A dear client asked me how I define success at the end of a day that felt like anything but successful—I had failed to finish a 50-mile race I trained for with great commitment. One of the mind traps that gets in the way of being successful is confusing success with results. Money, grades, and titles are results. Failure, as heartbreaking as it can be, is not the opposite of success. Failure is literally what success is made of.

Life Coaching continues to be mystifying to most. Folks don't understand the difference between Coaching and therapy, and because it's a fast-growing field with a low barrier to entry, there's an understandable measure of skepticism. One of my larger life goals is to bring legitimacy to the field of Life Coaching and contribute to the public understanding of this profession as being valid, valuable, and just as necessary as any other profession.

"What's your niche?" is a question I'm asked often. My short and often unsatisfying response is, "My niche is humans." Most coaching schools teach you to build your business by deciding on a niche and marketing it aggressively. But if this system works, why is the average global Professional Life Coach salary only $47,000? I propose we base our choice of which Life Coach to work with less on their marketing niche and more on their behavioral one.

I absolutely love my work and I'm more energized after 8-9 hours of coaching sessions. But burnout is more often the result of an emotional challenge rather than a physical one. Two main culprits present most often: the belief that our work is not meaningful, or that we are not appreciated. Most relationships end because of resentment rather than all the other reasons we convince ourselves of. And resentment starts with expectations.

Intimacy isn’t a trait we’re born with—it’s a practice we cultivate. Through radical acceptance, creating safety, mindful vulnerability, and nurturing connection, we can build authentic, lasting closeness in relationships, whether personal or professional.

Last week's "Shit I Don't Have Time For" list touched more hearts than I expected. But there's a reason this list is so powerful: it's not new information, it's the deepest knowing in your soul that's been patiently waiting for authentic self-acceptance. Once you've gathered the courage to declare it, you won't forget it. Part two of this exercise—creating your list of "Things Worth Doing"—is where the real magic happens.

I'm 55—a declaration that in and of itself feels like a radical act. Most of us have been raised to base our lives on the benchmarks of success society dictates. Underlying most of the rules is the belief that time is running out—especially for women. But here's my greatest weapon against this harmful, completely unhelpful belief: Instead of making a to-do list of all the things you're running out of time with, make a list of all the shit you don't have time for anymore.

Many of us are energized to set new goals during this time of year, but staying invested in them is another story. I don't love the middle. Working with more folks than I ever imagined, I can report I'm far from the only person with this problem. One primary mind shift changed everything: insight—not information—is the non-negotiable starting point for taking new actions. Once we understand our why, remembering every day is our only commitment.

Motivation is a fair weather friend. It feels like a superpower for a week or month, but disappears overnight when circumstances change—leaving shame and guilt behind. There's a better way. Instead of chasing motivation fueled by external circumstances, shift to inspiration. Inspiration sparks a fire inside you that belongs to no one but yourself. This is the real fuel for achieving your goals.

"What should I do?" is the phrase Professional Coaches hear most often. High achievers believe they should solve all their challenges by themselves and solve problems for everyone around them too. But this belief is unproductive and even damaging. We cannot see the whole system when we are inside of it. A Professional Coach doesn't offer solutions—she asks powerful questions that illuminate the underlying and often hidden beliefs you're carrying around.

Much of the work I do with my clients centers around cultivating their sense of compassion, for others and for themselves. I've found that most of us can find a level of compassion for others, but when it comes to ourselves, we can be obstinate and harsh. We expect so much of ourselves and confuse our lack of self-compassion for ambition, strength, and control. We falsely believe that the more we judge ourselves, the higher our future performance will be.

Last week, I explained how thoughts come and go, as often as they please, and although I shared steps for managing our thoughts, I want to be clear about the difference between thoughts and feelings. I don’t know where thoughts come from, and although many years of therapy felt helpful in the moment, they didn’t help me become the Master of Positive Thoughts I was striving for.

A strange and different kind of year is coming to an end, and oddly, most of us are experiencing the same pre-holiday stressors as we do during any other "normal" year. For a year that was seemingly "cancelled", we sure have a lot to get done, right?

What's the state of your Life Buckets? When was the last time you checked to see how empty or full each one is? One of the first exercises I introduce my clients to, is the process defining your 3-4 Life Buckets. Once we identify our Core Life Values (a separate exercise), we can then decide on the areas of our life that are of priority.

"You're killing my soul!", I whined to my Coach, more than once. You'd think he was asking me to take action that put my life at risk. What he was asking me to do—repeatedly, and time after time—was to block time in my calendar for all the things that matter to me, and then honor my calendar. It seems like an easy enough request and really, what was at risk?

Growing up and well into adulthood, “How do I make it happen?”, was the question I asked myself most often.  I was raised and also had an inclination to be independent, resourceful and high achieving. Bars were not set low in my family, and I not only accepted that life view but took it to a higher level because (for whatever reason) what was good enough for others, had to be broken apart and reimagined by me. 

What do highly educated millennials and many high-achieving, 50-ish women have in common? On the surface, seemingly not much. However, because both are groups of people that I coach, one similarity connects them with surprising consistency.

We're told there's a loneliness epidemic, worsened by social distancing. But most of us don't understand the difference between loneliness and solitude. Loneliness is sadness from having no company—solitude is the state of being alone. The subtle yet powerful difference? We feel loneliness happens to us, but solitude is something we control. Those who cultivated solitude before COVID were far more comfortable in their own company when faced with isolation.

If you regularly beat yourself up because you continue to do or say things you know are not good for you—just stop! You're actually being completely normal. Nothing is wrong, broken, or self-sabotaging about you. If you heard "To know better is to do better" and decided something is wrong with you because you know better but aren't doing better, keep reading. I'll share why knowing and doing are not related.

For so many of us, the first emotion reading about Ruth Bader Ginsburg's accomplishments is jealousy and envy. Without awareness, we shift to wanting to "do more" or surrendering to feeling "not good enough." An epidemic of women feel they can never do enough—while working, managing households, raising children, and caring for aging parents. What are fulfilled women doing differently?