I love a big idea right up until it asks me to do something oddly specific.
“Use your voice,” for example.
Do I want to use my voice? Yes. Absolutely.
The idea of speak up and say what you mean or stop editing yourself to make things easier for everyone else feels empowering when you think about it.
You get yourself riled up with a little pep talk and BOOM!
Let’s DO this!
And then your hairstylist spins you around to ask what you think.
It’s one of those moments where you don’t want to say the first thing that comes to mind because it might hurt her feelings. But you’re paying for the service, so you should really be honest, and deep down you know you absolutely do not love it.
While you’re frantically searching for something to say, you suddenly hear yourself come out with this strangely mousey little voice:
“Ohhhh, I love it!?”
Wait. What?
Oh no...
Was that it?
Was that one of those moments when I was supposed to “use my voice” as the empowered woman I was dreaming about only seconds before my chair spun around?
You know the answer.
Somehow “use your voice” sounds a whole lot clearer when nobody is standing in front of you waiting to hear whether you like the hair they just spent forty-five minutes styling for you.
That’s what makes taking these big ideas and turning them into actual change so hard.
I mean, big ideas are really easy to agree with when they’re still big and abstract. They don’t require you to actually do anything.
It’s those tiny, random, ordinary moments that are the real test.
The hairdresser asking what you think.
Someone questioning a decision you already made.
Your kid loading the dishwasher in a way that makes absolutely no sense.
Those are the moments when all that big language suddenly has to become something real.
We carry these ideas around in our heads all the time:
Trust yourself.
Use your voice.
Let go of control.
Yes. Great. I want all of that.
But what does any of it actually look like on a random Tuesday?
And more importantly, will I even recognize the moment when it shows up?
Real life doesn’t announce, Here is your opportunity to use your voice.
Or trust yourself.
Or release control.
It just gives you the situation.
Take trusting yourself.
I can completely agree that I need to stop second-guessing every decision I make. I can understand why I do it, recognize the pattern and feel very committed to changing it.
But as soon as somebody questions a decision I’ve already made, I’m mentally reopening the entire case within thirty seconds.
Well... maybe I should think about it again.
Stop it.
No.
You already thought about it.
You made the decision.
Let it stand.
Seems simple enough, right?
Sure it does.
Until a coworker asks why you only made one copy instead of two when it really doesn’t matter and you’d probably be fine with absolutely no copies, but suddenly...
Wait. Should I have made two?
Seriously?
That certainly doesn’t feel like some meaningful opportunity to practice self-trust.
It just feels like somebody asked you about a copy.
Same thing with releasing control.
Sounds great.
And then your kid starts loading the dishwasher in a way that makes absolutely no sense.
I mean... are we all seeing what’s happening here?
Suddenly “release control” is no longer a beautiful idea about becoming a more peaceful person.
It’s standing in your kitchen trying not to rearrange the forks.
Real life is annoyingly specific.
It doesn’t give you a clearly labeled self-trust practice test.
It gives you the decision you already made and the annoying coworker who seems to question your every move.
It gives you the invitation you don’t really want to accept even though you promised yourself you were going to start saying no sometimes.
It gives you the empty hour you said you would use to relax... and the sudden urge to fill every second of it.
It gives you the person offering to help after you swore you were going to get better at accepting help when your plate is full, while every cell in your body is already saying, No, no. I’ve got it.
Or somebody asks where you want to eat and you say, “Whatever works,” even though you have known exactly what you wanted since the question was asked.
Half the time the moment is over before you realize...
Oh.
That was it.
That was the thing I keep saying I want to do differently.
And if you’re anything like me, this gets even trickier because you can turn almost any realization into a project.
My husband knows the look.
I decide I want to change something and suddenly there are ideas everywhere.
A new routine.
A hobby.
More time alone.
A better morning.
Then come the categories.
The spreadsheets.
Possibly some color-coded sticky notes covering the office floor.
If you know, you know.
And look, I realize this may sound slightly unhinged if your brain doesn’t work this way.
But I can spend so much time figuring out how I’m going to create this new version of my life that I completely miss the ordinary moment where the thing I want to change is already happening.
I’m designing the system while still agreeing to something I didn’t want to do because I didn’t recognize that as the moment.
That’s what I think we’ve been missing.
We say things like:
I want to trust myself.
I want to use my voice.
I want to stop controlling everything.
And those are real things to want.
But before any of them can change much, we have to know what they actually look like for us.
Because “use your voice” isn’t going to show up the same way in my life as it does in yours.
For one woman, it may mean finally saying what she thinks.
For another, she already said what she thinks. Her moment comes five seconds later when she feels the urge to spend the next ten minutes explaining why she’s allowed to think it.
Trusting yourself might mean making the decision and letting it stand.
Or it might mean admitting, Actually, I don’t know enough yet. I need more information before I decide.
Releasing control might mean letting somebody else handle something.
Or maybe you’re perfectly capable of letting them handle it...
as long as they do it exactly the way you would.
Ahem.
This is why grabbing whatever behavior sounds healthier and forcing ourselves to do it doesn’t really solve the problem.
The behavior isn’t where we start.
We start by getting specific enough to actually see what’s happening.
Where does this show up for me?
Where do I stop trusting myself?
Where do I know what I want but hear myself saying something else?
Where do I take over before anybody has even asked me to?
Where do I say whatever works because having no preference feels easier than letting the real one be known?
Where does the thing I keep saying I want actually bump into the life I’m already living?
That’s a much smaller question than:
How do I change my whole life?
And maybe that’s exactly why it helps.
We don’t have to jump from noticing a pattern to reinventing ourselves. We just have to get good enough at recognizing the ordinary moment when the bigger idea is actually showing up.
Because we spend so much time imagining change at the level of identity.
The confident woman.
The woman who trusts herself.
The woman who knows what she wants and says it.
The woman who doesn’t need to control everything.
But none of those women suddenly appears one morning fully formed.
She has to exist somewhere.
In a salon chair.
In a group text.
In the kitchen.
In a conversation.
On a calendar.
Standing in front of one completely ordinary decision that probably doesn’t feel important enough to count.
And I think that's part of the reason these moments are so easy to miss.
We’re waiting for something big enough to match the change we think we’re making.
But what if this is what it looks like?
Not the grand version.
The actual-size version.
Because I want to feel more like myself can sound almost impossibly big.
But what would feeling more like yourself look like right here?
Maybe it looks like saying what you actually think about the haircut.
Maybe it’s letting the decision stand.
Maybe it’s leaving the forks exactly where your kid put them.
Or maybe it’s something as unimpressive as typing the name of the restaurant you actually want into the group text.
That question is smaller.
You can actually see it.
And once you can see it...
well, now you finally have something real to work with.
Want to keep going with this conversation?
🎧 Listen to Ep. 69: Whatever Works: The Rudder You Didn’t Know You Had →