You’re Right on Time

At the end of last year, I took a business course.

So many business courses are offered for "frustrated business owners who are tired of things being all wrong!" But that's not how I feel at all.

While my business isn't perfect, I believe it's right where it needs to be—slowly evolving over time.

I think a lot about the phrase "developmentally appropriate." I don't look at my 8-month-old nephew and think, "I'm so frustrated that he isn't explaining what he wants to me!" Of course he can't speak his mind yet—that expectation just isn't developmentally appropriate.

But as grown-ups, we expect things that are not developmentally appropriate all the time.

So many young professionals come to me and say, "I'm so frustrated that I haven't settled into my thing yet! I feel completely off track." Of course they haven't! They need to be out there, gaining experience and gathering data that will help them move their way into a good fit. That process takes time. Being in it is developmentally appropriate.

Our culture is so impatient, always rushing us along.

Even as I start my seventh year as a fully-fledged business owner, the pressure is on to get to a certain place. I actively resist it every day, and remind myself that I'm right on time. Where I am is developmentally appropriate.

I view my work as less a career trajectory and more a body of work that will take different forms. It's going to take time and patience to build my portfolio. And I'd like to enjoy the process along the way.

Synthesizing my beat

My intention when I signed up for the business course was not to fix what's wrong. Instead, I wanted to explore my business as it stands, reflect on where I am, and ponder where I want to go in the months ahead.

We did a reflective exercise on our "core themes." Articulating my beat, if you will. This challenged me to go deeper than the category of "Career & Leadership Development" to summarize what my work revolves around.

Here's how I synthesized my core themes:

✨ Deepening your self-knowledge. I believe in taking the time to uncover and understand yourself. That's the heart of it all. I share the ways that I'm discovering new things about who I am, what I stand for, and what I bring to the table and I offer tools and questions for you to do that for yourself. It's personal and individual. This is deep work and not for the faint of heart. But it's so worth it.

↔️ Widening your options beyond the well-worn paths. The expectations for how we "should" move through our lives are too limiting. They're also woefully outdated—they just plain don't make sense for the world that we're living in today. And yet, we try to follow "the rules" in order to do life "right" and get rewarded. I'm interested in all the ways that we can widen our options and feel a greater sense of permission to think beyond the shoulds.

🧭 Designing an intentional life and navigating aligned choices. Too often, it feels like our lives are happening to us—it's hard to keep up with a world that moves at a breakneck pace, and when we don't know what we want everything keeps moving (whether we've made a decision or not). I love tools that help us to slow it down and gain a sense of control. Let's get clear on what we want so that we can make decisions that lead us to a place that we want to be—even amidst change and uncertainty.

🌱 Growing your sustainable and authentic leadership. It's no secret that I believe that we are all leaders, no matter where we are in our leadership journeys. I share ways to build the foundation of your leadership and develop your practice with new skills in your toolbox. I'm also deeply interested in how we can sustain ourselves instead of flaming out and burning out.

It's about wholeness

I write about all of these things through the frame of career and leadership—but it's bigger than that, too. I believe that there isn't a wall between our "professional" and "personal" lives—we are whole human beings. Our work and our identities (especially in a capitalist system) are forever intertwined. So it's about work, but it's also about the whole of who we are.

This year, I'll be sharing more on all of these key themes in the form of reflections on my own path, stories from my clients, and tools for you to reflect and take action. I'm so glad you're here to be a part of that.

? I'm curious: When you step back and take a look at your body of work (that's all you do...not just your current job title), what's one key theme that emerges? 💌 For example, the key themes for the teacher of my biz course, Susannah Conway, are: creative living, neurodivergence, and midlife.