*Daily neck traction for herniated cervical discs, circa 2016. Read behind the forced selfie smile.*

Stop hijacking your real ambition.
Start living your purposeful and intentional life.

FULL STOP.

Over-ing. Where to begin.
Maybe it started with high personal expectations and/or a competitive work culture.
Or maybe you identify as a giver and/or people-pleaser.
Or maybe there’s another cause, which case, I’d love to hear more of what it is for you.

Whatever is at the core, this message is for you if you find your over-ing is no longer fulfilling. But quite the opposite.

Over-ing is draining and comes at a cost to your mental, soul/spiritual, and physical health. Over-ing in your job leads to not doing the healthy things for your mind and body that you know to do. With the folks I often work directly with, they tend to overwork to prove something to themselves and others.

But at the base level, these patterns of over-ing behaviors keep you disconnected from your body. You feel numb because in order to overwork you have to override your body’s needs and sensations. This keeps you in self-perpetuating negative loop cycle as it repeats, repeats, and repeats. Until your body revolts. Stress is trauma and it lives in your body until you let it go with self-compassion practices.

I’ve been there. My body revolted until it finally got my attention in the biggest way. It sucks. I thought ambition meant to over as my identity, like it was a badge of honor to over-produce, over-prepare, over-plan, over-care, over-research, over-commit, and so on, all while juggling a toddler. I thought over-ing proved I was a good enough - a good enough leader, professor, administrator, and researcher, you name it. I thought over-ing kept hidden my sneaking shame that I didn’t belong - oh, hello, there imposterism.

Guess what. Shock of no shocks. My over-ing led to such chronic stress and control/worry anxiety that it landed me in urgent care with 2 herniated cervical discs and the worst case of shingles as a bonus. Talk about the gift of new perspectives.

But you don’t have to learn these lessons the hard way. I beg of you, please, don’t learn them the hard way.

You can get out of over-ing and recenter to your core. I’m here to help you get out of over-ing and into owning your full self. You are so worthy of living a purposeful and intentional life. A life where work is a part of fulfilling days and weeks rather than all consuming. A life that is value-aligned and one that you love to live every day because you are prioritizing what matters most to you. That’s key - prioritizing you rather than other people’s expectations and demands. I’ll be honest, it’s a big mindset and behavioral shift, but so damn worth it and needed.

Our world, your community and friends/family, all need you to step into your true ambition in order to right the wrongs in society and with our precious Earth. There is an urgency of getting out of overwhelm so that you can do the true work that you’re here to do. And if you’re brutally honest with yourself, are you living THAT ambition fully right now? Most of us are not. Part of that is living the human journey of being fully embodied and experiencing joy and pleasure. The other part is collaborative relations with other humans and nature beings in order to shift the exploitation and oppression rampant in our culture.

From conversations that grew out of last week’s Grow Boldly on Regenerative Rest, I keep designing new ways to support and help you get clear on what matters by slowing down and intentionally evaluating what a whole life can be for you, which begins with:

Why over-ing is keeping you small and in the overwhelm
Tools and questions to help envision your bigger (not busier) identity
Ways to you slow down so you can reevaluate what’s yours to do and not do

My goal is for you to stop hijacking your true ambition so you can purposefully design your authenticity across all areas of life. One of my increasingly favorite tools - Wheel of Wholeness practice - is the foundation to reclaiming your self-worth and hijacking the fears that keep you in over-working, overwhelm and dissatisfaction.

Lastly, I’m not a fan of new years resolutions - there’s so much pressure and performativity. Which is why now, as we wrap up the high pressured month of January, is the perfect moment to create a more purposeful and fulfilling vision for what you want to feel this year.