Sometimes we get a haircut, only to have bed head for the next four days.
Sometimes we fantasize about a special meal we want to make, only to invent from the contents of the refrigerator.
Sometimes we do heed our bodies’ signs telling us it needs rest, only to be met with resistance.
The second your eyes start to close, you think of what you “should” be doing instead, and anxiety jolts you out of restfulness and into unease. Sound familiar?
You want the rest badly. You can feel it in the dryness of your eyes and the weight of your head and your spirit, but your mind has other plans.
Habits and thought patterns itching to be performed, neurotransmitters in the brain eager to travel down the same pathway, reaching synapses with a sigh of relief in the familiarity and the comfort of the known.
This is what it means to be creatures of habit: to reach for the familiar even if the outcome is keeping us stuck, or worse, causing us harm.
The habits and behaviors we have are intimately connected to the stories we live by.
You know the ones, they live inside our heads and often tell us what we can or can’t do, like some invisible authority that has written “facts” about ourselves.
When was the last time you fact-checked these stories? Or asked yourself how true these stories actually are?
At the end of my coaching program, I ask my clients to identify “Empowering Lessons” that they will take with them as they continue to grow from the new baseline they’ve created.
One client reflected that what was different in their current attempt to change certain behaviors and habits was that their desired outcomes were deeply internally motivated, based on how they wanted to feel in their body, rather than what they wanted to look like.
Their top Empowering Lesson was this: “Feeling good and feeling healthy in my body and mind is itself a reward.”
Wow.
They didn’t arrive there without challenging that invisible authority that offered all kinds of narratives to keep them exactly where they were. Sometimes that invisible authority told them that they weren’t doing enough. That they weren’t enough. I’m sure many of you can relate.
Some of us know what these stories are.
Some of us have a feeling of what’s keeping us stuck, and are ready to put language to it.
Some of us have made so much progress in 2025 and want to keep growing.
And some simply feel the pull with that deep inner knowing, that it’s time to switch things up.
Coaching is a collaborative process, so when I say “we” I truly mean it.
We do this work together, not to support you in becoming your “best” self, but to support you in becoming yourself. Yourself, minus the stories, minus the doubts, is naturally energized, easeful, empowered, and aligned.
If you’re skeptical of whether this is true, that’s a great place to start, exactly where you are.
Loving Inquiry: Who would you be without these stories? What new stories could you make room for?