Last week I sent you an email with my new coaching offers.

But I want to tell you more about how I got there. Because what happened to my business is the same thing I watch happen to many women in midlife …

You don't lose your edge all at once. You trade it away one reasonable people-pleasing decision at a time.

I started my coaching business in 2014. From then through 2019, when The Durable Runner came out, my message was clear: I help endurance athletes stop getting injured and do epic shit.

Then the pandemic hit and online coaching exploded. I was bringing in a lot of people, which was great. But they wanted help with everything and instead of holding my ground on the things I'm actually great at, I accommodated and widened.

With a hundred small decisions, my very clear, very distinct message became a very basic one.

I started to sound like every other online health and fitness coach — indistinguishable from anyone else promising to make you stronger or fitter. Which meant I was now competing with all of them. And most of them enjoyed making "pay attention to me" content a lot more than I did.

Because let’s face it, I’d rather be trail running, lifting, and hiking with my dogs than spend my whole day online and dancing on Reels.

Around the same time, perimenopause and personal life shifts led me to start questioning everything. Did I actually want this? Was this how I wanted to run a business? Was I even talking about the things I wanted to talk about? Had I lost me in trying to compete with everyone else?

Not surprisingly, my business went into a slow decline. I didn't have any exciting ideas anymore. Everything I created and launched flopped — by my standards. Every day felt like moving through quicksand. I was barely paying myself. After twelve years, I started wondering whether staying in business was even sustainable.

I’d spent a ton of money looking for ways to create more content, more offers, attract more people, etc. But none of it stuck because it wasn’t what I really wanted at all.

And when I really got honest with myself, I realized that I was exhausting myself trying to please everyone, trying to solve every problem under the sun, trying to be everything to everyone. I didn’t want to offend or disappoint anyone. I was being careful. And in the process, I became more palatable, more vanilla, and agreeable to a fault.

I’d lost myself in the sea of sameness. I started out all fire and conviction and then watered it down to reach more people because that’s what I thought I needed to do to have a successful business.

But it’s just not me. I don’t like chasing everyone’s approval. I don’t like trying to make everyone happy all the time. It’s too much. I keep doing more and more and more and it’s not getting better.

So I went the other way. I narrowed. My offers now zone in on the things I know I'm great at: performance and durability training for midlifers who chase finish lines, podiums, PRs, and summits.

But oof … typing that is equal parts scary — because I don't want you reading this and thinking she doesn't want to work with me anymore — and liberating, because this is what it feels like when I'm doing the work I'm actually built for and best at.

Choosing to be known for one very specific thing means not everyone will like me or agree with me. As an eldest daughter and a recovering people pleaser, that is … terrifying.

But it’s also lighter. I’m not trying to be for everyone, which was never possible in the first place.

Sigh …

Did you read all that and just get it? Did you see yourself in any of that?

If so, sit with this: where have you been trading yourself away to keep the peace or chase a version of success that might not even fit you?

Often, it’s the strongest people who stay stuck the longest because they believe that if they just try harder or find that one “right way,” they can break through. When the answer isn't more effort. It's a smaller target and a bigger commitment. But narrowing and subtracting bumps up against our big friction point — doing less means letting someone down and that is very uncomfortable.

So we keep fighting to avoid that discomfort of disappointing people. Trading one form of discomfort for another.

But that’s no way to live.

As I said last week, this is not your practice life.

What needs to change?

A

P.S. If this resonated, I'd love to hear from you. Reply and let me know.

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P.O. Box 601, Clarksburg, MD 20871
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