This book is for you if you’ve ever doubted yourself, wondered what was wrong with you, or felt like you just maybe weren’t up to the task because what seems so easy to others feels like wading through treacle for you. If you know what it is to feel overwhelmed or burned out, or felt like a freak because how you’re ‘supposed’ to show up feels alien to you, then this book is going to be balm for your weary soul.
I know this because I’ve been helping women for over 25 years to set goals that they’re actually excited to achieve, then, crucially, helping them develop the mindset required to fulfil and exceed those goals. I have achieved that in multiple domains – whether helping dancers to successfully audition for professional theatre school, or gain their dance teaching qualification, and through my two current businesses. In one of these businesses, I help dog sport competitors with their mindset from novices up to those wanting to achieve goals at national and world levels. My other business is where I help women to tweak their existing business so that it better fits the pace of life that lights them up. In short, I help these women be who they were put here to be, at an un-hustled, God-designed pace.
You might not think that these relate to each other, or are relevant to you, but humans are humans, and the ‘gremlins’ that sabotage your thinking are really no different than those that sabotage women building their dream businesses, or those stepping up to the start line at a national or world championships.
This book is designed to help you begin that journey for yourself, whether you have competitive goals, want to pace yourself better as you move forward in your own business, or are just fed up with how you currently feel about yourself.
I’m predominantly going to speak from the perspective of having your own business, but even if you’ve never had, nor ever want to have, your own business, you’re going to find lively stories packed with universal truths wrapped up in them, regardless of where this finds you in life.
No matter how you came to be reading this, know that you are precious beyond measure – whether you currently believe that or not. I don’t believe that it is an accident that you are reading this at this moment in time, so I pray and anticipate that there will be juicy AHAs in this book for you. You matter, you have purpose and I trust that you’ll leave this book with a stronger sense of those facts.
Chapter 1. Dance like only dog walkers are watching
When I was a child, I danced all the time. I’d dance in our front room and, as it got dark, the windows would become mirrors and I could see my creations come to life in the reflection. Including the imperfections. I’d repeat and practice, constantly choreographing improvised routines to whatever music fed my soul in that moment. Goodness knows what people walking up the street thought, but I simply didn’t care, I was lost in what I was doing. This was back before the age of the Internet, when dog walkers were my only potential audience!
These days, it’s a different proposition to allow yourself to be seen, since it’s not just neighbours and passing dog walkers who see you, but an entire online world. Images and posts can be immortalised in a screenshot. You can be exposed to a slew of opinions, and those opinions can be vomited out in the comments, from people you’ve never met. People who will never get – nor take – time to truly know and understand you beyond the instant judgement they’ve made from the snapshot you shared. Is it any wonder that you start second-guessing what you should share, in a valid attempt at self-preservation! Think of this fear as a weed that sucks nutrition from your life’s soil, if allowed to grow.
That conditioning and training in how you ‘should’ be and what you should project to the world starts much earlier than adulthood though, and the lessons you learn about yourself are often forming you long before you try to put yourself out there to build that business you dream of or pursue that competitive goal. Some of this social learning is good and necessary for us to grow into functioning and contributing members of society, rather than selfish leeches who suck the life out of each other. The flip side though is that some aspects of social training can invite you to shut down your dreams and the unique contribution you could have in the world by placing labels on you that set limits for you specifically, or ‘someone like you’ more generally.
For example, the common wisdom in online business is to share personal stories and snapshots from your life on a regular, ongoing basis. Perhaps even be doing regular live videos to really work the current algorithms’ whims. You’re not a freak to wonder if there’s something wrong with you when you don’t want to share your whole life online. Perhaps you’ve been told that you need to be more visible in a bunch of online groups to be seen and form connections. There’s nothing wrong with either of these things, per se, but if you’re not wired that way, you are not deficient if you find the idea of speaking up in ‘communities’ of thousands online to be hellish.
At the risk of repeating the punchline, the whole point of this book is that you were not wired to be some cookie-cutter clone of anyone else. You are different, and you will have impact differently, because you are wired to be YOU, and YOU alone. You were created because your world needed YOU to be you, not an imposter trying to be someone else. I know that’s a pretty heady idea, but before it strikes you as megalomaniacal, let me explain a little more of where we are actually going with this!
Let me introduce you to yourself
‘Is it me?’
‘What’s wrong with me?’
‘Why can’t I just do what they do and then I’d feel more confident?’
‘I thought it would all feel more satisfying, but I just feel burned out and overwhelmed.’
‘Does it really have to be this hard?’
If any of this sounds familiar, then you are in the right place. This book is for you. If you’re like many of my clients, you’ve already been working on improving yourself and you’ve probably taken the time to learn all the strategies and skills that supposed will make you successful. Maybe this is your first step in personal development rather than skills-specific training, and you’re reading this because it’s all feeling stressful and overwhelming. You have achieved a lot already, you know that. And yet, it’s EXHAUSTING. Burn out and overwhelm are familiar and, although you’re experiencing some success, honestly it feels like wading through treacle in a tutu. You wonder sometimes if you’ve got what it takes when others seem to find it so easy. You wonder if you’re not cut out for greater success . . . I mean, if you were, surely it would have happened by now? Honestly, you’re tired of feeling like you’re not enough, and on your worst days, feeling like a freak.
You matter
Let’s get something straight from the get-go. I don’t care what you’ve ever been told: you are not an accident. Your parents may have been accidental parents, but no matter what anyone told you, you are not an accident. This might seem like a funny place to start, but I’m a straight-no-chaser kind of person who values authenticity. I know that we will disagree on some things. Since I am not you, OF COURSE we will. I’m fine with that and I hope you are too. That’s why, from the outset, I want you to understand where I’m coming from so that you can see where we agree, and where we don’t.
Everyone has a worldview and mine is shaped by being a Jesus-following woman. DON’T STOP READING! Look, I know the term ‘Christian’ is toxic for many because of how some have co-opted it to justify truly awful things. I do NOT condone those. I also don’t need you to agree with me. Many of my clients don’t share my worldview so I don’t expect you to either. Your worldview is your homework to work out, not mine, so if you want to take the faith stuff with a pinch of salt and treat this as an academic exercise to spur creative thought, then go for it! It’s my faith that drives me to tell you from the outset that YOU MATTER. Your parents may not have intended you, but God did.
You were dreamt up in love, designed with delight by God who fiercely loves you and craves relationship with you. You are worth everything to Him. I wholeheartedly believe that you were created with purpose and that your gifts and talents were God-given, to benefit you, and through you, to benefit others. That doesn’t mean everyone needs to have some dramatic role in the world – your role may be to bake cakes for housebound neighbours – and I have full faith that you can have a bigger impact with that kindness and presence than many seven-figure entrepreneurs. Don’t make the mistake of imagining that you have to do something ‘big’ to make a difference. The ‘small’ things are only deemed that by others who haven’t felt the benefit of them. To the recipient of the ‘small’ kindnesses, you may make the world of difference, even if you never know that this side of eternity. God believes in you and purposed you to be here on earth at this moment in history, and for whatever reason, to be reading this book.
How this book works
As we go through these chapters and exercises and we’re going to explore who you’re currently being, who you have been in different contexts in the past and who you were created to be – who you CAN be in future.
As we explore, you’re going to begin to recognise the conditioning and labels that you’ve been given on your journey through your life. You’ll be able to see where those labels and conditioning are constricting you and holding you back. Then you will be able to begin the work of stepping freely into the fullness of who you were put here to be, and to have the impact on the world you were created to have.
I danced without a care as a child, but this book comes after many years of being far more conscious of what others see. I spent far too long learning how to show up in my online business, learning the skills and tactics, all the strategies and messaging I simply must know and use . . . and look, there is a place for technique, but it’s not enough alone. My dancing certainly needed all the help it could get on the technique front as I was far more ‘artist’ than ‘technician’ – but when that artistry was aided by technique, I came into my own and was able to give my best.
That’s the point though, it’s not either/or, it’s both/and. Artistry and technique. This book is about unleashing the artistry of who you are, and who you were created to be, into a world that too often tries to distil success into a one-size-fits-all formula, a neat system with a clear number of steps. Although that can certainly work for some, I want to pose a nuanced perspective on what ‘success’ might look like for you and how your ‘impact’ may be far deeper and more profound than anything that can be measured by financial metrics alone, no matter how lovely those metrics can be.
My background is in performing arts, then a degree in theology, before becoming a qualified marriage and family therapist and later refining my skills further as a sociologist. I’ve been self-employed for over 25 years and have spent well over a decade of that working in the online space – teaching, coaching and mentoring clients through live seminars, online classes and my podcasts. You can find out more about all of these at www.drkathrine.com. I also offer 1-1 services to selected clients, run a high-level small group Mastermind, and host boutique retreats – helping female coaches and service-based business owners – to live and work at an un-hustled, God-designed pace which is uniquely suited to them.
I’ve split this book into three parts, and each chapter is designed so you can get in and out quickly with what you need to have epiphanies and make any changes you want to. The three parts are split into the different parts of your life story landscape:
Who you are
Who you were
Who you were created to be
We’re going to start in Part 1 with who you currently believe you are. This is where we identify the ‘fruits’ that have got you this far and that you’ll want to keep, nurture, prune and strengthen for the future . . . not to mention the ‘weeds’ that need pulled up and removed from your life’s metaphorical garden, so that other things can be planted, grow, and thrive instead. This is a great opportunity to give yourself credit for what you’re already doing well, as well as root out the rotten fruit and weeds that are just a pain to deal with. Just as you wouldn’t shame yourself for a weed growing in your garden (at least I hope you wouldn’t – weeds happen!), I hope you’ll start the way you mean to go on and give yourself a lot of grace. You’ve been through a lot to get this far – both good and bad – so let’s walk through this together with a hefty dose of gentleness to yourself, OK?
I’ve started with the present rather than the past because it really is easier to see the fruit than the root, so we’ll start with what we can see around us, and work down and up from there.
You may want to skip this bit and get to the sexy stuff, to the future where everything is epic. It’s your life so you can do what you want, but I want to encourage you to access whatever stubborn-as-a-mule grit you have in you and show Part 1 who is boss. Every time that little whisper wants you to think ‘I know this’ or roll your eyes at something because you think you know where I’m going with a topic, I invite you to consider that you’ve not read it in this context before. If you’ve done a lot of personal development work, you’re not the same person who heard it before. Just like changing seasons alter the view over the landscape around you, so the connections your brain makes this time around, and the AHAs it may serve up are likely to be different than in the past. I dare you to treat even the seemingly familiar as an exploration of what your mind wants to highlight for you, and approach it with expectancy! The future is coming, you don’t need to force it.
In Part 2, we turn to the past. You didn’t become the ‘you’ you are today in a vacuum. There are forces beyond yourself that have honed and shaped you, that have corralled and limited you, that have lifted you and carried you. You weren’t created in a bubble and you don’t live a sterile life devoid of human contact on a desert island somewhere. You are part of a wider world, connected to the people around you locally, with ripples that reach out to global connections. There are factors that impact who you are and how you learned to navigate this world that are not your within your control. Factors such as prejudice and discriminatory barriers are put in some people’s way whilst others are never subjected to them, whether those barriers are on the basis of sex, race, religion, and so on. Throughout this book I will be helping you connect yourself and your experience to others.
This is powerful because if you’ve been walking through life as if you are a walking collection of irredeemable failures, you may find that shame feels like a constant companion. When you understand that you are impacted by factors beyond yourself, and can better recognise those influences on you, it helps you to better work out where you need to give your head a wobble, and where the credit actually belongs somewhere else entirely. There are specific challenges that have been put in your path that differ from those of others. That means the journey you take will be different from others. That doesn’t excuse you to shrug and quit! It does encourage you to navigate the real world you live in, not some idealised one of seven simple steps that your quintessential white male guru laid down as being the secret to his success. They may very well be part of the secret to his success, and I congratulate him, but your situation, responsibilities and resources may not be the same, so understanding what is different for you will help you ignore the messages that don’t apply so you can focus on what actually will help YOU.
This is crucial, because too many of the women I work with have been shamed for being who they are, by the very same culture that has limited, shamed and trained them into the very (small) version of themselves they now are. This is at best ignorant, at worst disingenuous, and either way, it is harmful. Once you understand the context that the current ‘you’ developed in, you can get rid of a lot of shame and can make different choices…
