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On Authorship, Freedom, and Choosing On Your Own Terms I watched this happen with a friend recently. She stepped away from her corporate role thinking she was finished. Burned out. Done. Ready for something completely different. A reinvention of sorts. What she discovered instead surprised her. She wasn’t ready to stop working. She was ready to stop being undervalued. And to stop coasting in her current role, hoping to make it to some distant retirement finish line. So she di

The Guardrails You Didn't Know You Were Building By Last week, my husband and I found ourselves standing inside a next chapter question: Do we knock down our vintage, 900-square-foot cottage… and rebuild? We’re not worried about craftsmanship. My brother-in-law is an incredible builder. If we decide to do this, the house itself will be stunning. What we are worried about is something else entirely. Because if you’ve ever built or renovated anything, you know this part: It’s

The Missing Finish Line Growing up, my parents had a beach house. Not a fancy one. A lived-in one. Sandy floors. Damp towels slung over the back deck railings. A garage fridge with an extension cord run from the house, nicknamed the magic fridge, always stocked with beers by Friday. Everyone was welcome on weekends. Friends. Friends of friends. Cousins who showed up unannounced. By Friday night the house was full. By Sunday afternoon it emptied itself, like the tide pulling b

There’s a version of growth mindset most of us learn early in our lives. Work harder. Learn more. Improve constantly. Prove you belong. That version works. It builds capability. It opens doors. It gets you somewhere. But at a certain chapter, it stops being enough. Not because you’ve stopped growing. But because growth starts asking a different question. Growth, Reclaimed In this chapter of life, growth isn’t about becoming more impressive. It’s about becoming more free . Fre

Start Your Year from Your Place of Strength A new year is a fresh start. January invites reflection. Reset. Intention. For many people, it also comes with a familiar prompt: Name your goals for the year ahead. I’m a fan of goals. They create direction. They focus energy. They help translate hope into action. But I don’t believe goals are step one. Because goals answer the question: What do I want to achieve? And before we ask that, there’s a more foundational question worth a

Happy Holidays and New year There’s no new edition of The Vital Shift this week. Instead, I’m taking time to rest, reflect, and be fully present with myself and the people around me— which is exactly what this season calls for. But here’s what I know for certain: the pause is never wasted time. It’s where we actually see ourselves. It’s where the noise quiets enough to hear what matters. And it’s absolutely essential to any shift in life, including stepping into a new year.

Why Spirit Is Your Sustainable Fuel In my coaching work, I sit across from people who are functioning well. They’re capable. Successful. Responsible. They’ve done what they said they would do. Built the career. Held the family together. Kept the plates spinning. And they’re exhausted in a way sleep doesn’t fix. Not burned out in the dramatic sense. More like quietly flattened. Life feels managed instead of lived. Days blur together. Everything works. But few things feel alive

Here's What It's Showing You It’s the moment you see someone choosing differently — a four-day week, a sabbatical, golfing again, running at sunrise. And before your brain can catch up, your body knows: I want that. Not their life. But something their life is showing you about your own. That pang you feel?That’s not envy as a flaw. That’s envy as a wake-up call . Envy as a Signal, Not a Shame Trigger Envy gets misinterpreted as a failing. We’re taught to shove it down, rise a

When the Heart Starts Leading Over the Head I was on my second coffee last week when a client said something that made me pause. “I don’t know why I still need everyone to know how hard I work.” He wasn’t having a breakdown. He was having a realization. Somewhere between 50 and 60, the thing that got you here, the drive, the proving, the relentless head-over-heart ambition, starts wanting something different. Not less. Different. This is the Ego Shift. Why This Happens Now Re

A small moment that reshaped how I’m thinking about connection this Thanksgiving. Monday morning, my husband Mark and I slipped into our local breakfast spot for an early catch-up. The place was nearly empty: one guy at the counter, a couple at a table, and us near the door. And there was a big table set for fifteen. As we ate, three men wandered in first. Chatting, laughing, a lightness in their step. Then a few cars pulled into the lot. I watched as men got out and almost j

What Nobody Tells You About Outgrowing Your Life I had coffee with a friend last month. “I was offered the number three position in the company,” she said. “The one I thought I wanted for the past five years. The perfect capstone before retirement.” I waited. “And now I don’t want it.” She looked at me like she was confessing something shameful. The role required relocation. More hours. More intensity. And somewhere between the offer conversations with her president and our c

Time to Build Your Portfolio Life Everyone needs to boss themselves around—especially in mid-career. Because if you don’t design your life, someone else’s agenda will. In The Permission Paradox , we talked about giving yourself the green light. Permission matters. But permission alone is passive. It’s the ignition, not the engine. So let’s talk about what comes after permission. The Premise You Need to Reject The traditional career arc is a trap: Work 40+ years → Hit a finis

Why Successful People Get Stuck I’m Carolyn Regan, leadership coach for successful people redesigning their next chapter. I’ve seen one clear pattern emerge again and again: people reclaim clarity, energy, and impact once they give themselves permission to change. Here’s the truth: the gap between those who actually redesign their lives and those who stay stuck isn’t about potential. It’s permission . You give it to everyone else. It’s time to give it to yourself. What’s Actu

It's Not What You Think You’re sitting in your kitchen. Heart racing. A million thoughts spinning. You know that moment when your palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms heavy ? Yeah, that’s Eminem lyrics — but also exactly what fear feels like. And it’s exactly what it feels like to be standing on the edge of something new. Neuroscience says something surprising: fear and excitement trigger the same physiological response . Your body can’t tell the difference. The only difference

Stillness That Transforms I’m a FOMO girl, an extrovert fueled by motion: one-on-one walks, big gatherings, always doing. Pause doesn’t come naturally. When summer ended and we moved into our new house, life got quiet. Anxiety crept in: a touch of loneliness, a hint of guilt over feeling it at all. My first instinct was to make plans, to create busyness. But I stopped. Instead, I sat with it. I breathed through the anxiety, acknowledged it— Yes, there you are —and released it

15 Minutes to Snapshot Your Life Today Aliveness is that electric feeling of being fully here . Energized, engaged, awake to your own life. Not just productive. Not just busy. Alive. Here’s the catch: aliveness doesn’t happen until you take a clear-eyed look at where you are. It shows up when how you spend your time matches what really matters to you. And most of us? We never stop to check. 👉 Want to skip straight to the tool? Complete your Aliveness Audit here . The Proble

How to create aliveness in your work, projects, and life. I’m on the treadmill at my local gym, working up to my 12-3-30 , listening to time expert Oliver Burkeman on Feel Better, Live More podcast. And then Burkeman says it. The word I’ve been searching for to describe the kind of energy and culture I try to build around people: aliveness . He quotes Jungian analyst James Hollis, who says life moves toward growth, “something juicy, something alive.” Then Burkeman adds: “I

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