On letting yourself go up in flames

Recently, I was talking to a client who is exploring a significant shift in how she relates to other people.

She’s craving deeper, more authentic connection. She’s realized she has often shown up, in the past, as a more surface-level, cocktail-party-charming version of herself.

But to show up differently — deeper, more authentically…it feels very, very weird.

Like she might take longer pauses after someone spoke, to figure out what she actually wanted to say next, and the other person might think she was strange for taking so long.

Like she doesn’t even know what to share, and how to listen, as this deeper, more authentic, non-charming-cocktail-party version of herself.  

(Can I also say how much I adore my clients? The fact that they undertake this kind of important, scary transformation brings me so much joy + pride.)

…

I always want to respond to my clients’ specific concerns. So, over several sessions, we talked about what she might do: techniques for listening, talking, and staying connected with herself when she is in conversation with others.

But I also try my best to get to the root of the matter. And I told her two things, that I thought might also resonate with you.

Here’s the first one:

Sometimes, ­we need to let ourselves go up in flames, so we can be born again.

This, of course, is an allusion to the Phoenix, from Greek mythology (and, more recently, Harry Potter fame) — which literally sets itself on fire, and is born again, as a baby bird, wobbly and new.

I’m a big believer in the power of slow, iterative change. But I also believe that at least sometimes, the change that is needed will feel like burning the whole thing down and then letting yourself be strange and new and awkward. And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

I speak from personal experience.

I have had my own periods of letting myself go up in flames. My most dramatic was in my mid-twenties, when I quit my management consulting job, shaved my head, broke up with my boyfriend, and questioned everything about how I related to my life (how did I want to spend my day? Who did I want to spend time with?). I often felt like I was blowing up my own life — I jokingly-not-jokingly referred to it to my roommates as “ka-boom-ing,” at the time.

And yet, I look back on my courage and choices during that time, as one of the things I am most proud of, in my whole life.

It took an enormous amount of courage to “ka-boom” the whole thing. And two of the things that are most precious to me — my work as a coach, and my relationship with my now-husband — started soon after that time.

I don’t think I could do the work that I do, or have connected with my husband — if I hadn’t let myself become someone new — someone with more depth, complexity, darkness, sadness, self-knowledge, and strength.

So that’s the first thing I wanted to share: Sometimes, ­there is a time to let ourselves go up in flames, so we can be born again.

…

Here’s the second thing:

Letting yourself burn down + be born again often feels more dramatic on the inside, than it looks on the outside.

During my mid-twenties conflagration, a big theme for me — like my client, actually — was trying to figure out how I could actually be authentic in interacting with others.

I was questioning my facial expressions — were they authentic? Or just performances?

I was questioning whether I was truly listening when other people spoke. This often resulted in me taking a pause after the other person spoke to process what they said; an odd move, since most conversations involve slightly overlapping talking between the participants.

I was questioning what I said — how could I say what was true, and not what was people-pleasing, or conflict-avoiding.

It was an intense time.  

And yes, sometimes, some people did not enjoy talking with me as much. They found me a little…shall we say…annoying.  

And also: during this time, I remember meeting up with an old friend who was in town for the weekend from Denver. We sat in a park by the Hudson River, soaking up the New York City springtime.

I felt nervous seeing him, because I didn’t seem to be able to “turn off” this strange internal transformation I was undergoing. I told him that I must be seeming kinda… weird.

He looked at me, and shrugged. “You seem a little tired, maybe a little quieter,” he told me. “But otherwise…fine.” 

And…whew.

Whew, what a relief it was to be able to be with this old friend, to be feeling so much, and to have him not actually experience that much of my internal, dramatic, burning-down-and-being-reborn.

It turned out that this was mostly true.

While there were some people who questioned or criticized my choices at the time, most people noticed nothing at all. Some people noticed something — but often, didn’t really care.  

And the people who even now matter the most to me — across the board, they mostly didn’t mind, or notice.

So I’ll say again: letting yourself burn down + be born again often feels more dramatic on the inside than it looks on the outside.

…

Is there a radical transformation brewing within you? I hope this helps.

And I’ll also say: it was my work with my first life coach that gave me the courage + insight to take on my own initial transformation. Many of my clients find that working with me gives them the confidence + clarity to undertake their own burning-the-whole-thing-down — if burning-the-whole-thing-down is necessary.

If you’d like to work with me 1:1, learn more here.

As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie

On callings

I believe that each person — if they listen quietly and carefully — knows the challenge that is next for them. 

I refer to these challenges as “callings” — because they feel like something that calls to us. Something that nags at us, begging to be dealt with. 

The word “calling” may sound a bit abstract, but callings don’t necessarily mean a quest to find the fairy elves’ secret orb. Quite the opposite: 

• Sometimes we are called to find clarity. To get clear about the next step in our career, or about what to do in a relationship.
  
  

• Sometimes we are called to build a skill. We need to be better at talking to our partner when we’re stressed without getting angry. Or showing up authentically with our friends. Or managing our team. Or working efficiently.
  
  

• Sometimes a calling is an action we need to take. We’ve been putting off a move, a career change, a break-up, or finally writing that screenplay for too long.
  
  

• And sometimes — most maddeningly— a calling is just a sense that something is “off.” We can describe the symptoms — we’re feeling a little dull, a little uninspired, a little sad — but we don’t know the cause or the solution. And yet, there is a challenge there for us all the same: to understand the problem more intimately, and, later, to take action to resolve it.
  

…

It’s easy to ignore a calling — we can do it for decades. Ignoring has its advantages, of course; callings tend to take time and energy. 

But a calling usually doesn’t go away. It returns when we are quiet and undisturbed. Sometimes it gets louder. Sometimes our life becomes dysfunctional because we’ve been ignoring the calling too long.

It is only by responding to that quiet knowing — of doing what is ours to do — that we can ever hope to experience a bodily sense of rightness. A deep sense that we are on the right path for us.

Which, ultimately, is what I think we all yearn for most.

…

I was so disconnected from my own callings for so long, and my life has been profoundly transformed by listening to them. I’m committed to helping others do the same. I know it sounds a little cheesy, but it’s true: one of my callings in life is to help others become aware of — and answer — their own. 

I currently have openings for two new clients (one spot was just taken!). If you’d like to work with me, learn more + reach out here.

As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie

Beware the moderately appealing goals

Just a quick reminder this week: Beware the “moderately appealing” goals.

I got the term “moderately appealing” from Oliver Burkeman’s lovely book about time and productivity, Four Thousand Weeks. One of the biggest barriers to feeling fulfilled by our “finite lives”, Burkeman argues, is these “moderately appealing” goals:

The work opportunity that seems fairly interesting or financially attractive, but would take quite a bit more work.

The friendship that is pleasant, in a lot of ways. But not a hell yes.

The hobby that is fun, but not one of the most important things in your life.  

I find that many of my clients have too many “moderately appealing” priorities — things they do care about, but which aren’t actually their top priorities.

In trying to do both the “moderately appealing” and the really-truly-high-priority things, they never have enough energy or time to give the really-truly-high-priorities what they really-truly-need.

(Or they are constantly exhausted, stressed, and hurried. Which does not lead to fulfillment, either.)

…

So I will ask: Is your finite life getting weighed down by too many “moderately appealing” goals?

As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie

Radical friendship insights from my father

My father is a 75-year-old man who loves bow ties, bel canto opera, and ancient military history.  

He also, I have come to realize, has some pretty great insights on friendship.

As a young lawyer at a big firm, my dad always was always able to find someone down the hall to have lunch with. (For the modern lawyers reading this, dad would say: This was a different time. Lawyers at big firms actually took lunch breaks back then.)

But a decade into his career, my dad went out on his own. He got his own office, hung his shingle, and…found that he wasn’t seeing friends as nearly much. He was kind of lonely.

So he started inviting people out to lunch.

He made a list of everyone he wanted to see more of, and went down the list — calling people up and scheduling several lunches a week, as a way of breaking up his workday.

And when he finished the list? He started again at the top.

As a result, my dad had several social lunches per week. For decades.

He’s a pretty upbeat guy, which I attribute to many things — but I genuinely think that one of them is his regular social interaction.

…

He and I were talking about his lunches recently, and there were two things that I thought I could learn from them. Maybe they will be helpful to you, too:


1. My dad is extremely intentional about his friendships.

In fairness, I don’t think my dad would use the word “intentional” — that’s the type of word that his Life Coach Daughter likes.

But what other word can you use, for a man who has a literal list of friendships he wants to maintain and goes to do the list on a regular basis, making sure he calls up each person?

And then starts again at the top?

2. My dad is comfortable doing 100% of the initiating.

This is, in my opinion, the most radical point of all. For virtually all of his lunches, my dad initiates the social plans.

I asked him, once: Dad, do you ever worry that maybe these people aren’t initiating back, because they don’t like you as much as you like them?

To that, he gave a good-natured shrug.

“I guess I could worry about that,” he told me, “but then I might stop asking people out to lunch. And what good would that do me? Or them?”

He told me that at least some friends will casually mention that they don’t socialize that much, with anyone. This makes sense to me; the average American spends less than a half hour a day on any non-work socializing and communicating, which includes time with one’s spouse.

And the others? Dad says: If they seem to be having a nice time with me, and I’m having a nice time with them, I don’t worry about whether they’re initiating or not. 

Truthfully, this is not how I’ve typically approached friendships. Quite the opposite, in fact.

In the past, I’d be okay initiating a few extra times, but if I felt like as doing most of the initiating…I’d stop reaching out to that person. I’d worry that secretly, they didn’t like me as much as I liked them, and that idea made me feel uncomfortable.

I’ve been thinking that perhaps I shouldn’t worry about initiating so much since reading Shasta Nelson’s thoughts about friendship, but having my dad as a real, living-breathing-role model pushed me even further in that direction.

…

And one more thing:

For those of you with jaws agape, thinking: I definitely don’t have time for several social lunches a week — I hear you. As an introverted, working mom with two young kids…I hear you.

Even my dad’s lunch frequency varied. He spent the last decade of his career as a judge — with less lunchtime flexibility than as a self-employed person — his frequency of social lunches decreased dramatically.

So if you’re in a busy season of life, don’t get too fixated on “several lunches per week.” I think the two lessons still hold, for however often you are able to socialize.

…

I offer my dad’s story to you, today, if it’s a helpful nudge:

Could it be that the missing ingredient to a satisfying, meaningful, social life is being willing to intentionally decide who you want to see, and then be willing to do 100% of the work, to see them? You might not have to do all the work – you probably won’t! — but just a willingness?

On one level, that idea feels radical. (At least to me!)

But what if it isn’t? What if it’s just a willingness to say:

Most people are lonely.

Many people are bad at initiating.

Can I help them, and me, feel more socially connected?

Because, as a reminder: regular friendship interaction can be an astonishingly effective tool for happiness, stress relief, and even momentum in other areas of your life.

Should we all channel Carlton Seaver this week?

(If so, I suggest this bow tie.)

As always, I’m rooting for you.

Katie

Big News

Have you heard the big news? I’m launching a podcast in October!

It’s called Now We’re Getting Somewhere, and I’ll be talking, deeply + practically, about the topics that are closest to my heart: how to have a life that’s more meaningful, happier, less exhausting, and also, more productive and successful.

I’m so excited about the chance to talk to you more directly — while you’re taking a walk around the block, driving, or doing the dishes.

I’ve already created episodes for you on:

• How to cultivate your internal compass

• Healing from burnout (This became an epic two-part-er)

• My intentional technology journey — and practices you can try
  

And! I’m currently planning a Q&A episode on dating — which is one of my favorite topics to coach on, but I haven’t written about that much in this newsletter. I’ll also be bringing a special secret guest to help me answer them.

Do you have any dating questions you’d like me to answer? You can submit them here.

And because I can’t resist, here’s the podcast art!

I can’t wait to share this project with you. Hope you’re getting as excited as I am :)

Of course, you’ve got this.

Katie

The intimidating journey

Just something small to share this week. It’s a passage from one of my favorite books — Swamplands of the Soul, by James Hollis — which has been haunting me lately.

Hollis writes: 

“Indeed, next to the fantasy of immortality, the hardest fantasy to relinquish is the thought that there is something out there who is going to fix us, take care us—spare us the intimidating journey to which we have been summoned. 

“No wonder we run from such a journey, project it onto gurus, never quite at home with ourselves.”

…

Something electric flashes up my spinal cord every time I think about “the intimidating journey to which we have been summoned.” 

When we are quiet, unstimulated, many of us have a sense of what we are being summoned to do next. It might not be saving the world — it might just be getting our affairs (or our brains, our emotions) in order. But there is something for us to do, and no one can do it for us. 

So I will invite you to ask yourself: what is the journey to which I am being summoned? 

And: How can I stop running from it? 

Because, in my experience, true satisfaction and meaning comes from heeding the call.

Always. 

…

I’m rooting for you in the week ahead. You’ve got this.

Katie

p.s. Hollis is right: no one can spare you from your own “intimidating journey.” But working with me can provide just enough clarity, insight, and encouragement that you won’t run from it anymore — so you can take steps forward and build long-term momentum. 

Learn more about working with me + apply for a consult here.

How life coaching can help (#1)

One of my core beliefs is that hiring is a coach is one of the best, most valuable, and most useful things you could spend your money on. 

I mean it. If you have a home, and food, and some financial security — I think there is nothing you could spend your money on that would be better — for you, for your family, for the world — than hiring a life coach. 

But I’ve realized that a lot of people — especially a lot of people who find their way to my world (typically professionals and creatives who are fairly together in their lives)… often have no idea what a life coach even does. 

I think it’s time for a Public Education Campaign. 

I will call it: *Life Coaching: What it is + Why It’s Awesome.* 

(Imagine that text on a red silky banner, and me kicking off the campaign by cutting the banner in half with comically oversized scissors.) 

As one part of this campaign, I wanted to share some specific examples of how a life coach can be helpful — taken from real stories from my clients. I hope it helps you learn more about life coaching, and I hope it inspires you, too. Look at what’s possible! If they can do it, so can you!

Today, here’s example #1:

#1. A life coach can help define the goal. 

One of my clients recently came into a session feeling tired and tight in his body. 

Yes, he was achieving some important financial and professional goals, but also, I always have stuff to do, he told me. It’s like I’m waiting for that place when…I won’t always feel like I have stuff to do. 

I started by asking him, in detail, about what it would feel like, to not always have stuff to do. He told me about how he felt when he visited his folks – he doesn’t worry about working out, a rigid diet, or lots of plans, when he’s there. He just hangs out in his parents’ basement, watches tv, and maybe does a bit of work. I could see his whole body relax, and he looked more content.

Life feels easy when I’m there, he told me.

That was the first big realization: he hadn’t known when he walked in, what he actually wanted. He just knew what he didn’t want. 

And once we knew that he wanted his life to feel easy, we were off to the races. By the end of the session, we’d discussed everything from his thoughts about work and working out — and believable, realistic thoughts he could think instead — to the hour-by-hour allocation of time in his workweek. 

And he was grinning. 

At the beginning of this conversation, I felt like I had to feel guilty about watching tv, he told me. Now I feel like I do plenty of work already, so I can just enjoy my life the rest of the time. 

And he told me: Wow, my life is pretty sweet.

…

And that’s just a single-session example of defining + achieving a goal — other goals are much broader. Just a few other recent client goals have included:

Feeling sparkly

Feeling happy

Feeling momentum

Knowing what they wanted as a next step in their career

Taking the next, challenging steps in their career

Working fewer hours without sacrificing quality at work

Not being so tired all the time

…

Of course, sometimes we know the goal backwards and forwards. Even then, there can be more to know. 

A different client, for example, came into our first session telling me she felt stagnant and bored. She wanted more meaning and fulfillment, she told me. 

And yet, she didn’t exactly know what that meant. What do "meaning" and "fulfillment" mean, exactly?

For this particular client, it turned out that meaning and fulfillment were 80% driven by two qualities: 

• Meaningful connection with others

• Learning

So those ended up becoming our true “goals” — and allowed us to explore things like:

• How could she feel a more meaningful connection and learning at her job (that was kind of boring)?
  

• How could she make more connections at her kickboxing class? At the drugstore?
  

• What types of learning were interesting, even after a tiring workday or workweek? A bonsai class? Studying Korean?
  

• How could she restructure her routines and days, so she had more *time* for meaningful connection and learning?

At the end of our coaching engagement, she told me: Wow, I feel so different than when I reached out to you. But it had also snuck up on her — this increased meaning and fulfillment. 

…

And, of course, that’s just one thing a coach can help with — I’ll share more in later installments of this series. I hope you enjoy this series as much as I enjoy thinking about my beloved clients.

And if you’d like to hire me — and I strongly suggest that you do; I’m an experienced, highly skilled life coach — you can learn more here.

As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie

Featured in: Redfin's blog

Redfin recently featured some of my thoughts about downsizing on their blog, in an article called: Toss or Keep? How to Downsize Your Belongings and Simplify Your Life.

I actually love this topic — on a personal level, I’ve radically changed my relationship to keeping stuff, over the past decade. I used to be someone who had difficulty throwing away anything that still functioned, didn’t have holes in it, or might “one day” be useful. As a result, my apartments and dorm rooms always felt cluttered.

I changed my mindset towards stuff, and now my home is almost always neat. (It’s much easier to be neat when you don’t have too much stuff).

You can read the full piece here with ideas from lots of experts, or here’s just one tip from me:

I recommend that clients identify what it means about them, to get rid of something.

Often, we will feel that it means something bad about our identity if we get rid of an object. For example: Does it mean that they are a bad sister, if they get rid of the kitchen tool their brother got them as a gift?

And for the real juicy question, I would ask: How could getting rid of that kitchen tool make them a good sister? Perhaps they’d feel lighter, and show up more open-hearted to the relationship — or they’d pass it on to someone who could really enjoy it.

If your brain is in the right place, everything else is easy.

Interested in more on this topic of identity and how it can get triggered? Check out this past blog post, as well.

As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie

The greater danger

In my experience, going too fast is far more dangerous than going too slow.

Oh, you want to implement some new healthy habits?
Show what you can do at work?
Make meaningful progress on a passion project?

I will say it again: going too fast is far more dangerous than going too slow.

As a life coach, I see it time and again: we bite off an amount that seems reasonable. Heck, it seems like less than “lots of other people do every day”!

And yet – it’s too much. We can’t keep it up. We’re tired, we’re discouraged. Of course, if we want it enough, we’ll eventually pick it up again — but we’ve wasted so much time and energy in the drama, frustration, and meandering path. 

…

The crazy, not-said-enough thing is:

It takes discipline, to purposefully constrain yourself to a slower, truly sustainable pace.

In other words: It may feel frustrating and terrible, to go slowly. You’ll think: But I can do more! I have more in me! There’s fuel in the tank!

Yes. That’s exactly the point.

You need to have more than enough fuel on some days — so that on other days when your fuel is far less, you’ll still have enough. So you can avoid flaming out, on an empty tank, by the side of the road. (Or, less dramatically, watching TikTok instead of doing your newfound healthy habits, or working on your screenplay.)

Repeat after me: going too fast is far more dangerous than going too slow.

Slow will get you there every time, team.

…

As always, I’m rooting for you in the week ahead. You’ve got this.

Katie

p.s. Yes, this lesson is age-old. (See also: the tortoise and the hare.) But I find that many of us — me included —need a reminder, sometimes.

p.p.s. Would you like me to be your life coach? I specialize in working with people who are already pretty “together” in their lives — paying their bills, and meeting their commitments. But just because your life looks pretty good on paper, doesn’t necessarily mean that it feels right to you, from the inside out.  Learn more.

How to feel bad in a useful way

One of my clients had been feeling “bad” for a long time.  

This client was a C-suite executive at a major regional organization, and a highly competent professional. 

But he was also completely overwhelmed at work, and exhausted all day. He had so much anxiety in his body, that he’d stopped feeling his body at all. He spent all day in his (very smart) head.

This client was desperate to feel better — understandably!

And yet, one of the first things I told him was: “You need to focus on processing your feelings.”

He balked at this. “I feel all the time!” he told me. “If I come home from work and my wife’s not there, all I do is feel anxious. All of my thoughts and worries and anxieties come rushing back in.”

And that was exactly what I feared.

One thing that I have observed — which I think is not said often enough — is that we can “feel bad” frequently — but without actually processing that emotion.

You will know that you are actually processing your emotion when you feel some amount of relief afterwards. There is an experience of metabolizing the feeling — allowing it to flow through you, and become something different.

You might not feel joyful and sparkly afterwards – but you will feel a sense that the intensity is at least somewhat less than before (and, typically, significantly less).

This often requires inhabiting the feeling or sensation much more deeply and directly than you are doing now.

And something miraculous typically occurs when we do this: not only do we feel much better, we also often get useful insights about our lives: information about what we do and don’t want, or what next actions to take.

…

Learning how to process emotions can take some time — it’s subtle and iterative, and something I often do with my 1:1 life coaching clients — but today, I wanted to share a few prompts to begin that process:

1. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and call to mind an emotional or physical sensation you’ve been avoiding.
   
   
   

2. Notice what that feeling is like in your body. Is it a tightness in your chest? A zinging in your belly? A rock in your throat?
   
   (If you can’t feel anything, don’t worry. Many people feel numb at first and unable to access physical sensations. But as virtually all of my clients would attest, it can be learned.)

3. Do not try to change the feeling, push it down, or make it go away. Just let it be there, however it happens to be.
   
   Mentally tell that feeling: You can stay as long as you’d like, and become whatever you want to become — bigger, smaller, something different.

4. The key is then to sit with that sensation, and give it all of the space it needs. I like to imagine kindly giving the feeling an enormous, spacious room to be in, or a wide field. Sometimes it may feel like the feeling gets bigger, more intense. Sometimes new feelings will arise.

5. Allow each feeling to arise, becoming whatever it needs to be. Typically after several minutes of this, you will start to feel better.

When I did this with my (admittedly skeptical) client – he looked at me afterward with some surprise: I feel better, he told me.

…

So many of us spend our lives feeling low-grade bad, but we avoid those feelings for obvious reasons: If we felt them more directly, we’d feel more bad, right?

And yet, the opposite is typically true: when we feel them directly, we end up feeling better, not worse. Typically, the feelings never last as long as we expect them to. 

But the only way around them is through them.

And if you take one thing away from this essay let it be this:

If you’ve been feeling bad, for a long time, it might be time to point your compass directly towards the swamp of messy feelings.

You might blow your mind.

…

As always, I’m rooting for you in the week ahead. You’ve got this.

Katie

p.s. My past and current clients are probably smiling as they read this essay: few of my clients can escape working with me, without learning how to process feelings and sensations better. Almost all of them become less afraid of intense feelings and more capable of moving on from them more effectively.

If you’ve been feeling low-level (or high-level) “bad” for a long time, I’d highly recommend working with me 1:1. The first steps are here.

Looking for a good tip?

A lot of people think that they just need a good tip in order to solve their problem. Just the right piece of advice.

But here’s the thing: Advice and tips – they’re easy to find.  

Google any topic.
Walk into any bookstore.
Read any self-development newsletter.  

You’ll find lots of tips on any topic — including whatever is bothering you right now.

How to feel less anxious, stressed, stuck, or uninspired.
How to stop using food or the internet in a way you don’t like.
How to work fewer hours without sacrificing quality.
How to heal from burnout.
How to have a better relationship with your partner, your friends, yourself.

There’s nothing wrong with tips — they can be quite useful. (Especially this essay, of course.)

And yet.

And yet, you could probably rattle off a list of “tips” to deal with any problem you currently have.

And yet, you still have those problems, don’t you?

…

But if you really want to change in a meaningful, lasting way — tips are usually not enough.

If you really want to change in a meaningful, lasting way —that’s when you need life coaching.

Every client I’ve worked with has incredibly personalized reasons why they’re in the stuck or anxious or tired or uninspired state they’re in. Working with me can help you identify those roadblocks — which are usually blind spots that you genuinely cannot see — and develop new, profoundly individualized ways of interpreting and responding to the same situations.

Then, we talk about actions. Sure, there might be a tip or two you’ve heard of before — but that’s not the real value. The real value is that you have a step-by-step, iterative, genuinely-doable process to get you from here to where you want to be.

No advice you read in a book or internet article could ever be so uniquely customized to your very particular fears, needs, strengths, and weaknesses.

…

I really hope you love these essays – but coaching with me is completely different than these essays.

It’s the difference between reading about an idea…and actually making a change that is profoundly right for you.

It’s way better.

I maintain a small, high-end 1:1 life coaching practice. If you’d like to be my next client, learn more or reach out here.

As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie

On mistakes

Someone dear to me recently had a minor fender bender. She was pulling out of the supermarket parking lot…and ran into a car she didn’t see coming.

Luckily, everyone was fine, and insurance would cover the repairs.

But when I talked to her, she was still beating herself up. 

“If I’d just looked more carefully,” She told me, “this whole thing wouldn’t have happened. I should have been more careful.”

It should be said: this person is very careful. She’s the one who double checks her flights, and always brings a sweater in case it gets cold.

And also: it is true that the immediate cause of the accident was that she didn’t look carefully enough, on that particular day. She was the one who drove into the other car. It was her “fault.”

But, underneath, there was significant thought error:

Her brain thought that if she was careful enough, she’d never make mistakes.

“What if you assumed that some percentage of the time, you’ll mess up.” I told her. “No matter what, no matter how careful you are, how thoughtful — there is simply no way to avoid messing up some percentage of the time. Your brain isn’t a machine, and it will mis-fire sometimes. This happens to everyone, no matter how careful.”

“Sometimes these mistakes be small, and sometimes they will be significant,” I told her. “All that happened was that this was one of yours.”  

Over the phone, I could hear her relief, and also her doubt.

Relief, because it felt good to not feel so guilty.
And doubt, because, well…was she allowed to think that?

I pointed out that I wasn’t saying she couldn’t be careful about her life. I was just suggesting that despite that care, she was still going to make mistakes.

Guaranteed.

…

So, this weekend, I just wanted to offer you the same thought to play with:

I will make mistakes — small and big — some percentage of the time. It is inevitable, and no amount of carefulness will allow me to avoid it.

Think of a recent time when you made a mistake. How does seeing it through this lens change your attitude towards it? 

 …

As always, I’m rooting for you in the week ahead. You’ve got this.

Katie

p.s. This essay is such a great example of something I do frequently with my clients: help them see the thought errors they are making (which can be very hard to see on our own) + helping them cultivate believable thoughts that serve them better.

I have one opening for a new client to start in July. If you’d like to work with me, learn more here.

A productivity secret

Some time ago, one of my clients came to our session very stressed about a huge project with a deadline several months down the road. She was applying to an MFA program, while also working a job — and needed several excellent writing samples, plus recommendations, personal statements, and more.

Would she get everything done in time?

And would she be able to do it, while balancing it with her other priorities (relationships, physical and mental well-being)? 

But as we talked about it in more detail, it became clear that this goal could be done, with ease and spaciousness, if she worked on it for an hour in the morning, and 30-45 minutes in the early afternoon.

This amount of time was a commitment. But also, it was extremely important goal for her, and she’s already cleared her calendar to have more than enough time each day.

It actually wasn’t that complicated.
It wasn’t dramatic at all.
It was just math.  

By the end of our session together, her body was so different than when we began. She seemed calm, open.

Thinking about it made me want to remind you of something:

Drama-free is a freaking amazing way to live.

Most big, scary things can, often, be accomplished with significantly less drama. And when you remove (or radically lessen) the drama, then it’s just execution.

And of course, sometimes it feels impossible to do them without drama. If that’s true for you, your first drama-removal step might be to get support. (This is something that I specialize in, if you’d like to work together.)

But consider a big project that you’re overwhelmed by:

How can you do it without drama?

…

Oh, and that client emailed me, months later, to say that she accomplished that goal beyond her wildest dreams.

The top MFA program in the country? IN.
Multiple fully-funded, also-top-notch MFA programs? IN, IN, IN.  

A huge congratulations to her for her massive talent.

And additional congratulations, of course, for her massively lower-drama execution.

 …

As always, I’m rooting for you in the week ahead. You’ve got this.

Katie

p.s. Do you have something you want out of life — a concrete goal? Or maybe it’s just something you’d like to feel more of – calmer, more confident, more sparkly? Working with a life coach can help you not only accomplish that goal, but do so with so much more ease and less drama.

I have one opening for a new client to start in July. If you’d like to work with me, learn more here.

Why recovering from burnout can be so hard

Severe burnout can be a difficult recovery process.

Here’s something I’ve noticed, time and again, about recovering from a completely empty tank:

When we finally start to refill our tanks, there is often an extended period of time when we are recovering…but we don’t feel better.

In other words:

We finally have a bit more time.
We’re finally resting.
We’re finally doing some useful self-care practices.

…And we don’t feel better.

As you can imagine, this is a tough time. It’s when I’ve started to feel quite anxious. It’s when my coaching clients sometimes start to panic:

Will I ever feel better? I’m doing all the right things!
Am I doomed to feel exhausted…forever?

This phase can last weeks. Occasionally — if the burnout was extreme — for months.

…

So, how do you recover from burnout?

All I can say to you is: keep going.

You will start to feel better, perhaps quite suddenly. When this happens, you will realize that your tank was slowly refilling before, but you were so tired that you couldn’t feel it. I’ve seen it happen over and over with my clients, and with myself.

(Of course, this is dependent on you actually taking steps to refill your tank. If you’re just doing the same ol’ things that burned you out to begin with, I can’t promise you’ll suddenly feel better one day.)

…

Using a life coach can be really beneficial for when you’re feeling like you need some help.

I know that when we are lost in the wilderness of exhaustion and burnout, everything can feel overwhelming.

So let me be a steadying guide: Keep going. It’s working.

Keep going, my friend.

Katie

p.s. If you’re stuck doing the same things and can’t see a way out of burnout and an empty tank, I’d recommend working with me 1:1.

The journey can seem completely overwhelming on your own — but with the help of an experienced coach who can suggest personalized, iterative steps — it’s a completely different, and much more doable process.

Learn more about working with me here.

How to be a “good person” (a controversial take)

One of my clients had a job in the entertainment industry he loved and was very good at — but felt a lot of guilt.

If he was really a “good person,” he told me, he’d be working with the homeless.

This is a very common anxiety I head from my 1:1 coaching clients. We want something, but we feel that we can’t be a “good person” and have that thing. So today, I wanted to share 3 concepts I often tell my clients, when they’re having these anxieties:

1. Question your brain’s “evidence” about how to be a good person. Could the opposite be true?

That same client who worked in entertainment told me about a small side project he’d worked on — just for fun, outside of his regular work hours.  

Lots of people told him how much they enjoyed this project — including the mom of a child with Autism, who wrote him an email to say that her son spent hours every day on it; that it brought him relief and pleasure, especially when he was overstimulated.  

Huh, I said to him.

Why is your brain saying that the only way to be a good person is to leave your career and work with the homeless? Why isn’t the way you brightened up that boy’s life equally useful and important?

Is it possible that there are many more people who you’ve helped, who never contacted you?

And then I gave him a real nudge: how could the job that you’re doing be *better* for the world as a whole than leaving your career to work with the homeless?

…

My goal is never to force my clients to believe anything. It’s simply to invite them to loosen their brain’s fixation, and to allow their brains to hold multiple possibilities. I could come up with many scenarios about how he creates more value for the world on his current path — if his brain can’t access those possibilities, it’s too narrowly constrained.  

2. The best actions for the world are the ones that energize you and are good for the world.

In my opinion, there are an infinite number of actions that would be good for the world. The key question is: how do you choose between them?

When you choose actions that drain you, you have far less energy to do future good-for-the-world actions.

When you choose actions that energize you — you have more energy for future good-for-the-world actions.

So: How do you choose? I think the answer here is obvious.

3. People’s “goodness” cannot be ranked.

Can you rank everyone you know based on how good they are? How do you do that?

Based on the number of hours they volunteer?
How often they smile?
How often they write thank-you notes?
How nice they are to a cashier at Trader Joe’s?
How nice they are to you?

Okay, sure, but some people are obviously bad, right? Or at least, on the “bad” end of things.

To that I would say: I’m not so sure. What may seem easy to someone — being kind, or even, being polite or respectful or law-abiding — may genuinely be impossible to another person. This may be due to profound differences in neurological structure — or even profound differences in how someone is raised, the trauma they have experienced, and more.

And if we can’t rank people by goodness…then you cannot be a less “good” person.

[That one might make your head explode a bit. You can always just chew on it in the background for a while.]

…

I am very aware that some of this may feel controversial in your brain.

“There is a hierarchy of good person actions!” your brain might think.
Or: “It’s selfish to want to do only good person things that also energize you!”
Or perhaps, even: “You’re not a good person for believing these things, Katie!” 

To be honest, I’m okay with that.

You know why? A core belief of mine is: When I believe these three points, I have more energy, more enthusiasm, more ideas…and I do more good for the world.

And I freaking love that belief. I feel that it profoundly serves me and the world.

You are welcome to believe whatever you’d like.

But I’d recommend stealing my thoughts.  

…

As always, I’m rooting for you in the week ahead. You’ve got this.

Katie

p.s. And that client in the entertainment industry? After quite a bit of work together (we go so much deeper in 1:1 coaching than in a short essay like this), he came to believe that it was possible to follow his passion and be a good person.

The relief of this gave him the energy to explore what he truly wanted to do. He ended up launching a venture on his own with his beloved wife — a long-held dream that he’d always been nervous to pursue — so he could make work he was so good at, in a way that was even more profoundly aligned with his values and interests.

p.p.s Interested in being one of my 1:1 clients? I’d love to get inside your brain + move the furniture around. Learn more here. And here’s what some past clients said about working with me.

On learning (+ being 100% Portuguese)

My husband is Portuguese. In fact, if he were here, he would like you to know that he is 100% Portuguese.

Several years ago, I set out to learn his native language. We got a beginner Portuguese textbook, and sat down for 45 minutes each week to work our way through.

Reader, It was rough.

Partly, Portuguese sounds were tough for my beginner mouth (In my opinion, European Portuguese sounds like a mix of a Slavic language — think Russian or Lithuanian — and saying the words “Oshkosh B’gosh” over and over.)

But mostly, it never seemed like I was really making progress.

Sure, we were slowly (so slowly!) inching our way through the textbook, but I often couldn’t even remember what we did in the week before. Was I making any progress?

I thought back to my days as a successful student:

There had been studying. There had been tests. There had been more than 45 minutes a week.

“I need to study,” I told my husband. “I’ll make flashcards, and vocab lists. I’ll quiz myself and review, so I can remember everything week to week.”

My husband listened to my plan. And then he calmly said it was a bad idea.

“If you keep showing up, you’re going to learn things.” He insisted. “Why don’t you just let yourself remember what you remember?”

I took his advice, mostly because I was busy and tired. It was only later that I realized he was suggesting an entirely new approach to learning for me.

…

When my husband corrected me on the pronunciation of the Portuguese letter “i” (i’s are always pronounced as “ee” in European Portuguese), I used to tense up and try to get the concept lodged in my memory.

But after deciding to just “remember what I remember,” I’d say: “I’m sure I’ll remember it eventually, if you keep reminding me.”

And then I did something incredible: I’d just “forget” about it. I just started assuming that eventually, that concept would get lodged in my memory.

And you know what? It freaking worked.

I started doing it with everything: vocabulary, conjugations, grammar.

Yes, my husband had to correct my pronunciation of the word “para” about a bajillion times (“para” can mean either “stop” or “for/to,” depending on the pronunciation of the first “a”). But also, I eventually totally got it — and now I do it without thinking.

I’m nowhere near fluent, but in the past several years, I’ve gotten to the point where my pronunciation is very passable, I can put together coherent sentences, and I can even eavesdrop a teensy bit on my husband’s phone conversations with his parents back in Portugal.

Our 45 minutes a week dropped to 35 minutes a week once my sons were born. And if there’s a been a lot of stress that week, sometimes 35 minutes doesn’t happen.

In 35 minutes or less a week… In allowing myself to remember what I remember…

…I have learned a lot.

…

I share this story, in the hopes of reminding you of two things:

1. Sometimes, the ways that we move through the world eventually stop serving us.

   I was a successful student in high school and college (Magna Cum Laude at Princeton, thankyouverymuch) because of my rigorous approach to learning.
   
   And yet, that same rigor made me associate learning with “tightness” and “stress.” Sometimes we have to completely take apart our old ways of doing things — ways which may have worked well for us in our past — in order to build something new. And that’s not only okay — it’s fantastic.
   
   

2. Don’t underestimate what you can get done in 35 minutes a week.

   Thirty-five minutes a week may seem, frankly, measly in the scale of a week. It may seem measly in the scale of a month. I’ve spent no time on this thing! How will I ever make progress?
   
   But don’t underestimate the compounding effect over time.

…

Take care, my friends.

Or, as one says to a friend in Fazendas de Almeirim, Portugal (my husband’s hometown): Beijinhos.

Katie

p.s. It can it be tough to take apart + rebuild how you move through the world. You know what makes it 2x-100x easier? Having a life coach.

Here's what Jackie, one of my clients, said about working with me:

“I feel like the work I did in the past 6 months with Katie have catapulted me forward and I made progress in my own personal goals (weird eating habits, tech habits, personal art goals) that would have taken years if I had not worked with Katie."

Learn more about working with me here.

When People Don't Like You (Part 2)

Last week, I wrote about what to do when people don’t like you, or judge you.

I wanted to share one more insight on this topic, which always seems to land with my clients:

5% of people won’t like you — no matter what you do.

So if someone doesn’t like you, all it means is that you’ve found someone in that 5%.

When our brain freaks out because someone doesn’t like us, it is usually because we have the implicit belief: 100% of people should like me.

And yet, this is a thinking error.

It is impossible that 100% of people will like you. In fact, some percent of people (which I call 5%, but you can pick a different percentage if you like) will dislike you no matter what you do.

They won’t like your hair because they don’t like brunettes.
They won’t like your sense of humor because it reminds them of their annoying brother.
They won’t like you, because their ex-best-friend likes you and they hate their ex-best-friend.  

If you, in an attempt to make them like you, changed your hair color or sense of humor…some other group of people wouldn’t like that.

Of course, it’s not rocket science that you can’t please all the people all the time. And yet, when we are upset that someone doesn’t like us, that’s typically what we are upset about.

So it can be useful to explicitly cultivate the thought:

5% of people won’t like me — no matter what I do. Now I have found someone in that 5%.

…

Several weeks ago, one of my clients was sharing, with clear pain, how her work colleague just didn’t seem to like her very much. It bothered her; she was trying every tool in her toolkit to turn the relationship around. And then I shared this concept with her.

Oh, I *was* assuming that if I did everything right, 100% of people would like me, she said.
But maybe this is just someone in that 5%.
Maybe I don’t have to change how she thinks of me…*at all.*

Relief.
Calm.
Even some giggles.  

And you better believe she showed up better in that relationship — more confident, more interesting, and yes — more like-able — when she wasn’t trying to get her colleague to like her so much.

…

As always, I’m rooting for you in the week ahead. You’ve got this.

Katie

p.s. If you’d like more comfortable with people not liking you all the time, while also having more authentic, deeper romantic relationships and friendships (and not feeling like your chest is tight from low-level anxiety/exhaustion all the time), you should definitely hire me as your life coach.

To learn more about my work, click here.

When people don’t like you

I’d like to make a radical suggestion: 

When you fear that people are judging you — or even when you fear that they simply don’t like you — here’s what you should do:

Let them.

Let them think that you’re lazy.
Let them think you’re unintelligent.
Let them think you’re mean or inconsiderate.
Let them not like you.

Let them think all of those terrible things….and do not try to change their minds.

And yes, this applies *even* to your boss/mom/best friend. It applies *especially* to them.

You might be surprised by what happens.

(What usually happens for me? Well, when I stop trying to manipulate them into thinking something positive about me…I feel radically more loving towards them. That, alone, loosens the relationship — and leads to many other positive results.) 

As always, I’m rooting for you in the week ahead. You’ve got this.

Katie

p.s. I coach clients on all kinds of relationship issues — with their families, their partners, their friends, and their online dating profiles — and on everything from difficult conversations to people pleasing to loneliness to fostering deeper connections to setting effective boundaries (which often function differently than we assume). If you’d like to work with me, you can learn more here.

Sign up for my newsletter to get helpful + encouraging essays like this every Sunday morning. It’s free!

It can be freaking hard to know yourself

Some time ago, I argued that if you truly know yourself, then it can be no big deal if people don’t agree with your decisions.

Reflecting on it, I realize that I wrote about “knowing yourself” as if it was the most straightforward thing in the world.

So, an important addendum:

“Knowing yourself” is not the most straightforward thing in the world.
In fact, it can be freaking hard.

For most people, it’s not that don’t know yourself at all. You probably do know that you love onion rings and reality TV, for example.

But if you struggle to make decisions, or to chart a path through life…you probably don’t know yourself as deeply as you might.

Here’s three tips that I’ve found helpful — for myself, and for my clients — in figuring out “how to know” yourself or what you want:

1. “Knowing” is more often done in the body, than the head.

Our smart brains can create a compelling argument for every side of the issue. That’s why pro-con lists can sometimes make us feel like we’re spinning out more, not less. By contrast: when we check in with our body sensations on a topic, we’re more likely to get a clearer, less variable answer. (More on that here.)

2. It’s often easier to feel our “no” than our “yes.”

For many people, it is easier to feel a “no” in your body than a “yes” in your body. My “no” is pretty consistent, and feels like a closed down and tight feeling in my heart + belly. (Wondering what your “no” feels like? Think of something as a clear “no” — an activity, a person, a job — and notice what sensations arise in your body.)

For most people, the experience of “yes” is more variable, and often more subtle, than a “no.” For me, sometimes a “yes” is just a mild feeling of spaciousness or openness. Sometimes it’s an almost imperceptible fluttering. If this idea of “checking in with your body” feels new to you, I suggest starting with finding a “no” feeling.

3. If your nervous system is highly agitated, it may be very hard to “know” anything.

Things that can agitate our nervous system include: being constantly busy, being exhausted, being chronically stimulated (this is why it can be hard to know what we want when we spend all of our free time on our phones).

If our nervous systems are agitated, it’s like an enormous amount of static, gumming up the phone line between you + yourself.

Some of us deal with this static by leaving our bodies — spending most of our lives as a floating head. In my experience as a coach, this is very common, especially with smart people. Whenever we do slow down or have quiet, we may feel extremely uncomfortable or agitated (it’s all of that static!) If this describes you, the first step is to calm your nervous system. Here’s one of my favorite daily practices to help with that.

…

For what it’s worth, when I say that it can be hard to know yourself, I speak from personal experience.

I spent years making pro-con lists about major life decisions, or doing what seemed like a “good idea” (which was usually shorthand for what seemed most impressive), because I didn’t actually know what I wanted. I was alternatively skeptical of people who seemed to know themselves + what they wanted on a core level…and deeply jealous.

And now, I’m one of them.

Which is to say: “knowing yourself” — knowing what you want in your bones and in your gut — it’s real.

And — maybe even more importantly — it’s achievable.

…

As always, I’m rooting for you in the week ahead. You’ve got this.

Katie

p.s. Knowing yourself is a skill — like tying your shoes. Some people get it more intuitively, and for others, it takes a bit of practice + maybe a bit of support.

Life coaching can be very, very helpful with this. I have one opening for a new client to start in May; if you'd like to snag that spot to work with me, you can learn more + reach out here.

6 ways to feel less exhausted at your job

Many of my clients come to me with jobs that freaking exhaust them. 

They tell me they absolutely have to quit their exhausting jobs, to become librarians or writers. Or live in airstreams by the sea. There’s no other way out.

I’m not against quitting one’s job, but today, I thought it might be helpful to share 6 ways that I help my clients have much more energy when their jobs are draining the life force out of them:  

1. Get clear about your authentic priorities.
   

   Many of us are unintentionally living as though “being a perfect employee” is our top life priority. But when we really think about it…it’s not.  

   Our priorities might be something more like: “I want to do add a lot of value at work, while also having plenty of time to take care of myself and connect with my partner.”
   
   The difference between showing up at work with the goal of “being a perfect employee” versus “I want to do add a lot of value at work, while also having plenty of time to take care of myself and connect with my partner” can be night and day.

2. Think new thoughts about your job.
   

   You might be into this whole “I want to live in tune with my true values” idea.

   But when you try to implement it, your brain might flip out. It might tell you things like: “You’ll get fired!” or  “Your boss/colleagues will be so mad!” or “You can’t do a good job without working the way you’ve been working!”
   
   These thoughts are very scary. They feel very true. So — you’ll keep working the way you’ve been working…which has been exhausting you.
   
   And yet, far more often than we think, the thoughts that our brains are yelling are simply not true. In this example, it actually might be true that working in a way that would be in tune with your values would give you more energy, creativity, and resourcefulness, which might even (gasp!):
   

   1. Make you better at your job,

   2. Delight your boss or colleagues,

   3. Make you more likely to stay at your job (rather than quit to become a librarian or live in Portugal for a year). And yes…wait for it…

   4. Make you more likely to eventually get promoted.

   The way you think about your work situation deeply matters. If you believe that it’s irresponsible or careless to work less or work differently — you’ll simply never do it. This is something I often work with clients on: thinking new thoughts about the same situation.
   
   (If you’d like to start thinking some new thoughts — here’s one way to get you started)
   

3. You must work smarter, not harder.
   
   I have never met a client who couldn’t put in less time and energy, with equal or superior results, by strategically shifting how they work. In other words: “working smarter.”
   
   The tricky thing about working smarter (as with many of these points) is that it can be hard to see the opportunities in our own lives. This is where a coach who can point out opportunities you can’t see can be astonishingly useful.
   
   But if you’d like to begin on your own, here’s one concept that I often share with my clients, as a way of kicking off the “work smarter” conversation.
   

4. It might be time to build new skills.
   

   Setting boundaries, making requests (for a new salary, for a promotion or a new project), having difficult conversations effectively with work colleagues, communicating well over email, processing and then letting go of anxiety when an interaction doesn’t go as you’d hoped — these are all things we can become more skillful at with time.
   
   And “building skills” doesn’t have to be exhausting. I often find that my clients just need someone to point out a small new technique, tiny tweak, or opportunity they may have missed.
   

5. Are you attending to what you need to attend to, outside of work?
   

   Work is much less exhausting when we are well-rested, well-nourished, physically well, and emotionally supported in our out-of-work life. And yet: there can be a complex web of reasons why we might not, say, get meaningful rest, or have enough emotional support.
   
   And here’s something I frequently find: my clients often think they know our out-of-work priorities, but as we dig deeper, it often turns out that their sense of priorities is actually no longer true for them. They think that they like how they spend their Saturdays, for example, but when we really dig in…it’s not working for them. Refreshing your priorities to help you get what you need right now often has astonishing dividends for work productivity and energy.
   
   Coaching can help with that, too.
   

6. Be thoughtful about when to leave, and when to stick it out.
   

   Sometimes you can do all of the personal work in the world…but your job or your industry is just not suited to you. Coaching can help you tell the difference between the two, so you’re not stuck in anguish and mental drama about it.
   

…

If you take one thing from this essay, let it be this: There are many more opportunities to feel better at your job than you are currently seeing.

This is one (of many) areas in which life coaching can shine. Having a coach to talk through your specific situation in detail is worth it’s weight in cold (and in dollars and cents). If you’d like to work with me, you can find out more here.

But whether we work together or not, I hope this list gives you some ideas for where to start, if you ever start feeling exhausted by your job.

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I’m rooting for you.

Katie