A Bridge With 8 Steps Gets You Across Your Chasm

Someone asks what you want and you go quiet.

Not because there's nothing in there. You could answer in a heartbeat if the question were pointed at anyone else. 

What your daughter needs. What your team needs. What would make the next six months easier for everybody in the house. 

Turn it around and aim it at you, and there's a pause where the answer should be.

It’s not that you don’t know or that you don’t have any. It’s more that you haven’t been asked for so long, you don’t even know how to put it into words.

Wants are those feelings between who you are right now and who you know you're meant to be. We call them “desires”, “visions”, “wishes”, “dreams”. That distance can feel like a chasm. You’re on this side and what you want is way over there on the other side.

Your wants matter. They’re not just smoke and fog. So don’t discount them or wave them away because nobody asks you about them. 

So here's where the quiet stops. Here's where you get brave. Here's where you find your courage to stand up for YOU.

Yes, this can be the scary part. But you can do it anyway.

Decide right now that you’re going to go for it. You’re going to cross that chasm and make it happen. 

How? Build a bridge. One plank at a time. One Tiny Brave Step at a time. 

There are eight planks I keep coming back to.

Plank 1: Name what you don’t want

Ask a woman what she doesn't want and watch what happens. No pause. She knows exactly where she is not willing to end up, and she can describe it in detail. 

So start there. 

Tiny Brave Step:

Name the place you refuse to arrive at. Not a catastrophe, just the honest version of where this road ends if nothing changes. 

Plank 2: Name what you want

The want comes next, and it comes easier now, because you've just described its opposite.

Tiny Brave Step:

Set a timer for 1 minute. Write down everything opposite to what you said you didn’t want.

WARNING: When you get real, fear gets loud. Did you know that when you see your fear as an outside character who has a name, you can begin to see him as a protector rather than a roadblock? I call mine, “Fred”. I know he’s worrying when I feel the butterflies or the roaring panic rise up inside.

Your fear is the part of your brain that’s been with you through every disappointment you’ve ever had, and he takes the job seriously. When you want something out loud you become visible, and visible means you have something to lose. 

Fred remembers precisely what that cost you last time. I’ll tell you how to handle him at the bottom.

For now, keep building the bridge from where you are to where you want to be.

Plank 3: Picture Your Future Self 

Have fun with this. You know what you don’t want. Imagine having it. Imagine being the woman 1 year, 2 years, 5 years from now who has stepped up and is enjoying the life you want.

Tiny Brave Step

How would it feel to be the woman whose life had come together after you reached what’s over there at the other end of your bridge? List 5 of those feelings.

Plank 4: open to possibility

This one is easy to skip. Stop brushing off the compliments you get. The thank you’s you receive. The hugs someone gives you because they appreciated what you said or did.

These are the small moments that show she's already here. You've had years of proof of who you really are walk right past you because you called it nothing, or luck, or what anyone would have done. 

Tiny Brave Step (and this takes courage):

Catch one moment and keep it. Look at something someone said about you and write down the thing you did in a special journal or pin it to your bulletin board or attach a sticky note to your computer. It’s evidence of who you really are. Don’t wave it off any longer.

Plank 5: Act Anyway

This step goes against what we all normally do. We want to be sure and then take action. Do the opposite. You act first and you believe later. 

Tiny Brave Step:

Name the step you know you should take to move ahead. Feel the anxiety (Fred worrying about what could happen). Do it anyway.

Plank 6: Do your research

Here’s how to approach the “I don’t know what to do’s” and the “I’ve no clue” feelings. Find out. What could you do? How are others getting through it? Someone somewhere has been where you are in a very similar situation. Experiment. Try. Fail. Try something else.

Tiny Brave Step

Use my Tiny Brave Steps Generator. Or the AI of your choice. Tell it what you don’t know how to do. Don’t end the conversation until you come up with a set of steps you could make your own.

Plank 7: Hold Your Standards

Do you know where your lines in the sand are? Do you know what you’ll tolerate? What you’ll accept? How you’ll act in any situation? This is a huge part of the question, “Who do I want to be?” Lay these down. And don’t cross them or let anyone else cross them.

Tiny Brave Step

List your 5 top values you stand on. Example: honesty, integrity, adventure, optimism, love. Write them on a sticky note and put them on your computer monitor. Every time you go into a conversation or write an email, report or social media post, look at the list.

Plank 8: Stay On Your Own Bridge

You’re not the only one on a bridge. Look to your left and to your right. Others are walking their bridges, too, and would love to pull you over onto theirs. Don’t let them. Keep your eyes on your own horizon and walk your own steps.

Tiny Brave Step

Think of one person you compare yourself to and often come up short. Take a piece of paper and draw two bridges side by side. Write their name on one. And yours on the other. Now write beside yours: “My pace is not behind. It's my pace in my own way.”

What's actually waiting over there

Unfortunately, you don't reach the far side and find your horizon sitting there wrapped for you with a bow on top. You reach it as the woman who can walk into it. 

And what to do with the fear? I said I’d tell you how to handle Fred. When you feel the fear feelings…

Don’t stand there letting him freeze you. Take action. Do this instead:

A = Acknowledge how he’s trying to stop you. Thank him for wanting to protect you. C = Claim who want to be. Say it out loud. Like: “I’m someone who doesn’t back down.” T = Take a Tiny Brave Step. MOVE! Do something to back up who you just said you were.

Prove over and over that fear doesn’t run your life.

That's what the crossing builds. You wake up to what you want, you come back to who you are, you stand up for her, and then you go and make something with all of it.

And when the next chasm opens, and it will, you'll already know how this works.

Did you know there's a community of women who meet to support each other and take their next step all at the same time? It's called "Creative Spaces" and we meet in a Zoom room twice a month. We refuse to stay stuck. We're crossing our bridges.

Don't forget - If you'd like help with creative steps that are interesting and doable, the Tiny Brave Steps Generator will build one with you.