One Next Action

Fall in AZ is the best. So is 🥰

When you’re drinking great coffee AND Outlook gives you affirmations. 🎉 Yes, I have had a productive day and accomplished a lot, thank you very much.

Happy Easter!

One of my favorites every time, and such a great multi-layered reminder.

Besides making sure I don’t get hit by a train or vehicle, I’m looking up and noticing the beauty around me, paying attention to the wins (and not all that’s left to do), and celebrating success.

How are you looking up today?

Whatever you call it, I love spending thoughtful time each year thinking about the year to come. Like many, I’ve alternated over the years between mix of set SMART goals, directional intentions, a general vision for the year, a word of the year, and more. As I’ve gone deeper into the world of professional coaching, I’m loving leaning into letting ideas unfold and not feeling so forced into set specifics.

I’ve had too many years where the goals were “lose X lbs, save X $$, accomplish X habit-based goals.” None of those are bad in and of themselves, but I’m realizing that addressing the ‘to-do’s’ only go so far without addressing the underlying why’s. Focusing on outcome-based goals misses the journey along the way. And frankly, I’m tired of not being fully honest with myself about what’s actually important to me in a given moment.

As I reflected on 2022 and looked ahead to 2023, I explored a bunch of ideas that kept coming back around to the idea of re-discovery, coming back to the core of things, etc. But it’s not about rediscovering who I WAS, it’s about perspective on what was with the focus on where I’m GOING.

It’s about critical thinking and how I see the world; it’s how I look at you; My world view (the 90’s Christian teen in me can’t help adding the next lines from Audio Adrenaline’s “My World View” while singing along in my head).

The last few months have opened the door to a whole lot of discovery around neurodiversity and its impacts on our family. That journey is rapidly changing our perspective on so many aspects of life.

Last night we were working on a 1000-piece puzzle with some friends. I placed exactly zero pieces while Levi repeatedly picked up a piece, turned it around, and dropped it into place. In his very matter of fact way he stated, “You just need to turn it a different way and it fits.”

Here’s to a year of turning puzzle pieces around, looking at things just a little differently, and gaining a new perspective.

Farewell 2022.

What a ride! My 2022 word of the year was “Settle.” There was some
significant uprooting before settling, but it was a perfect word to ground the year. A close second is “bittersweet.”

One year ago, we were on a holiday road trip and decided to play the “What if?” game: “What if we moved to Arizona? What would life look like?”

13 weeks later we moved. 🤯 It was simultaneously crazy sudden and 15+ years in the making.

Settling into a new life has had all the ups, downs, twists, and exhilaration of a roller coaster. Leaving old friends is beyond hard. Joining other friends and making new ones is wonderful. Starting a new school had some major bumps, but has opened the door to new interests and opportunities and both boys are thriving.

Moving has been a unique incentive to reassess if we’re living life according to our values or according to habit and external expectations. Do our careers line up with our personal and family values? Are we living our faith authentically in who Christ has called us to be, or what the American evangelical church expects us to be? Are we raising the boys to be their best versions of themselves?

Settling into an authentic life isn’t complete in a year, but it’s been a great stretch of the journey. Looking forward to the next steps in 2023!

I have this posted up next to my monitor as a daily reminder and something I’m working on. It’s entirely too easy to get stuck on something and end up massively overthinking it.

What does it look like to let this thing that I’m feeling really stuck on today simply be easy?

1. Maybe it’s letting go of perfectionism and getting out a crappy first (or second or seventh) draft.
2. Maybe it’s stepping away from it for awhile and doing something totally different to come back fresh.
3. Maybe it’s taking a minute to step back and remember the big picture and why you’re trying to do what you’re doing.
4. Maybe it’s asking for help or simply having a quick conversation to bring it into perspective.

I’ve been stuck on a task for what feels like way too long. Telling myself it’s shouldn’t be that hard hasn’t helped. (Actually, that usually makes it feel so much harder because then not only does it still feel hard, but then the guilt and the ugly case of the ‘shoulds’ creeps in). I’m going for my crappy dozenth draft now and reminding myself this will be in the past before I know it. Wish me luck! 🎉

What are you stuck on today? What does it look like to let it be easy?

I’m incredibly thankful to not have the ability to see the future. If I had, I likely would have done anything possible to skip August 2022.

Our family walked through some incredibly dark days. I could go on for hours about broken systems (schools, healthcare, etc) failing those that need help the most. It’s beyond overwhelming for us to navigate, and we’re about as privileged as they come.

I have no idea how people without our level of privilege do it. And the sad reality is many of them don’t. We’re called to do better, so much better, as Americans and as Christians.

Suffice it to say, we’re exhausted and hanging on by a thread and the grace of God.

When I found out yesterday that the fingers I thought were bruised were actually multiple breaks in fingers and hand, I had nothing left but to laugh in disbelief.

And yet…there are so many things I would have missed out on if I could have chosen to skip this month.

- A son turning 11 and having an EPIC birthday party to make up for pandemic-lost years.
- Quality family time and remembering that no matter what, we’re in it together.
- Friends, near and far, old and new - I couldn’t do life without you.
- Ugly crying, so many prayers, and pedicure friend dates to forget it all for a few hours.
- Celebrating all my August birthday friends. So.many.August.birthdays!
- The darkest days holding a glimmer of hope that this will (finally!) open the door to help that has seemed just out of reach for so long.
- Learning to ask for help, because sometimes life really is too much and that’s why we have community.

You heard it here first. I’m settling.
Not settle as in “give up and accept something less” but settle as in, get cozy and comfortable, and rest securely.
After a rough 2021, it feels right to settle into my own skin, into who God made me to be, and into figuring out who I am now that I’m fit almost every cliche of a suburban working wife and mom in my 40s(!). It’s time to reset and settle into living life according to my values, not anyone else’s.
My 2021 phrase of the year was “forged with wisdom.” I wasn’t sure about that one, because goodness, sounds painful, but it felt right. Little did I how just how true it would end up being.
I’d like to think that I’ve come out of 2021 stronger and wiser in spite of the hard. There were so many good moments in the midst of the hard, and choosing to focus on those puts a whole different lens on the year.
I’m finally sharing this February 1 after we literally started the year (January 1!) with a positive COVID test and round of illness in our house (all fully recovered now). January continued to be a wild and exciting ride.
This year, I’m committed to living a life that’s resting securely and comfortable in my own skin. Circumstances may not be certain - or anything like I expected just a few short months ago - but being settled is as much, maybe even more, about the inward as it is the outward.

“My workload is off the charts, and I have several meetings on top of it every day."

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Turns out unplanned sabbaticals lead to the birth of long-held passion projects. Yes, has been my Instagram handle for a lifetime, but you may not know it’s also been a long-neglected website.

This spring, it’s turning into a leadership + project management consulting business. 🎉 We’ll see if this becomes the long-term full time thing or a fun side gig.

The last few months have been SO MUCH FUN working with my first clients and seeing them get incredible results (along with lots of cuddles with my boys, burnout recovery, and dreaming for the future).

👩🏻‍💻I’ve currently got limited openings for 1:1 coaching, quarterly group coaching and organizational project-portfolio management / operations consulting engagements.

Check out the website link in my bio, and hit me up in the comments or DMs to let me know your burning leadership and management questions and comments!