I spent much of my life on the verge of hopelessness.

My life was a giant pendulum, swinging from “I can for sure change my life” to “I-am-the-biggest-failure-I-can’t-believe-I-thought-things-could-be-different” — year after year.

For years I heard people talk about needing to “go all in” to be successful and I would feel immediate resistance.

It sounded exhausting.

It sounded like a buzzword.

But, if I’m honest, it sounded like something that might work for people who weren’t hot messes like me.

And so I would outright dismiss messaging that in any way felt like jumping on the ‘going all in’ bandwagon.

I realize now this was my brain and body’s way of protecting me from my worst fear: that I would try everything there was to try, and I would still be the same.

It was a deeply entrenched defense mechanism.

When you know the pain of hopelessness, you know the pain of cynicism and the fear of the numbness of apathy.

Our brains find it easier to poke holes in concepts and point out all the reasons they won’t work than to experience the exquisite pain of daring to hope and risk being wrong or disappointed.

But here’s the thing.

Easier doesn’t mean less painful.

Winning the argument that no solutions exist isn’t really winning, is it?

When I got curious about my visceral reaction to the words “going all in”, I learned it was simply the phrasing.

My brain found it to be too vague, too abstract, too exhausting, too uncertain which = does not compute which = reject.

When I reframed it to “done giving up on myself”, my body immediately got on board.

I may not know what each day will hold, but I now know and believe in my bones one thing: that I will keep experimenting, testing, trying new things to help myself, for as long as it takes.

Translation: I’m done giving up on myself.

This realization calmed me in ways I never knew possible.

And you?

How would your life change if you decided you were done giving up on yourself?

What would that be worth to you?

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Truth #2: Your emotions are survivable.

Truth #3: Beliefs are challengeable.

Truth #4: You get to re-decide everything.

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Over a year ago, the bottleneck in my coaching practice was my podcast. I started putting episodes out again in August. Now I’m working on improving the content I deliver and upping the frequency.

This time, I am holding onto the goal of 1% improvement over time, or, in the words of James Clear, harnessing “the power of tiny gains”.

Three weeks ago, the bottleneck in my coaching practice was my website, or lack thereof. I had a website, but in my effort to streamline my homepage I somehow managed to delete everything.

Some of you may wonder, “How is it possible to delete everything?” I’m very skilled, apparently, and managed to pull it off.

After spending days trying to recover my website, trying to reset it to where it was before I started tweaking, I threw up a ‘website is in maintenance’ page and left it.

For months.

I had clients. I had ways people could contact me. I could’ve paid someone much more skilled than me to solve my problem, but I didn’t.

And so it became a bottleneck.

Every time I wanted to write a blog post. Every time I thought about ideas for a newsletter. Every time I attended a networking event where people asked if I had a website.

Three weeks ago I asked myself the Gary Keller/Jay Papasan focusing question:

What’s the ONE thing I can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

The answer was my website.

And now, after being a bottleneck for months, my revamped website is up and running.

I built my new website following the incredibly valuable YouTube tutorial by the theme’s developer. One of the steps involved adding a newsletter subscription box.

And suddenly, I was stuck again.

Did I want to offer a newsletter? What would it include? Would I have enough to sustain it weekly? How do people even create newsletters? What would it look like? I went through my inbox & pored through newsletters I’ve signed up for & realized there were more steps I hadn’t considered. For example, the title. The language to subscribe. The welcome email.

Bottleneck.

Until I realized that 95% of bottlenecks are caused by putting off decisions.

Looking back, that was the case for my podcast. That was the case for my website, which was now in danger of being further delayed by my thoughts around the newsletter.

So I decided to offer a newsletter and with that decision, I finished my website.

To not let my newsletter turn into a bottleneck, I used Google for each
step:

First: ‘How to write an email newsletter’.
Then: ‘How to create an email newsletter using Canva”.
Then: “How to use Mailchimp to send out my Canva newsletter”.

I’m proud to say my first newsletter went out to my list yesterday. (BTW, you should sign up. :P)

Bottlenecks are not a problem, a moral failing, or a sign that you should give up.

They’re signals that decisions need to be made, and the sooner you make them, the sooner things can flow again.

What’s a bottleneck in your life?

I invite you to use the focusing question that helped me to move forward (see above). It’s one I share with my clients regularly as a tool to diffuse overwhelm and paralysis by analysis:

What’s the ONE thing I can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

Gary Keller/Jay Papasan
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results

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Ever wonder if you might benefit from life coaching? Try a free 90-minute coaching call. Experience what it would be like to have weekly 1:1 coaching support for 6 months to a year while you actively do the work to change your life. Mindset + Habits + Identity Work.

Click here to book your free call this week.

She has an opinion on everything, and usually, I’m falling short. She likes to point out areas of my life that still need my attention. I’m in the season of business-building right now, and I’ve been telling myself it’s safe and okay to focus my energy there.

Even though I’ve given myself permission to do this, my brain wants to “fix” everything all at once.

Because when I “fix” everything, then I can relax.

Then I’m worthy. Then I’m acceptable.

That’s what this journey looks like sometimes.

Sometimes I wish my brain wouldn’t have so many thoughts,
But since I do, I’m grateful I have skills
and tools to manage them.

I’m not gonna lie. Sometimes I wonder if I’m ever going to get to the point where I never question my worthiness again.

Then I remind myself that I spent over three decades believing I wasn’t.

To paraphrase Jon Acuff, it’s unkind for me to think I can undo over 30 years of crappy thoughts in a couple of years, just because I found this work.

It will take the time it takes.

It will take patience, self-compassion, and grace.

It will take redirecting, over and over.

It will take the time it takes.

What’s the alternative?

For anyone who needs to hear this today, sometimes this work can feel lonely, but we’re all doing some version of it.

You are not alone.

You’re doing a great job.

Reach out if you need support.

Remember why you started.

Be kind to yourself.

And keep going.

The work is worth it.

You are worth it.

Your contribution matters.

Kari

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Ever wonder if you might benefit from life coaching? Try a free 90-minute coaching call. Experience what it would be like to have weekly 1:1 coaching support for 6 months to a year while you actively do the work to change your life. Mindset + Habits + Identity Work.

Click here to book your free call this week.