoned it to follow other people’s approach.

No, it’s not just writing it down.

Even if you put it into the SMART goal format, that’s still just a start.

It’s more important to envision the bigger picture of how those goals add more to your life and what it would be like to enjoy the fulfillment of your goals.

That bigger picture is your vision. I call mine my “Work Life Vision”.

That’s where you find your soul fuel⎯that deeper why and drive to keep going.

That’s where you find the what of your desires.

And that’s where you’ll find the answers you’ve been seeking for the how.

Declaring my 90-day plan

After revisiting and reclarifying my business vision, my next steps have become clearer.

And to strengthen my commitment to these goals, I’d like to share them with you as well. (Thanks to for this nudge as he shared his publicly, too.)

These are my goals for the next 90 days, ending on November 15th, and I will celebrate my achievements and transformation in:

1. Reshaped my negative perspective on social media and showed up better – Be more authentic, feel more enjoyable, and develop sustainable long term habits (I’ll share more about this next week). More importantly, engage with others again.

2. Solidified my consistency habit – Write and post consistently, overcoming any excuses: Writing daily, posting on social every weekday, and publishing Soulfueled weekly and Paper Planes (my love + dating newsletter) twice a week.

3. Built a community around Soulfueled principles – Develop and implement my Substack Paid structure and perks. Launch my app and portal for courses.

4. Embodied what I’ve learned from these two books – “A Happy Pocket Full of Money” (foundation and practices for manifestation) and “The Go Giver” (heart centered principles for business).

I’ll take on these goals, step by step.

It’s not about charging full steam ahead, forcing big changes with a rigid structure.

It’s about building up small compounding changes, turning it into a long term habit, and creating a new status quo for myself.

I’m focusing on the long term, and using the next 90 days to strengthen my foundation.

No burning out. No overworking. No quitting.

More being. More alignment. More enjoyment.

Stay tuned for continual updates and reading my insights here, so that you can shortcut your own journey towards a more Soulfueled life and business.

USEFUL JOURNAL PROMPTS

What is that task (or project) that you feel called to do but have been putting off? Take a moment to let it come alive in your imagination. What does it look like and how does it feel to do and complete it?

P.S. If this gave you the push to stop wasting time on what’s not aligned and start moving with more intention, tap the 🧡 to let me know. Share or restack this post if you want to normalize building success at a pace and path that actually feels right.

Cookie cutter. Confused. Pretzel.

What do those words have in common?

That was me on social media, listening to the gurus telling me how to grow my account and make six figures a month within X amount of time.

• I followed the cookie cutter templates that everyone was using to get attention, but it felt hacky and awkward. Maybe because I’m new to this approach?

• I was confused about what I should be doing because some of it just didn’t feel right to me… but why reinvent the wheel, right?

• I twisted myself into a pretzel trying to make it all work, but all that did was lead me to burnout.

Diminishing passion. Growing frustration.

Is this the price of turning myself into a commodity for others to consume?

Is this the only way to build my business?

…and this is what I needed to hear.

"Write the tale that scares you, that makes you feel uncertain, that isn’t comfortable. I dare you. In a world that entices us to browse the lives of others to help us better determine how we feel about ourselves, and to, in turn, feel the need to be constantly visible—for visibility, these days, seems to somehow equate to success—do not be afraid to disappear. From it, from us, for a while. And see what comes to you in the silence.”
⎯ an excerpt from Michaela Coel’s Emmy Acceptance Speech

This is what has been on my mind for the past few months, facing the sobering reality of what is required of me to succeed as an entrepreneur in a world where social media and endless churning of content seem like the nonnegotiable prerequisites.

For some personalities, they thrive in that and quickly rise in their influence.

However, for mine, it seems like a constant struggle.

The continual cycles of pain

I keep replaying this same pattern of being on and off social media. I would do long, continual stints of posting until I hit burnout, drained by all the inauthentic, soul draining tactics I “should” be doing to get attention.

Then I recoil in disgust and dread, getting fed up with all the templated sameness that keeps showing up as people chase the latest trends, copying each other to hopefully win more fleeting attention.

I am an introvert who barely uses social media outside of work purposes.

I prefer to be more private and can enjoyably churn behind the scenes.

I am someone who has had to work hard and overcome all sorts of mental and emotional hurdles to even start sharing my thoughts publicly and vulnerably.

I abhor the idea of having my life on display for others to spectate, like The Truman Show.

But as a coach and content creator, it seems like that’s what I need to do to prove to strangers I have the experience and knowledge to help them with their lives⎯something so private, vulnerable, and emotionally driven.

I have to reveal my past, my hurts, my hurdles, and my victories to build that know, like, and trust factor.

It’s been hard trying to find that delicate line and nuanced approach that can still protect my privacy, my clients, and those in my life and of my past, as I don’t want to use them as continual sacrificial tokens to obtain success.

However, being visible and vulnerable seems like the only way to be known and found.

Visibility = success, right?

In this world where high visibility equates to success, how do I continually show up publicly and defy parts of my nature?

One of the latest trends is creating a personal brand.

In the world of AI becoming increasingly commonplace, people want to know that you are “real”.

It’s about turning yourself—your face, your personality, and your experiences—into a brand that others can connect with and relate to. You turn yourself into a commodity for the world to consume.

I’ve even seen those who had to discard their long-held pseudonym and step directly into the public spotlight, revealing their real name and face, to take part in this current personal brand trend.

All because people crave connection with other people, not just info.

So the only way to be remembered is to keep showing up and constantly putting “you” out to be seen over and over and over again.

But in this world of information overload where endless content and answers can be found within seconds and where you’re at the whim of platform algorithms to be seen, how do you fight for that attention, stand out, and not just disappear into the noise?

What we’re told to do

You have to inject your voice, perspective, and personality into your content.

You have to be on the right platforms to find your audience, prospects, and clients.

You have to create content that is easily consumable AND memorable since our attention spans have been reduced to less than a goldfish’s.

You have to share just the right amount of value to show your worth and keep them curiously interested and wanting more.

You have to fight to stay consistent and relevant and battle the monotony of talking about the same things over and over again.

You have to ride and get ahead of the trends before you’re gobbled up by the homogeneous feed.

The trend... the trend... the trend.

Its nature is to come and go. It’s the strategies for the now and popularized by the trendsetters or popular influencers.

You’re told to follow the trends because this is what is working at this very moment and what people haven’t been immune to yet.

And this seems to be the sad reality…

You are on this endless chase after something

There will always be that one fresh thing, that next popular thing, and those tried-and-true things we need to do, should do, and have to do to capture slivers of attention.

Freebies, courses, webinars, newsletters, challenges, book writing, apps, speaking, and communities. Social media posts, blogs, videos, podcasts, live virtual sessions, voiceovers, AI assistants, etc, etc.

You have to have your hand in many of these, and each requires a lot of thought and time to create. Then it becomes partially or mostly obsolete after it’s released, especially if you don’t keep it “alive” in people’s awareness. So… continual promotion is necessary.

This is the reality of this work and of work overall. It's not something that can be escaped, right?

You’re constantly trying to prove your worth to others

You trade what you're good at⎯your skills, your experiences, and your perspectives⎯to help other people improve their lives.

No matter if you're an employee or an entrepreneur, you are trading your labor and the majority of your life for the betterment of humanity so we can go beyond our past and our limitations.

Your life is a subatomic blimp in the entire lifespan of the human race. Once you leave this world, the only thing that remains is your legacy. Some might get lucky and have our names and impact live on through the records. Others will be forgotten and disappear as if they never existed.

You can only fight for the now, the near future, and your dreams. You can only fight for your happiness and prosperity, so that you can say you lived and that you made a difference somehow.

You already know that it's important to know your why.

You know that the more hungry you are and the more resilient you are to rejection and failure, the higher your chances of success are.

But how do you tap into a why so deep that it creates and fuels an unstoppable hunger for success and an unwavering determination to chase after your dreams?

That's the exact thing I've been trying to figure out.

I stopped and started.

I've hustled and burned out.

I experimented and pivoted.

In the last 6 years, I've spent multiple 6 figures on personal growth courses, coaching, and masterminds to figure out the "how" of others’ success so I could claim my own.

And this is what I've discovered...

You have to learn how to play the game while still staying true to yourself. Otherwise, you’ll easily burn out.

It’s a game of the chicken or the egg. You’ve just got to start somewhere. Take one step at a time, so you can patiently compound actions into more momentum.

It’s a game of balance, knowing when to charge ahead and when to retreat.

It’s a game of playing the right strategies that work for you, even in the face of uncertainty and doubts.

No amount of planning will ever prepare you for what’s to come.

No amount of money spent or no amount of work completed will guarantee your success. (Hell, you even have to take the time to define what success looks like to you, too.)

It’s not about defying your nature. It’s about creating the business (and life) that works well for you.

Avoid getting caught up with comparisonitis and putting yourself down. You have your own blend of strengths and talents.

Avoid letting overthinking and imposter syndrome hold you back. None of that is productive or mentally useful.

Ultimately, no matter what others are doing, you have to keep doing you and show up as yourself.

It’s okay to take a step back (or a few). In fact, it’s sometimes required before you can make larger leaps ahead.

Align yourself and holdfast to your business vision, your values, and what your soul is telling you.

You are paving your own way.

You have to…

You need to…

And more importantly, you CAN do it.

There is never only one way to do things. So, regardless of what you decide to do, know that others have also achieved their version of success in a similar or dramatically different way.

The world will continue to evolve and change with technology, but what remains true is that this is a world where anything is possible.

You have within you the power to make that “anything” possible in your life.

You can choose to be beholden and handcuffed to the conditions or choose to find ways to overcome and surpass them.

So make the choice that feels right to you and believe in what’s possible. You got this.

USEFUL JOURNAL PROMPTS

What is something you’ve learned to help you stay strong in your own resolve? How can you apply those learnings and strategies to your challenges now?

P.S. If this reminded you that it’s possible to build success without betraying who you are, tap the ❤️ to show your support. Share or restack this post if you believe more people deserve permission to grow their business their way, not necessarily the loudest.

This or that.

“Do this, not that.”

“If you choose this, then you can't have that.”

“This works better than that.”

...but this is not as simple as that.

If this was the case, then why isn't everyone doing the same thing and achieving that same level of success?

Just because it was right for others, it doesn't mean it's right for you.

Just because it was wrong for others, it doesn't mean it's wrong for you.

The solution isn't only black or white.

Yes, there are shades of grey in between.

And what you're not seeing is that you also have a whole spectrum of colors you can play with as well.

The basic reds, greens, blues...

The blends of purples, yellows, oranges, pinks...

The shades of ambers, magentas, lavenders, teals...

The nuances of chartreuse, eggshell, cerulean...

You have a whole box full of wonderous crayons to play with to create your desired business, relationship, lifestyle, or whatever you want.

In other words, you can create your own approach.

In reality, you have to.

Use what others have shared as a reference, but put together what feels right to you and discard what doesn't.

What they share isn’t the full picture.

Most marketing and sales tactics reduce things down to this limited set of options because this makes it easier to sell to you.

...but you are not limited to those choices.

Most marketing and sales tactics simplify the whole process, because that makes it less daunting for you to get started.

...but you're not starting on the same playing field because you have your own set of circumstances, tendencies, and perspectives.

I have fallen prey to this black-and-white mental trap.

That is why I've accumulated so much shelf help.

I have a large physical shelf of books.

I have an enormous digital "shelf" of files.

I have paid numerous coaches and experts to tell me what to do.

So how am I still "figuring out" this “right thing” to do to achieve that success I keep seeing others flaunt?

I kept searching externally, hoping "this is what will make the difference".

That just got me burned out.

The constant bombardment of "you're failing because you're not doing THIS" was stressing me out.

I am freaking trying, but all THAT "you're not doing enough" was bloody exhausting and draining.

So, not having “enough” knowledge isn’t the issue. (A simple Google search gives you endless answers.)

It's determining what works for YOU.

When you’re overcopying others…

Looking at how others were coloring their paper and copying what they're doing can only get you so far.

That means you have to keep looking at their stuff before you can create.

That means you're just turning yourself into a copy of them.

That means without them... would you know what to do next on your own?

When you outsource your thinking and decision-making capacities to others, you diminish your own empowerment as you turn them into your savior or codependent crutch.

Because only you can save yourself.

If you fail, it's not their life and consequences to bear.

It's yours.

My pivotal realizations

Crappitty crap crap, there's no one else to blame.

This is my own doing.

I let my excuses run wild. I believed in their this-or-that thinking.

I didn't believe in myself enough. I kept thinking they had the answers.

I didn't trust my inner guidance. I valued theirs over my own.

Here I am. I plopped down on the floor, surrounded by this massive mess of things I've tried.

I collected more crayons, paints, and pencils than I'll ever need.

All my experimentation led to this…

Success isn't daily emails or once a week. There are people who did well with 2-3 times a week, once every 2 weeks, or even once a month.

Success isn't doing weekly calls with clients or running group coaching programs. There are people who only coach via text or never created any community around their content.

Success isn't having a podcast or doing video content. There are prolific writers and discreet solopreneurs who have never shown their faces to their clients or audience.

Success isn't always about number of followers or how much money you make per month. Chasing those will never feel enough as there are people with tons of it and still not happy or satisfied.

Success isn't only following the trends or being the rebellious "I’m so cool. I do the opposite". There are people who don't bother to play those games.

Your strategy to success is combining the colors you enjoy and creating whatever it is you want on your own life canvas.

You define your own success parameters.

You design your own path.

Success, money, freedom, and happiness are all results of when you are aligned with what feels right to you and what you enjoy most.

It's not about this or that.

It's about yours.

Here’s my mid-year status update:

• I reviewed my life and business vision, extensively. I jotted down notes and reflections. I renewed and modified my goals for the rest of the year.

• I unsubscribed and unfollowed voices that were stressing me out. I am being more selective about who I listen to and who influences me.

• I'm choosing to believe that I have enough info already. I bowed out of 2 of the 3 coaching programs and communities I was in.

• Screw FOMO and the "shoulds". I'm refocusing on my "less but better" motto by eliminating projects and deferring certain goals.

• I'm valuing my inner wisdom more and making business decisions that align with my heart. I'm taking the time daily to listen to that inner voice within me through meditating, journaling, or walking.

...and it's damn terrifying. I'm scared of failure. I'm scared of making the wrong decisions.

...and it's freaking liberating at the same time. I feel free to trust my own choices. I feel free to create that business and lifestyle that fits me, regardless of what others do, think, say, or believe.

No more soul draining frustrations.

No more chasing, leading to burnout.

I’m doing this for me, so I can fuel my soul and serve from a full cup.

USEFUL JOURNAL PROMPTS

What are some course corrections you’ve taken to help complete your goals this year? What were specific learnings from those that you can keep in mind for the future?

P.S. If you’re tired of being told what the “right” way is, tap the 🤍 to tell me you’re on this journey as well. Share or restack this post to give others a helpful nudge forward and the permission to do it their way, too.

I feared the worst…

I had a good guess as to how bad it’s gotten.

I stepped on the scale and was shocked by the number I saw.

I… was… the heaviest… I’ve ever been… EVER!!

Admittedly, I’ve been a workaholic for the past few months and have been taking horrible care of myself.

(If it weren’t for my boyfriend, I probably would’ve worked over the weekends, too.)

It starkly contrasted my triathlon-training boyfriend, who was most likely in the best shape of his life.

And me… standing there… looking at the mirror going… “What the hell did I do to myself?”

I let my work dominate my life…

My activity level dropped to barely anything in the past few months.

My sleep quality hasn’t been great.

I’ve been stress eating… and might have indulged a bit too much.

But the worst of them all was working super long hours… every weekday.

My body would naturally wake me up between 5-6am, mind running with ideas.

Sometimes, I’d try to go back to sleep or just get up and start working until dinnertime.

Oftentimes, I’d have a second wind at night and work right up to a forced bedtime because it was near or past midnight.

Time felt like it was just disappearing in a blink of an eye.

Hours flew by, and weekends seemed to come around again so quickly.

But all that time working didn’t diminish the number of tasks on my evergrowing to do list.

I was doing this continuously for nearly 5 months.

In month 3, I already knew this wasn’t sustainable in the long run.

In month 5, I was feeling the damaging consequences of my workaholic choices.

In this month 6, things HAD to change.

I can’t keep going like this.

This ISN’T the business I wanted

I didn’t leave a highly paid, stable corporate job, working 8-12 hours a day, to work those same hours or more for my own business for less ROI.

I convinced myself that it’s because I’m rebuilding a new foundation for my business, so it will take more time, intentional effort, and lots of learning and experimenting to get it done “right” in the beginning.

I convinced myself that all this hard work would pay off and that I would “eventually” get to a phase where the business was a smoothly running machine, at which point I wouldn’t have to work this hard.

…but that was a “white” lie I used to comfort myself.

Every stage of business has its own challenges.

That work won’t just magically let up.

I have to intentionally CHOOSE to show up and structure it differently.

I knew I had to put in place what I wanted NOW, so I’m already living aspects of my desired business model at this moment, not some undefined “maybe” future.

Yes, as a solopreneur, I can’t function as if I have a whole team behind me.

I can only juggle all those different roles to a certain point.

But no matter what, I am the CEO and I am dictating the vision and path of where my business is heading.

If I merely perform as an individual contributor or an employee, then of course, I’m running on this neverending hamster wheel of work.

These are the 5 ways I reclaimed the helm of my drifting ship:

1. Clearly defined what I wanted for my business.

   This is the pivotal starting point.
   

   I had to remind myself and recreate a clear direction and path forward for myself. I rewrote my business vision and defined what success looked like to me.

   I reflected and evaluated all the things I’ve learned and experimented with so far to figure out what best aligned with my personality and my business vision.
   
   This allows me to set better goals, make better decisions, and create better strategic plans.
   

2. Recommit to my business.

   I had to honestly ask myself: Is this what I really wanted?
   

   I had to face my shortcomings thus far. I had to look at the areas of my business that I had been ignoring. I had to define and establish what habits or routines are nonnegotiable for my business.

   
   This allows me to strengthen my resolve and pivot where needed.
   

3. Set better work hours for myself.

   If I wanted to work 3-4 hours max per day, then I can’t operate with 10-12 hours as my norm. I don’t want my life to revolve around my business. I want my business to fit into my desired lifestyle.
   

   And that means creating more time for other things in my life, too.
   Yes to more self care. Yes to being more physically active. Yes to doing more things that bring me joy. Plus, I wanted to be an involved and integral part of my children’s lives when I’m a mom, too.
   

   I can’t have any of that if I’m working that many hours. I can’t even imagine having extended time off if I needed to catch up on that many hours of work either. *shuddering at that horrific thought*
   

   This allows me to be more effective and enjoy life more.
   

4. Reduce the number of projects I’m tackling at once.

   Simply, I’m trying to do too much all at once, doing too much of it myself, and putting too much perfectionism in my work. All that needs to let up.
   

   It’s remembering that I am ONE human being.

   • I don’t need to do it all… I can get help.

   • I don’t need to do everything all at once… Focus on what actually moves the needle.

   • It doesn’t need to be perfect before it’s live… Getting it done is better than perfect or none at all.

   • I put projects on pause, uncommitted to other engagements, and eliminated tasks that I wasn’t really enjoying.
     

     For example, I stopped posting on Instagram and focused on X. Instagram took up too much of my time finding photos, creating graphics, writing captions, figuring out hashtags, creating stories, etc. I just wrote on X, which I surprisingly enjoyed more. I also socialized more on X than I ever did on Instagram, too.
     

   I had to let go of FOMO and trust that I am never missing out on the right opportunities. Even though some might sound like great ideas, it doesn’t all have to be done right now, and is it REALLY what I need to focus on at this moment?

   
   Saying no is one of the most important things you can do as an entrepreneur. It protects your time, energy, and focus.
   

5. Honor how I am and my pace.

   Honoring doesn’t mean giving up and not changing. Honoring creates acceptance of where you’re at now so you can strategize how to move closer to your best self.
   

   Because if I don’t accept who and how I am at my core, then I’m constantly fighting an internal battle. And that got really (unnecessarily) exhausting.
   

   I had to understand myself better and recognize my success patterns, procrastination tendencies, fluctuating energy and motivation levels, ideal work modes, and many more.
   

   Armed with that knowledge, I could set better routines and systems to be more efficient with my time and energy. This also gave me more compassion, acceptance, and patience for myself.
   

   Having less time to work can mean slower progress. However, even though this is a highly probable correlation, it isn’t always the case.
   
   And if that’s the case, so what?! You can be slow and steady, creating a strong, solid foundation for scaling sustainably in the future. Rushing things doesn’t always equal long term success.
   

   Comparisonitis can be quite a stress-inducing condition, where you constantly feel like you’re not doing enough or successful enough compared to your “peers”.

   All that stress and anxious energy is just making your life more miserable and complicated. It’s not worth it to put yourself down.

   
   Subside those drowning levels of cortisol in your body by letting all that go, focusing on yourself, comparing to your past self only, and trusting your own path.

   
   Do it for your own mental and emotional wellbeing.

You chose to be an entrepreneur for your own reasons, so own what you want and create the freedom, prosperity, and lifestyle you desire. Don’t let others or your old patterns dictate your future. Do what feels right to you.

…even if that means reinventing (or modifying) the wheel.

USEFUL JOURNAL PROMPTS

Look back and celebrate: What is one thing you’ve done that has helped you refocus on your business? How can you implement that strategy in other ways, too?

P.S. Give this a 🧡 if this post made you pause and rethink how you’ve been working lately. Share or restack this to help others believe and find a better way forward, too.