About a year ago, I hit a wall – and what I did changed the trajectory of my life, and not in the way I imagined. 

I was going through major changes in both my personal and professional life. I had become an empty nester and was trying to find myself again… becoming a single mom at twenty-years old meant that motherhood had always sort of defined (and consumed) me, and I was comfortable and used to it.

Professionally, I felt stuck. I couldn’t see the next step in my career. I wasn’t getting the growth and advancement that I (thought) I deserved and was getting bypassed for roles that I felt capable of. I didn’t understand what was holding me back.

Like many of my fellow Gen X friends, I grew up in the 80s where dual income families and climbing the ladder was the “path to success.” My dad would always tell us, especially the three girls, about going to college and being able to take care of ourself, “because you can’t depend on someone else.”

I suppose that shaped me more than I realized. I had gotten stuck in the trap of letting work define me. So feeling like my career growth had stalled was really bothering me. I was supposed to be progressing every few years.

But, how do I get unstuck? 

Of course I started with an executive coach to help me get on track career wise (because that’s easier and less personal, right?). I fully expected him to create a playbook to help me understand what I need to do to to get from X to Y by Z, but he did none of that. 

Instead he spent the next 8 months trying to help me unpack all the personal and professional experiences that shaped me and helped me see that getting to a state of being where “I am who I am, not what I do” was the destination for me. Mind blown. 

This journal is my journey to personal discovery and untethering myself from what’s holding me back from happiness and fulfillment.

Here I’ll share the real, real me. I’ll begin to embrace the things that shaped me – starting from growing up in a small town in Georgia to my career start, pivotal moments along the way like finding love and building a new family, a mid-life crisis, work crises, and now how I’m reflecting back and seeing things differently.

I’m certainly not a professional and definitely not the first person to overcome obstacles in life, but I hope my stories may inspire you to see things differently in yourself and others too.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson